Elaborate welfare housing project

[westbrook]

ELABORATE WELFARE HOUSING PROJECT

got this in my email.... is this true? any one in Tacoma, Wa ??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=fu6ok5ykyuQ

if so... I am shocked.

[Heritagefarm]

E-mail info = suburban legend SPAM.

[Sawmill Jim]

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

E-mail info = suburban legend SPAM.

Which part . Near here they just put up the fancy porch post at a project new wrought iron fence plus porch rails and side walks with cement parking in the rear on lots of them . Yep and some have better cars than i do Got to keep up their self esteem you know I talked to a guy working for the contractor forget how many tons of money they spent .

[TheMartianChick]

It isn't true...

http://www.snopes.com/politics/socia...y/salishan.asp

Edited to add: I am quite familiar with nonprofit housing programs, housing authorities and the grants and programs that fund them. I had never heard of any housing complex being funded by Social Security, so I decided to watch the video and listen to his claims. If Social Security funded housing, then the nonprofit housing agencies that I am affiliated with would be writing grants to try to garner some of that money to fund our own housing initiatives. The $225 million budget sounds a bit high to my ears since we don't due projects that contain that many units in our area of Central NY, but it could be due to the market variables. In other words, my area has fairly low property values.

I am also affiliated with a national housing organization that holds conferences each year, so I get to see what other areas are doing. No one builds housing for illegal immigrants because there is no funding available for it. The guidelines for receiving federal funds are quite stringent and you have to be able to identify the needs, quantify them and track the impact of your work. Federal grants require monthly reporting and aren't easy to get, even under the best of circumstances.

While I have no direct knowledge of the housing development in the video, I can infer a bit about the way that it was likely financed. Across the country when you see projects that look like this, they are often funded through low income housing tax credits if they are being built by nonprofit organizations. In other words, the project is allocated a certain number of credits to reduce someone's tax bill. They are usually sold to wealthy individuals in order to reduce their tax liability during a year when they've made a profit. It is similar to someone making a donation before the end of the tax year to keep from having to pay taxes on thier profits.

[TheMartianChick]

Originally Posted by Sawmill Jim

Which part . Near here they just put up the fancy porch post at a project new wrought iron fence plus porch rails and side walks with cement parking in the rear on lots of them . Yep and some have better cars than i do Got to keep up their self esteem you know I talked to a guy working for the contractor forget how many tons of money they spent .

You just mentioned another hallmark of a Low Income Housing Tax Credit Project...wrought iron. It looks nicer when it comes time to re-sell the properties and it helps to attract tenants to keep the units full.

The way that this works, the developer has to hold onto the properties for at least 15 years. After that, they can sell the properties for whatever they can get. Keep in mind that the developer usually has almost no money into the project themselves and really has no interest in the outcome.

They manage the project for 15 years and collect all of the rents. The rents just have to fit into a certain market range and be around 15-20% lower than those of other properties in the area. That is still a lot of rent to collect off of properties that you didn't actually pay to build.

Oh, and the reason that it costs to do units like this is because the developer wants to use top notch materiasl so that the buildings are still worth something 15 years later when they decide to sell...and they always decide to sell. In my area, we have lots of old Victorian homes that could be renovated and used as apartments for lower income people. The problem is that as soon as 1 dime of government money is used in a housing project, then all lead and asbestos must be mitigated from the property (by law). A simple renovation that might cost me $15,000 as a private investor using my own funds, might cost $100,000 if governement money is used. All houses prior to the 1960's used lead paint and many had asbestos, too. In my area, most homes were built prior to 1920.

[City Bound]

I had to hold back my tears when I watched this. It is over, America is over, we are gone, we are dead. It is only going to take ten to 20 more years for socialism to completely bankrupt the tax base. God, I want to cry.

[Jan Doling]

Canada here I come.

[City Bound]

martian they basicly built a new town for the people, with a school, and a hospital, all that contruction would cost $225 million, if not more. Those houses would cost half a million to a million dollars to build, for each one. Here in NYC just one of those homes would cost just under one million dollars to buy and over half a million to build.

Even if they were being being partially funded by tax credits what good does that do the country, that just means that taxes that should be collected are not being collected, and to top it all off they are building a community that is totally paid for with tax money to house people who will live there for free, get free services, free fuel and water, and never pay a dime in taxes for the rest of their lives. Now tell me, how is this going to generate anything buy debt? Even if the guy was wrong about his comment about Social Security paying for all of it, can you honestly say that hard working tax payers should have to pay to give a stranger a better life then that very same tax payer can afford to give himself?

I don't know all the facts, but I have heard that Social security money does get used for uses other then the social security they were intended for. Sometimes the government "borrows" funds from SS and they do a lot of creative book keeping. That is why people get into a fuss over ear marks and transparency in the budget.

Martian, are you saying you support these kinds of endevors?

[City Bound]

Originally Posted by Jan Doling

Canada here I come.

Canada?? I am wouldn't be suprised if the blueprint for this whole "Welfare Town" came from Canada or the UK.

[houndlover]

Is there any independent verification besides a youtube video?

[TheMartianChick]

Originally Posted by City Bound

martian they basicly built a new town for the people, with a school, and a hospital, all that contruction would cost $225 million, if not more. Those houses would cost half a million to a million dollars to build, for each one. Here in NYC just one of those homes would cost just under one million dollars to buy and over half a million to build.

Even if they were being being partially funded by tax credits what good does that do the country, that just means that taxes that should be collected are not being collected, and to top it all off they are building a community that is totally paid for with tax money to house people who will live there for free, get free services, free fuel and water, and never pay a dime in taxes for the rest of their lives. Now tell me, how is this going to generate anything buy debt? Even if the guy was wrong about his comment about Social Security paying for all of it, can you honestly say that hard working tax payers should have to pay to give a stranger a better life then that very same tax payer can afford to give himself?

I don't know all the facts, but I have heard that Social security money does get used for uses other then the social security they were intended for. Sometimes the government "borrows" funds from SS and they do a lot of creative book keeping. That is why people get into a fuss over ear marks and transparency in the budget.

Martian, are you saying you support these kinds of endevors?

If you click on the link that I provided, it explains that this video is inaccurate, CityBound. The housing authority says that the majority of the residents are not illegals and that the funding did not come from Social Security. The source of funding for projects is available and quite transparent.

No, I'm not saying that I do support these endeavors. I do support certain types of housing endeavors. My 9-5 employer is a housing agency that operates in an inner-city neighborhood. We actually transformed the neighborhood through our work. My agency builds single family homes which are then sold to families. Bringing homeowners in helped to stabilize the neighborhood without resorting to gentrification. We operate other programs that support other needs in the neighborhood and provide job training, GED classes, operate a program to repair the homes of the elderly so that they can remain in their homes. I work in a minor way with those programs, but since we operate on a skeleton crew, we all know a lot of the details about each program.

I also serve on the boards of housing agencies, so I am quite familiar with the various ways in which they are funded across the US. As a matter of fact I've toured housing development like this all over the US and Puerto Rico. Different areas address things a little differently, but some things (financing) remain the same.

I'm in NYC each fall for a housing convention and I've toured some of the low income housing there. I found it interesting that if a landlord shuts off the water to the tenants in order to evict them, the building ends up reverting to the city and the properties can only be operated as low-moderate income housing. That is just one example of something that is unique about NYC.

With regard to the people living in those properties for free... well that is highly unlikely. Agencies don't build housing unless they can collect rent.

[TheMartianChick]

Here is a link to the housing authorities webpage that shows the details of those apartments:

http://www.tacomahousing.org/housing/salishan.html

This link explains where the Housing Authority gets their income:

http://www.tacomahousing.org/about/fast_facts.html

THA is an independent municipal corporation formed under Washington State law. A five member Board of Commissioners appointed by the Mayor of the City of Tacoma governs THA. THA has no taxing authority and receives no regular operating funds from the City of Tacoma or the State of Washington. Most of its funds comes from rents that it charges to its tenants, fees that it earns in administering its various programs, subsidies from the federal government for its federal programs, developer fees that it earns when it builds or rebuilds, and grants from public and private sources.
THA or related tax-credit partnership owns about 1400 dwelling units of various designs and types scattered throughout the City of Tacoma.

and this:

All together, THA serves approximately 12,000 persons or about six percent of the City's residents. The great majority of the people receiving assistance from THA are elderly, disabled or minor children.

When you are in the business of nonprofit housing, you always have to be able to back everything up with numbers for the purpose of gaining funding and proving that your program is effective.

[Sawmill Jim]

TheMartianChick
Post #5 Bull this is a public housing owned by the city or who ever . You can try to nice up waste of tax money anyway you want but in this case
that dog just wont hunt Their charge accounts and truck all say City of ------ Housing Authority .

They do have some in the area like you are talking about but not near as well kept these are duplex or single units . This whole town is almost section 8 housing units with a few retirees scattered about most in one area though Houses it that town can be had for $10.000 down to $3.500 . Few years back i bought one for $3,500 in the better part of town sold it for $11,500 while having a yard sale . Couldn't give me another one there

[TheMartianChick]

Originally Posted by Sawmill Jim

TheMartianChick
Post #5 Bull this is a public housing owned by the city or who ever . You can try to nice up waste of tax money anyway you want but in this case
that dog just wont hunt Their charge accounts and truck all say City of ------ Housing Authority .

They do have some in the area like you are talking about but not near as well kept these are duplex or single units . This whole town is almost section 8 housing units with a few retirees scattered about most in one area though Houses it that town can be had for $10.000 down to $3.500 . Few years back i bought one for $3,500 in the better part of town sold it for $11,500 while having a yard sale . Couldn't give me another one there

I'm going to have to go back and re-read what I wrote in post #5. I think that I am being misunderstood. I'm also not sure what you are objecting to in that post...

I am not trying to pretty up anything. I was merely explaining how those types of projects work. As proof of some of what I said, if you follow the links in post #12, they tell you that the project in question is indeed one that was partially funded with low income housing tax credits and it is operated by the Tacoma Housing Authority. I called it before I ever visited their website, because all of the signs were there in the appearance of the buildings.

Most older developments were funded by HUD. Now there are a lot more options out there and big mall developers are getting in on the action.A lot of the companies that build with tax credits are actually HUGE! They operate in many, many states because they can make a lot of money without having any skin in the game.

I only mentioned that wrought iron is often added to those types of projects for a specific reason... and it is! I would need more information about the project that you mentioned before I could make any educated guesses about it. I have no idea as to why the developers of the project that you mentioned used LIHTC's, HOME Funds or CHODO money. I can usually figure out certain things by the way that they are constructed, materials used, etc. It used to be, low income housing was pretty ticky tacky. With the LIHTC's that is no longer the case.

[Sawmill Jim]

Yes i agree the one in the OP was a farce and an attempt to blame the wrong ones And big business are taking the Gov rent money in buckets . The Gov should get out of the rent business . When a whole town is doing section 8 along with the City operating a Housing Authority and privet companies also then we wonder why the Gov is broke

[Win07_351]

Amazing things can be done with other people's money.

[Sawmill Jim]

Originally Posted by Win07_351

Amazing things can be done with other people's money.

Almost as amazing as when they build a housing project in a town the mayor owns the land and sells it for the project to be built on

[haypoint]

I hope this isn’t too much of a thread drift.
In my community, the local Native American tribe applied for a grant to build a hundred homes on tribal property (reservation), because the tarpaper shacks were sub-standard.
After the homes were built, they formed a Housing Authority to rent the houses to themselves. Because they only pay minimum wage at the Casino they operate, every tenant is eligible for low income housing assistance. So, just like in the big cities, they pay $75 a month and the government pays the remaining $600, per house.
The profits from the Casino and from the Housing Assistance are used to buy more land and build more houses that they can rent to themselves and collect more government housing assistance.
Before you start with the “ We took their land and they are just getting back at us.”, most of the people living there are one-eighth or one-sixteenth Native American.

[City Bound]

Originally Posted by TheMartianChick

With regard to the people living in those properties for free... well that is highly unlikely. Agencies don't build housing unless they can collect rent.

Well, in this case rent and free can be very confusing words. If the person has a real job and pay the 30% that they ask for, then that is truely rent and the operation is bringing in actually money. If the people who live there are on welfare and paying 30% of their welfare check, then they really are not paying rent, they are just giveing back a percentage of the free money that was handed to them, so the operation in that case is really not bringing in any real money, it is just getting back some of the hand out they gave out. It would be like giving a begger on the street a dollar and he gives you back 30 cents. All he did was give you back your own money.

[City Bound]

I am not an economist, but I think what will happen is what the economist call dwindling returns. Eventually they will be paying out more then they take in and then the poop will really hit the fan. RIght now we are still in the plunder phase, so things are pretty peachy for the people doing the plundering because there is still capital to rob...most of it only on paper though, but the day when they will have exhausted the store house is truely close to hand.