Prices on gas, groceries and other goods are growing more ghastly by the day. Housing hasn't been any different. We asked our readers what they think of the affordable housing market and you were mostly split between thinking "NIMBY Is My Way of Life (44%)" and "Education Has Helped, but We're Not There Yet" (43%). A smaller portion of you said "My Neighborhood Embraces It." We spoke with Ron Moelis, the CEO of L&M Development Partners, about his current experience building affordable housing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg cut the ribbon last Tuesday on Moelis' Kalahari Project in Harlem, so the executive had plenty to say.

"The poll results are most surprising to me. It just goes to show that the public's perception is not the same as mine.

"I've experienced very little of NIMBY. I'm actually surprised at the high percentage of people who felt that NIMBY is still a huge problem. I think it's a problem in a lot of parts of the country including parts of New York. New York City, as far as I can see, has not had huge problems with NIMBY. There are certain areas where it exists but the areas we've developed in really encourage affordable housing. In places like Greenpoint, Williamsburg and the West Side of Manhattan, where there have been big rezonings, the community has been supportive of more affordable housing. The administration has been pretty responsive to it.

"The current administration has been a tremendous advocate of affordable housing. They've provided resources and supported policies that have been very proactive to encourage affordable housing.

"From a developer's side, affordable housing is a challenge these days. The credit markets have been difficult and it's dropped into the affordable housing side as well. It's become much more difficult over the past three or four months than it has been in the last five years to get financing.

"We're not as affected by market conditions. There's less risk in the affordable housing market side of things, but we're still affected by the credit and liquidity issues with the banks. The low-income tax credit, which is a big part of financing most affordable housing rental jobs, has also been hit. Financial institutions have taken big losses and either don't need the tax breaks currently or have liquidity issues that force them to cut back on investment of the tax credits. So the price of tax credits has dropped significantly, more than 10% to 20% in the past six months as well.

"Our pool of buyers has narrowed because a lot of the buyers who could have gotten mortgages a year ago are not able to get them now.

"In New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we saw some liquidity issues. We had a lot of issues and problems getting financing back in those days as well, but we were doing less work so it was a little bit easier to finance the one or two jobs a year that we were doing. Truthfully, the financing sources were a lot less competitive in the affordable housing than they are now. There were fewer people doing it. So the availability of things like tax credit and subsidy financing was more available back then.

"The affordable housing home ownership business has been hurt because of a lack of liquidity and N loans. The subprime crisis and foreclosure crisis has created a real difficulty among lower and moderate-income people in getting mortgages.

"We have had some pretty interesting affordable housing programs that have come out in the past few years that have created the opportunity to do affordable housing alongside market-rate housing that are unique around the country. Sales have been brisk on both sides. People don't seem to be upset about having affordable housing in their community, as far as I can tell."