When I said affordable, I was thinking of something like a well-designed mixed-use condo complex. So "affordable" meaning middle income range. There's a mall in Portland heading that way, I think.
When I said affordable, I was thinking of something like a well-designed mixed-use condo complex. So "affordable" meaning middle income range. There's a mall in Portland heading that way, I think.
IMO the powers that be were dragged kicking and screaming into that conclusion by reality, and they came to that realization rather late.Originally Posted by iris lilies
I agree, but that doesn't address the fact that millions of non-poor people happily live in skyscrapers or big apartment complexes which are the very structures those public housing towers and complexes were based on. In fact the public housing towers and complexes were often designed by the same architects and built to the same standards as successful commercial residential buildings.
So let's look at what was really happening when those towers were built: After WWII the stereotypical suburbs full of cookie-cutter 1000 sq ft houses were born and those suburbs rapidly expanded as middle-class and upper-blue-collar families fled their small city apartments for the now-affordable houses in suburbia. This outward expansion was aided by the Federal government being eager to help build freeways and highways and other infrastructure to make life good for all those middle-class suburban voters.
Meanwhile city governments wanted to demolish poor neighborhoods to create open space near downtown where factories, businesses, and other buildings that would pay higher property taxes could be built. But there was a problem. Most of the people who had crummy low-wage jobs as janitors, cooks, factory workers, and so on lived in those poor neighborhoods and couldn't afford to live in the suburbs (or weren't allowed to because they were the wrong color) so the cities couldn't just bulldoze those slums because the factories they were trying to attract needed the workers who lived in them.
The perfect solution was to build high-rise state-of-the-art-apartment-complexes that would house those poor people in a fraction of the space and let the city bulldoze the slums. As a bonus the poor people got better housing at a reduced rent they could afford. But the catch was, the feds were only willing to help build those towers if the city would be responsible for maintaining them.
The cities thought a mixture of subsidized poor tenants and non-subsidized blue-collar tenants would allow the buildings to break even financially since all the maintenance would be done by existing city building-maintenance crews. But when the non-subsidized tenants began to flee, and hooliganism increased, rent income went down and maintenance expense went up, so less maintenance got done, and even poor people who could somehow afford to move fled.
Pretty soon you end up with what they ended up with. I really wish I could give you some links to good documentaries about this, but even the ones that were on PBS are all behind a pay wall now.
No doubt that was the intention, but the effect was the opposite for the reasons I already stated and others that are too complex to go into here.
Bingo! As I said previously, the criteria for living in those places at a reduced rent created conditions where it was easy for resentment of The System and hooliganism to flourish, so good people who could afford to live elsewhere fled and the public housing towers went downhill from there.
I agree completely for the reasons I just stated.
Sometimes that theory works, and sometimes it doesn't. The most notable failures being with teens and preteens who feel like a fish out of water, and miss hanging out with their friends, and feel like they have nothing in common with the kids their age in this new neighborhood. Adults and children often adapt pretty well to new social norms and different standards of behavior, provided they don't feel like the locals are rejecting them, it's harder for teens and preteens.
And who says they're the Gold Standard? I'd really like to see where that quote came from. And I'm certain some small European countries have our Section 8 housing beat hands down in the Gold Standard department.
Thereby creating a mixed-income neighborhood in which the better off residents will, hopefully, serve as a role model and inspiration for the less well off and especially for the less well off children.
There you go hating on Disney again.
I guess section 8 is the gold standard in that if you are poor it is good to get one.
But not only will many landlords not accept them, but there is often years of being on a of waiting list to qualify for section 8, applications are only open for short period of times (sometimes LESS THAN once a decade! - yes that is literally how often it is open in some rental markets) and close abruptly as demand far outstrips supply by at least 4 times nationwide, and yes it often amounts to years until approval.
It's not much of a housing solution at all, it's less a safety net than a safety net lottery where if you are poor, you might have a chance to win yourself affordable housing (and we wonder why the poor gamble). A new section 8 voucher only opens up if someone dies or earns to much money for theirs.
Trees don't grow on money
I remember in middle school my son kept begging me to move to the projects because he liked a girl who lived there and I was trying to tell him no and answering his why not questions without disparaging where she lived or making him feel sorry for her.
In my town, we have a 266-unit low-income housing complex that reminds me of a timeshare vacation complex, and I'm not exaggerating. We have good friends that live there, so this is not just a drive-by assessment. I know there is a waiting list, and our friend who lives there is disabled and on SSDI. She was very excited when she got the apartment and likes it there a lot, so I guess this place is doing something right:
http://corcoranapts.com/communities/...augus-commons/
We also have 3 senior affordable housing complexes that are owned and run by the town. Those don't seem quite as nice and I know them on more of a drive-by or walk-by basis. I believe they are decent enough though, since I never see complaints on the town social media pages, and people on there complain about EVERYTHING.
Yes everything you say is true which is why it is a gold standard. A section 8 voucher is very hard to get, is rare, highly coveted.I guess section 8 is the gold standard in that if you are poor it is good to get one.
But not only will many landlords not accept them, but there is often years of being on a of waiting list to qualify for section 8, applications are only open for short period of times (sometimes LESS THAN once a decade! - yes that is literally how often it is open in some rental markets) and close abruptly as demand far outstrips supply by at least 4 times nationwide, and yes it often amounts to years until approval.
It's not much of a housing solution at all, it's less a safety net than a safety net lottery where if you are poor, you might have a chance to win yourself affordable housing (and we wonder why the poor gamble
So this should be the creme of poor people right? yet ongoing stories of section 8 landlords and how they got out of that business reveal that many poor people just don’t know how to live in and take care of a property. Whether they’re renting or owning, Reasonable standards of care ate not part of their world.
And then we all know the stories of section 8 rental on our blocks are nearby. Often the crapiest building and tenants of the area. Fortunately my neighborhood has priced out of the section 8 housing market, but there were section 8 units near me when we moved here.
DH was a sec 8 landlord in Iowa when I met him. His tenant was a single mom with a couple of kids and she was a perfectly fine tenant.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote