New York Times「Homes Too Rich for Firefighters Who Save Them」
BEDFORD, N.Y., April 4 —This town in Westchester County, famous for its famous — and well-heeled — residents, is sprucing up a rundown ranch house and planning to sell it at a bargain-basement rate to a member of an increasingly endangered species: a volunteer firefighter.
Shelter Island, the genteel summer colony on Long Island, suspended its residency requirement for police officers for a year because it could not fill its roster with locals, for whom even starter homes are now out of reach.
Westchester's cozy village of Hastings-on-Hudson, among others, allows volunteer firefighters to live outside its boundaries and is giving them and volunteer paramedics first claim on 18 moderately priced apartments built on village property.
Clarkstown, in Rockland County, is trying a more whimsical lure for volunteer firefighters: free passes to the town pool, a $500 value.
For two decades, as the suburbs have become more pricey, the number of people who can afford to live in the wealthiest communities and also volunteer or hold public jobs there has dwindled. But now, in the wake of the recent real estate frenzy, more local officials are raising disturbing questions and looking for ways to address a growing problem:
Will their communities be able to field enough firefighters to save their homes from burning down, ambulance workers to get them to a hospital in time and teachers to give their children a literate start in life?
The problem is not strictly local. All around the country, high-priced communities are taking measures to shore up municipal work forces that can no longer afford to live within their borders. But the problem is particularly acute when it comes to volunteers like firefighters and ambulance crews, for whom proximity matters.
The ranks of emergency responders are typically filled by blue-collar workers, not the business executives or professionals who can afford the million-dollar homes that are now as common as the luxury sport utility vehicles in the region's suburbs.
格差社会ではこんな問題が。
