Posted on 07/24/2013 4:15:21 PM PDT by whitedog57
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan gave an interesting speech at the NAACP meeting in Orlando on July 16th.
To be sure, inner city poverty is a serious problem. The public policy question is how to best address this problem. But HUD Secretary Donovan lays the blame on racial discrimination.
The key phrases in his speech are:
“Bottom line: people are being denied their freedom of choice and the benefits of full citizenship. Yet because of the subtle nature of this discrimination, often times, they don’t even know they have been subjected to this abuse.”
“That’s why HUD is enhancing its enforcement techniques by initiating investigations on our own without waiting for individuals to file complaints.”
This reminds me of the Federal government decision to slaughter barred owls … in order to save the spotted owl. The government is picking winners and losers … even for wildlife. So, rather than Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” model, Donovan is adopting the “Father Knows Best” model.
FatherKnowsBest_S2
“Today, it’s about more than just addressing outright discrimination and access to the housing itself. It’s also about giving every community access to important neighborhood amenities that can make a tremendous difference in a person’s life outcome. I’m talking about good schools, safe streets, jobs, grocery stores, healthcare and a host of other important factors. To help families gain this access – HUD is working to strengthen our stewardship of federal dollars to maximize the impact they have on communities in advancing fair housing goals.”
In other words, Donovan is saying the minority neighborhoods are unsafe and have lousy schools (despite the staggering dollars spent). Rather than promoting jobs and economic growth to help minorities, Donovan is suggesting spreading minorities out into affluent areas (specifically suburbs).
He has suggested this approach before. In fact, he suggested building affordable housing in safe neighborhoods with good schools. Such as in Westchester County in New York.
How would Donovan’s plan work? HUD would create maps of housing and racial composition by neighborhood. If a neighborhood (or other metric) does not have the desired composition, the neighborhood/country/state would be punished by withholding Federal funds … and God knows what else.
Rather than adopt this approach, I would suggest that the Obama Administration focus on job creation giving minority households a chance to escape dangerous neighborhoods. Without job and wage growth, how will Donovan’s plan help other than spreading the misery of poverty? I refer to his approach as “Donovan’s Reef” since the economy is stuck on a reef and Donovan just wants to spread the misery of poverty.
“African-Americans,” Donovan said, “are being denied their freedom of choice.” Yes, by bad government policies, regulation and the growth of the entitlement state.
So, is Secretary Donovan and President Obama advocating redlining? That is, drawing lines around neighborhoods. It is legal for the government to redline neighborhoods but not lenders? Huh.
I suggest that Secretary Donovan read Nobel Laureate James Buchanan’s “The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan.” Donovan’s proposal definitely shows up on the leviathan side of the ledger.
Say, I wonder if House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will have affordable housing on her SF block (since I doubt that there is a pletora of African-Americans or Hispanics)? Or Secretary of State John Kerry? Or The Clintons? Or Barbra Streisand? Or …
Big Shaun Donovan!
DONOVANS-REEF
What HUD wants is people to feel entitled to live in areas they can't afford.
Can you afford that house? If not, work hard in order to buy it.
If I want to live in on the beach in Malibu, I better earn it.
Let’s move some section 8’ers to Georgetown.
-PJ
Cape Cod, MA and Newport, RI wuld be ideal sites for relocating welfae queens and crack smoking dopers who refuse to work. Don’t forget sex offenders who imhabit major inner cities. Cleveland just had another convicted sex offender arrested for three brutal murders of black women in the ‘hood.
Let’s see those racial census dots on the map of Westchester Co. in NY, or those in Connecticut’s tony enclaves. We want to see multiracial dots introduced in those gated reservations for the rich and well-connected. Until we do, leave the rest of us alone.
A former co-worker build a brand new house in GA and within a week of completion, the area was targeted for Section 8 housing and immediately the value of his house dropped like a rock and 6 years later he still cannot sell it without taking a huge loss.
Government central planners always fail.
Looking to create millions of new St. Skittles?
You come out into my affluent, lily white neighborhood wearing a hoodie and your pants dragging will definitely get you shot at. and you break into a house or commit other crimes will get them killed.
Perfect example of the non-sensical racist mythical interpretation of a benefit of full citizenship...
The freedom to act like criminal uncivilized animals everywhere, with no consequences.
Which would help equalize things as the Safe neighborhoods become Unsafe. To make it "work" it would be necessary to forbid other people from moving out of the neighborhoods when drug dealers and gangbangers are moved into the Safe neighborhoods.
Back in the 70s when I was a recently separated veteran, my wife and I bought a tiny very Florida house on the Southside in St Petersburg. We and the old man next door were the only white folks in the neighborhood,or for many blocks around. It was a good neighborhood which I attribute to the neighbors all owning their homes. It was that way for about a year. We had considerable pleasant interaction with the neighborhoods and the wives took each other shopping. Then the Government, State or Fed, I don’t know, suddenly built eight subsidized houses on the vacant block across the street from us. Those houses were quickly inhabited by drug dealers and such from the Projects in Tampa and the neighborhood went to hell very quickly with breakins nightly where there had been none in the previous year and drug buying cars in and out every few minutes all night and part of the day. We moved so that I could take a job in Saugatuck and I was fortunate to break even on the house. My neighbors with bigger houses were not so fortunate. The old man next door stuck it out but all the others sold out and moved at various levels of loss.
Bus them to Martha’s Vinyard.
Government central planners always fail.
Depends. The results might be their intention...
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