Heart and Home is a monthly column by Josh Ishimatsu.

Photo: Yuyi He, former Cupertino Housing Commissioner, Spotlight

This is going to be a shorter column than usual.  By the time this column is posted, I will be in Miami, helping my eldest kid settle into her new place.  Our oldest little bird is leaving the nest for the first time, and I am one foot out the door and want to finish this column quickly.

Within this column are some thoughts I had after reading this excellent Spotlight article from last week about how younger people in public service are having a hard time staying in the jurisdictions in which they serve.

My first thought is about what we lose in terms of the quality of our democracy, the quality of our public life, if we are unable to keep young, idealistic, public-minded people in our region.  All things are better when they’re kept fresh, when we have ways to renew our perspectives, incorporate new ideas, new ways of doing things, when we have a diversity of people and viewpoints.  This seems especially true in public service and even more so in the types of roles and entities referenced in the Spotlight article.  Public oversight boards and commissions benefit from having more perspectives than retired homeowners who have the time and means to serve on a volunteer body.  Not that there’s anything wrong with retired folks serving on these bodies – I have fantasies about when I retire and become a gadfly at council meetings or various commission meetings, unmoored from the need to be rational, responsible, or reasonable.  It’s not about excluding elders.  Instead, it’s that we always want a full diversity of opinions represented through these bodies and that we always need a pipeline of good, new leaders.

The second thought is that affordable housing is about more than affordable housing.  In this case, affordable housing is also about good governance.  It’s about our ability to keep our communities diverse and engaged.  It’s about our ability to keep young people who aren’t tech workers (and even tech workers, like the first subject of the Spotlight article, Yuyi He, have trouble affording rents in Silicon Valley) in our region.

It’s this last point – our ability to keep young people in our region – that I’m feeling right now, as I help my daughter to move to Miami.  She’s moving for a specific opportunity but I would love for her to be able to move back when/if this current opportunity closes.  And because of this, young people being able to live in this place is personal for me.  And, holy moley, Miami is tons more affordable than Silicon Valley.  It’s not cheap (Miami is not considered a cheap market), my daughter is sharing a 2-bedroom unit with 3 other young women for $2,400/month.  It’s in a building that has a pool and a gym and water views (a canal, not the ocean).  But this is a good 30% cheaper than a comparable unit here.

Not to say that the City of Miami’s governance is 30% or any amount better than anything we have here.  It’s that we’re losing the good things we have here for lack of affordable housing.