Affordable housing is a hot topic on Long Island. But it's like the weather: everybody talks about it, but no one does anything about it. Why so much talk and so little action? Is it that we don't really want it? Or that we can't figure out how to get it?

Here is some data from the 2005 Long Island Index:

• Houses on Long Island are unaffordable. The average house costs 4.7 times the average family income. A 2.5 ratio is considered affordable.

• Housing costs are driving Long Islanders away. From 1990 to 2000, 20 percent of Long Islanders aged 18-34 left the Island. Forty-five percent of Long Islanders say they are likely to leave in the next five years.

• We recognize the problem. Eight-nine percent consider it at least a "somewhat serious" problem. Seventy-four percent rate it either "very" or "extremely" serious.

Two-thirds of the public either "strongly" or "somewhat" supports government action to increase the supply of affordable housing. Specific measures we're willing to take range from building affordable housing on former industrial and commercial property (76 percent support), to requiring developers to include affordable housing in new developments (70 percent), to allowing more rentals in single-family homes (55 percent).

When we published these findings, some folks took issue. "People will support those ideas in principle," these skeptics said, "but not in their own neighborhoods." Interesting. So we asked, "Would you support [such-and-such proposal] within one mile of your home?" The support remained almost as strong.

"People will say that in a poll," the skeptics countered, "because they think it's the 'right' thing to say. But it's not what they really think." That's also interesting. If they will say the 'right' thing to a pollster, will they also vote to do the right thing? Or not?

It's true that the issue is fraught with contradictions. For example, developers say they want affordable housing. Yet they oppose legislation to include affordable units in new development. Can you blame them? They make much more money on luxury housing.

The public is hopelessly conflicted. We want to provide homes for young people, seniors and workers with modest incomes. But we really don't want any more people here. We call it overdevelopment.

So, the same group of people who favor building affordable housing also believe that this will bring more traffic congestion (86 percent), higher taxes (74 percent), worse schools (71 percent), lower property values (59 percent) and "the wrong kind of people" (52 percent).

In focus groups yet another perspective was voiced. People said they didn't want Long Island to become "another Manhattan." Many Long Islanders moved here from urban areas to the west. Yes, they see the limits on Long Island's growth. But they do not want to re-create the urban landscape they left behind. And they don't see what the alternative could be.

There are some, however, who do have a vision of what affordable housing might look like and how it might happen. I'll talk about them next time.

This is one in a series of articles examining aspects of life on Long Island, presented by the Long Island Index. The Index provides data about the Long Island region, in order to promote informed public debate and sound policy making. For more information visit www.longislandindex.org. Carrie Meek Gallagher is project director of the Index.