50% AMI—15%
($34,500–$43,200)
60% AMI—40%
($43,200–$51,800)
80% AMI—20%
($60,400–$69,000)
The residents craned their necks toward the screen, trying to make sense of all those numbers. Lina had studied up on the “Area Median Income” stuff about ten years earlier—AMI referred to the median income of the metropolitan area—but she knew the majority of community members had never been taught the jargon. Her younger neighbor José chuckled and shook his head.
“I should’ve stayed in school,” he muttered, and Lina, feeling a sudden wave of protectiveness, grabbed his forearm.
“They don’t teach this in high school.”
“What’s all that mean?” Ms. Dorothy called out, her lazy eye and “awake” eye, for that’s what she called them, pointing in two directions. The Alabaman was one of Lina’s biggest supporters and served as vice president of the CLT board.
Aniston explained the chart, her voice pitched high like she was speaking to children. “Every single unit—I repeat,every single unit—will beaffordablehousing. And affordable to a range of incomes, butallbelow market rate.”
