patrick.net

I live near some section 8 housing in the rich ass community of Princeton, NJ. The cops are always outside. It doesn't matter where these people live. The cops are needed, whether they get government subsidies or not.

He does have a point, but like most issues this will help some and hurt some.

I am 100% for this and would vote for anyone who had the balls to take the rent subsidies away from the LLs.

Rent subsidies go 100% to landlords. They are the stupidest things we do.

$50B/yr could actually build ~500,000 quality new "housing projects" a year and be a useful addition to neighborhoods, plus give unemployed construction people something to do.

Troy says

$50B/yr could actually build ~500,000 quality new “housing projects” a year and be a useful addition to neighborhoods, plus give unemployed construction people something to do.

And you can go live in one of the "Housing Projects" since you're are the only one that wants them. Only an idiot would chose to live in one of those hell holes. Even the people that live there wish they could get the hell out and they certainly don't want their children there with all the crime. Too bad Jim Jones and Jonestown, Guyana isn't around anymore, you are the kind of person they wanted in their "utopia."

The original post completely misguided. Section 8 is NOT public housing. IT is a vouncher that you use to live in privately owned housing. HUD gnerally does not control govt. owned housing. That is owned by cities and states.

>>>The original post completely misguided. Section 8 is NOT public housing.

Please re-read the original post and note the term "and."

lurking says

And you can go live in one of the “Housing Projects” since you’re are the only one that wants them.

One of the major mistakes we made with postwar housing projects was making them utterly shitty places to live starting out.

Japan is doing a much better job with this, sorta. I won't go into the details but there are plenty of nice government housing projects in the Tokyo area.

and they certainly don’t want their children there with all the crime

I think the lack of affordably, quality housing stock in this country is linked with the crime problem.

Half this comment board features people cackling about how much money they're extorting from people who rent from them.

Open your eyes.

Troy says

$50B/yr could actually build ~500,000 quality new “housing projects” a year and be a useful addition to neighborhoods, plus give unemployed construction people something to do.

OK, you build 500,000 homes... what now! Turn into slums the next year... and that happened in NYC and other major cities back in the 60-70s.

Nomograph says

3/4 of Kentucky is on welfare. If he manages to end HUD he will never be reelected.

1. California
% of pop. on assistance: 3.30%
2007 spending: $3.28 billion
Total recipients (July 2008): 1,212,893
% Change in past 12 months: 10.4%
Unemployment (May 2009): 11.5%

I've worked in public housing, and also in welfare. Public housing isn't perfect, but it does provide a roof for people who otherwise couldn't afford a place. Something to think about is the jobs that are provided to housing authority workers - so if they cut out housing subsidies, they'd have people in housing on the streets, people suddenly jobless, and the money is merely a drop in the bucket compared to the amounts we pay for the military.

I have also known people who double claimed welfare for children; they do eventually get caught, and they're cut off altogether. It's not a perfect system - and with cutbacks happening all over the country, the fraud workers are losing their jobs and won't be able to investigate cases like this.

Public housing, like so many other programs, started out with good intentions but is so full of regulations and abuse it needs an overhaul.

Troy says

I am 100% for this and would vote for anyone who had the balls to take the rent subsidies away from the LLs.
Rent subsidies go 100% to landlords. They are the stupidest things we do.
$50B/yr could actually build ~500,000 quality new “housing projects” a year and be a useful addition to neighborhoods, plus give unemployed construction people something to do.

Or spend $50B less per year and get lower housing prices overall as a bonus.

elliemae says

I’ve worked in public housing, and also in welfare. Public housing isn’t perfect, but it does provide a roof for people who otherwise couldn’t afford a place. Something to think about is the jobs that are provided to housing authority workers - so if they cut out housing subsidies, they’d have people in housing on the streets.

Most of these people need proper motivation to get off their lazy ass and get a job. Putting them out on the streets and suddenly gardeners, janitors, and agricultural workers will be speaking English again.

thomas.wong1986 says

Troy says

$50B/yr could actually build ~500,000 quality new “housing projects” a year and be a useful addition to neighborhoods, plus give unemployed construction people something to do.

OK, you build 500,000 homes… what now! Turn into slums the next year… and that happened in NYC and other major cities back in the 60-70s.

The interstate highway system happened to the major cities back in the 60-70's. The highways allowed easy auto commuting for white flighters in the new suburban communities, efficient cheap truck transportation making possible the moving of large numbers of manufacturing jobs from the urban NE to the rural low cost of labor south, and caused great social unrest by displacing or destroying many lower income communities in the cities as these were the areas that were subject to imminent domain for the new roads.

Nomograph writes and says "3/4 of Kentucky is on welfare."

You're saying that some 3 million people in Kentucky are on welfare. Prove it. How about a link to your source?

Let's face it folks, "bread and circuses" is a catchphrase for Roman history for Westerners nowadays.

All public assistance is derided as leading to laziness, from our Puritanical side.

However it serves a purpose. Even military knows if troops have nothing to do, you make them dig holes and fill them up again. Depression-era public works projects were IMO at least somewhat motivated by need to keep people occupied and with bread on the table, not out marching for Communism. Hard-right capitalists IMO don't like to give any credit to a little "soft socialism" keeping the peace, they just can't reconcile the need to bribe the populace.

RP probably thinks cutting public assistance here and there will lead to a libertarian utopia. People who invite civil discontent however often find they don't get the outcome they wanted, they get ugliness and chaos and loudmouths leading mobs.

Originally public housing was conceived of as transitional housing. That is, people in need would stay until they were able to get on their feet and move into private sector housing. The town in the midwest where I used to live had a very large barracks like public housing project built after WW11. Originally the residents were vast majority white, by the time they tore it down it was 99 % black. It had become a crime mecca. So I guess it sorta worked, the whites transitioned out and the blacks transitioned in. Where it failed is the blacks never transitioned out. You can still see many of these post WW11 low rise projects in the midwest. My construction company did a lot of work for the local housing authorities in the area I used to live. They are funded by HUD but locally run and some are run very well, some very poorly. BTW they can include a considerable amount of housing for the elderly not just "welfare queens". In my experience the bigger the city or county (most are set up on a county wide basis) the worse they were run.

OurBroker says

Nomograph writes and says “3/4 of Kentucky is on welfare.”
You’re saying that some 3 million people in Kentucky are on welfare. Prove it. How about a link to your source?

I really can't believe it when people assume they know something, claim something outrageous like this, and then don't have anything to back it up. No data, no sources, nada. As if what they have to say is straight from the Lord. This is probably his usual routine of pulling stats out of his backside.

Watch. Now we'll get some overly-wordy response defending his bogus claim, but when you whittle it down to the core, you'll see that there will be no link, no source, no actual data supporting his original statement. It will be something related that will be skewed, but it won't resemble anything approaching his original statement.

Where do these tinfoil hattie nutbags come from? Atlantis? Can someone please page this man's UFO and return him to home base?

Kentucky has a population of 4,314,113.
(US Census Bureau 2009)

Welfare Caseloads - Number of Families:34,861, Total recipients: 76,688
(from something called Statemaster.com, citing US Department of Health & Human Services.

Isn't that a little under 2% ?

KY also receives ~$1.50 for every $1 it sends to DC.

Troy says

KY also receives ~$1.50 for every $1 it sends to DC.

And this figure is from where?

teh internets

Landru3000 says

Troy says

KY also receives ~$1.50 for every $1 it sends to DC.

And this figure is from where?

At least as of a 2007 study, Kentucky rolled in $1.51 for every $1 they paid, from 2005 data. It's interesting how Kentucky rose quite steadily over the decades, from $1.06 in 1981. Sort of like that mythical "welfare queen" it's like they get on the dole and just spiral down becoming ever more dependent.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html

Unexpectedly to me, Alaska doesn't come in first in the "gimme" game, they are at #3 behind New Mexico and Mississippi. It's incredibly hypocritical that they decry Federal spending, while at the same time benefitting from it. I am reminded again that Rand Paul was all for MediCare cuts, until he took a close look at how that would cut his salary as a doctor. Of course it's only "waste" if someone ELSE is getting their trough filled. I expect if you seriously moved to ACTING fiscally conservative and have your constituents suck it up and LIVE it, like cutting back to a mere parity of $1 for $1 in these states you'd be run out of town on a rail.

A simple table derived from the full report:

@Vicente

Thanks for the chart. I have already sent it off to many friends. I had a US map along similar lines but yours is even more detailed!

What is interesting as as well is when many of the people from Red States complain and drag their feet at the mention of any aid to California-a net contributer to the Federal pot over the years. I am not necessarily advocating a bailout of California, but just saying it wouldn't be as unfair as many (Red State people) think.

Zlxr says

Furthermore, by subsidizing rent - people are drawn to come here from other States (or countries). Why should we have 30% or so of the people who need aid? Why isn’t this balanced out between all the States?

http://www.novoco.com/low_income_housing/resource_files/research_center/housingcareport.pdf

Interesting read - although severely outdated given the current economic times in which we live. But z, I have a hard time believing that 30% of the people in the US who receive housing assistance live in California - care to share a link?

The supposition of this thread is that the housing market would adjust if people were to be bumped off of subsidized housing and had to live on their income - especially the low incomes of janitors and housekeepers. We have scads of empty houses where they could live - but that ain't happening either.

No easy solutions.

elliemae says

We have scads of empty houses where they could live - but that ain’t happening either.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41355854
(nearly 11% of us houses are empty)

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

If they can’t pay their way, offer them to the Chinese to pay off the national debt.

Alaska, bought from the Russians for $5M, sold to the Chinese for $5T.

I like it!

I cannot tell which posts above are sincere and which are sarcasm or jokes.

California residents deduct state income tax before sending any money to D.C. The state keeps it instead of DC sending it back.

From the Shasta County Newspaper - Redding Record Searchlight. For those out of state, Shasta County (population 179K or so) is in the North State, and is home to the last large City (Redding pop. 91K or so) before Oregon on I-5. Some insight into how the voucher program works.

http://www.redding.com/news/2011/feb/05/section-8-housing-145not-getting-turnover-face/

TheRammer says

I cannot tell which posts above are sincere and which are sarcasm or jokes.
California residents deduct state income tax before sending any money to D.C. The state keeps it instead of DC sending it back.

Sure, but the feds send more money to all the states. I believe that's the $ everyone is concerned about.

I don't believe that ending public housing programs would be in the best interests of the poor, who are barely getting by. To those people who say that it's their fault, I'd point out the multitudes of people who are out of work now and have been for a few years. They've blown thru their retirements and all their savings, this is why public housing exists. However, in order to be eligibile for PHA programs (and S8), they have to qualify for the programs at the time of application and continue to qualify until they're accepted.

In other words, if they had savings and income at the time of the application, they're not eligible. They're only eligible if they're broke, homeless and stay that way until they are awarded housing. The system blows and it needs an overhaul - but not to be ended.

I much rather they increase capital gains tax to match income tax. This way we'll have more jobs because money would be redirected from gambling over to commerce and business (aka jobs).

ChrisLA says

I much rather they increase capital gains tax to match income tax.

I'd much rather we tax the shit out of rents.

40% of the west coast rents, maybe 50 million households nation wide, each at $500/mo would be $300 billion dollars of free money for the government. This would turn the evil of Prop 13 into a wonderful boon, too : )

Pretty sad day tho when $300B in additional revenue doesn't even come close to closing the deficit.

I do think that Section 8 tends to drive people to strange behavior. I used to work with a sweet young woman who had a section 8 voucher for the home she shared with her little girl and her boyfriend. She had to pretend the boyfriend (her daughter's dad) didn't exist, or else his income would come into play and they would lose the voucher. She was also fairly motivated not to get a raise, not to get a better job, because again she could lose her benefits, and an incremental increase in income would not make up for the loss. She had great family support (grandma handled daycare for free), and she took her daughter out to dinner just about every night. I think that she could have perhaps managed market-rate rent. But she knew what she needed to do and say in order to keep the voucher.

I am sure that someone else on the waiting list could have used the voucher. But she got quite accustomed to having it. And she was not a bad person, not at all, but the game is set up in a way that invites people to play.

Eliza says

I do think that Section 8 tends to drive people to strange behavior

Sure - but so do other rental situations. I know people who sneak family members in to live because the LL limits the amount of occupants. But there's more to your story than meets the eye... rent is figured on adjusted gross income less a utility credit. There are people in PH and S8 who receive refunds every month rather than paying rent.

Reforms are needed - that's for sure. But they help to house people that otherwise wouldn't have a place to live.

Public housing (including Section 8) makes up 4.5% of the US housing stock. Given that 30-40% of the population is underhoused--either too crowded, too expensive or in poor condition, or a combination of all these--it's not as though those who need assistance are getting it. Most people on welfare--TANF, SSI etc.--get no housing assistance. I think the best proposal would, in fact, be to take the $80 billion housing subsidy known as the mortgage interest deduction and solve our affordable housing problem, either by building new housing or buying up existing housing (there seems to be a lot around these days).

And public housing was intended to be foul. Real estate interests insisted that any public housing be set apart from other housing, not be attractive either to residents or the community, and be stigmatizing for the residents. Don't blame either the government or the residents; blame the NAR.

It is so strange that the fruit fell so far away from the tree.

My wife qualified for Section 8 as a single mother. Five years later we are quitting the program for a $500/month rental in Playas de Tijuana. Section 8 gave us a bigger place then we could have afforded on our own, but never enabled us to build any real savings. After we move to Tijuana we will be able to build long and short term savings accounts for purchases such as a home(in a couple years when they're much cheaper), and yearly things like more vacations.

Section 8, and other programs my wife used to be on(food stamps, Medical, TANF, etc) do just enough to help you get by, but never enough to help you get free.

Slave to Big Brother, or freedom in our sister city...? I'll take the latter.

nice graph and good commentary Vincente.

I live in one of those Red states, and out here, its definitely the three G's. And you have a variety of Right wingers who will darn near run you over when farmer welfare money is being handed out. Amazes me how much people hate the "gubbermint" and want it out of there lives till it comes knocking at there door for the cut off.

ragingpinko says

And public housing was intended to be foul. Real estate interests insisted that any public housing be set apart from other housing, not be attractive either to residents or the community, and be stigmatizing for the residents. Don’t blame either the government or the residents; blame the NAR.

source, please.