My Solution For Eliminating Fed Housing !!!!!

...........Yes , I do ! As I said in post #11 , I'd use the funds the Feds waste on more HiRise Condo's and I'd fund both construction and land purchases for Habitat . I'd put them on Steroids so as to minimize the transition time to move healthy folks into their own home . Once empty , I'd IMplode those monuments to Federal Social Policy ASAP . It would probably take several years to make the switch but eventually , the people could see the value of living in THEIR own home vs living a Federal Sardine Can . , fordy

Post#12, right on Bast.

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So in the morning, please don't say ya love me.
Cause you know I'll only kick you out the door.

ok let me see if I understand you Fordy,
You wan to take a pre-existing buildings that currently house maybe thousands of families in each and put them in individual houses? Who is going to pay for these individual houses?Whos property will those houses be on? Do you expect the poor to pay taxes on those properties or would they be exempt from property taxes? They are in low rent housing for a reason. The reason being that they can not afford to pay more
And what would you do with those high rises? Destroy them?

My SIL was homeless for a while: she is mentally ill and she was a junkie. It would not have been safe to have her living with my teens and she kept getting evicted for misbehavior so the streets it was!

I am very grateful for the Federal housing program. Once she worked on her drug habit and with the help of a social worker she has her own Federal apartment: for her it is a step up in life.

My SIL did not ask for mental illness, and I am grateful that there is Federal housing for people who would otherwise fall through the cracks. My first duty was to my teens and so I could not have her here.

And, turning apartments into houses would take a small fortune, which the USA cannot afford at this time. SIL can barely manage an apartment, I am not sure she could deal with a house.

Wow!
A rant based on a fantasy.
amazing.

Ok.. I don't even think they build the high rises anymore.
That was a 60's thing.
They are tearing them all down (both here and in Britain) because they are old and outdated. And dangerous. Think Cabrini Green. Think "Good Times'. Old school, baby.

In the 70's they started with the apartment complexes. One or two story buildings with yards, sidewalks and streets. Still scary. Cul-de-sacs are a bad idea.

Then in the 90's they started with the single family dwellings as they are tearing down the apartment complexes.
They aren't the greatest houses, but they are houses.


In the city where I used to live the 90's were filled with tearing down the high rises.
And in the late 90's, and still continuing, are the bulldozing of the apartment complexes. That is leaving HUGE swaths of land that are having the houses built on them.

And yes.. as mentioned above, there are some bad folks that scam.
But there are a LOT of working families. Yep.. families, with 2 parents and kids.
And a LOT of elderly. Not infirm, but retired teachers, secretaries etc..

And a LOT of Vets.


And 'get a job'? Really?
With the unemployment rates in this country the highest since the Great Depression?

Ok.. they will run right out and do that.

Oh..and have you looked at rents lately??
Places that would have cost $500 10 years ago are now over $1,000.
Rents have more than doubled.
Rents have more than doubled.

And let's look at food prices.
Sure you have noticed.

It is more difficult than ever before to just 'do better'.
The amount of money that comes in the paycheck just doesn't do much anymore.

If you make $400 a week and pay over $1,000 in rent that leaves just under (with taxes etc..) $600 to buy food, pay electric bills, car maintenance, clothing, water bill etc.. Oh! And putting gas in the car for going to work.

That is why a majority of people that receive Food Stamps these days are WORKING!
A majority have jobs.

So... no.
Just no.

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From what I've seen about public housing is that there is an unfortunate amount of people living in them that create misery for everyone else. The same drug ridden, don't-tell-me-to-go-to-school, not have children at age 16, don't start taking drugs, don't expect me to show up and actually work, it's all about me, and it's everyone elses fault people who make messes for themselves and everyone around them. That does not change whether it's in a house, apartment or anything else. They damage, abuse and inflict ugliness. Yet because they live next to some who actually have had some actual misfortune, they are given a pass on being blamed for their own actions.
So, rather than deal with the reality that there is a per centage of people who would screw up their lives no matter what, too much time and effort is wasted trying figure a way surround them with enough support to keep them from doing what they do naturally. And, since it does nothing to change what they naturally do, it fails and the next theory is implemented at great cost only to fail again.

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For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

And that is the rub... how to keep the real slackers and trouble makers from harming all the others who do need the real help.

That job would fall squarely on the shoulders of the social workers overseeing those recipients.
Social workers who are grossly underpaid, and over worked.

Bast....I commend you. You said so neatly what needed to be said. I don't get how people get quite so much preconception of the lives of others. I burn every time I hear stuff like this. You are so right about the jobs. And so right about all the rest too. I wish you were my neighbor...because we would be friends.

Oh...and a quick note about drilling in the oceans. Well...as an ex wife of an oil and gas guy I can tell you that a very very important clause in the offshore drilling contracts dropped off mysteriously during President Bush's administration. This was the part of the contract that stated if the price of oil went over a target price of x amount of dollars there would be a payment back to the government for each additional drilled barrel. This was a huge deal. Oil company's had been fighting this clause in court. Then it mysteriously disappeared. Cost you and I billions. President Obama's administration has tried to remedy this by offering additional leases if the oil. Company's will trade in those leases that are missing the magic clause. No dice. Haven't heard of this? Well...very short run in the paper at the time. But it is true. And it was illegal. And deliberate.