Posted on 04/13/2007 2:15:06 PM PDT by Lorianne
Echoing a controversy that engulfed several neighborhoods seven years ago, a proposal to create low-income housing is again stirring passions in Northeast Baltimore.
In online message groups, petitions and interviews, many residents are objecting to a proposal to convert a closed Catholic school into affordable apartments.
They favor turning the shuttered St. Dominic School on Harford Road in Hamilton into a charter school, market-rate housing or senior apartments. They fear that retrofitting the building for 30 low-income rental units invites decay - not only of the property but of the largely middle-class area around it.
"I'm worried about crime in the neighborhood. I'm worried about maintenance of the property. I don't need that next door to me," says Joseph Washington, a retired federal worker and vice president of the Hamilton Hills Community Association, who says he has collected hundreds of signatures on petitions that call the proposal "unacceptable."
Advocates of the proposal - including the Archdiocese Of Baltimore, developers Orchard Development and Homes for America, and parishioners of St. Dominic Church next door, many of whom live in the area - say they believe the building would be well-managed, enhancing the community and filling a social need.
"I'm convinced this is affordable housing done right," says Michael Bornemann, a longtime area resident, board member of the Waltherson Community Association and liaison to the church's parish council on the project. "This is very sensitive to the community's needs and interests. This is an opportunity for folks who are lacking means to live in a decent and well-managed apartment."
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Affordable low cost housing cannot be done right, I have seen it tried,and it never works.
I remember #33 K st. NW. It was supposed to go to older people who had little money. You had to be old and poor to get in there. Pretty soon it was filled with the children and grandchildren of the older folks all of them on the dole. It has been destroyed and rebuilt 3 times now.
I remember the Tyler House on n Capitol Street. It was supposed to be good housing for the poor. I remember one lady saying for the TV camera’s “ There wont be no rats in the Tyler House. A year later I must admit they didnt look like rats, more like cats they were so big , but they were quite prevalent.
People who do not own anything dont really care what happens to the building, when it gets too bad they move in and destroy another one.
At Christmas they place their gift wrappings in the trash chute. the chute fills up the wrappings come out into the hall ,some smart guy decides to burn it turninh four floors of hallwasys black with smoke, They need a light bulb in their apartment, They just go out in the hall and steal one from the hall light or the stairway , leaving it dark. They pee in the elevators ,and the stairways, they leave junk cars all around the neighborhood. they leave Colt 45 cans everywhere.
been there, seen that, and worse.
My advice , Tear the school down better a vacant lot than low cost housing. If it happens Kiss your neighborhood goodbye.
I’m afraid you are correct. Genesee Street in Syracuse used to be a wonderful, upscale area with large homes. Now they’ve turned them into apartments, lots of lower class folk living there and it’s awful to see. Many Syracuse areas, especially the South Side, have been neglected.
In the city in which I live, the people who are on the "affordable" housing board live in neighborhoods where there is no "affordable" housing.
Low cost housing for the poor you say? Their called prison’s.
I agree!
The idea of having these ghetto jerks in my neighborhood would send me through the roof too. Anyone that is low income is most likely to be a crook or a rapist or both. Their kids are also a bunch of retards and most of them dont even go to church. No thank you! People with low incomes should be put in a proper part of the city. As far away from good people like us as possible!
Tear the building down and build some higher income condos so some higher quality peoples, hopefully from the suburbs, can move in and make the neighborhood cool.
/msacras
If you’ve ever taken amtrak’s WAS-BOS route, you can see large chunks of land with run down abandoned housing, particularly in Baltimore and Philadelphia. These places are presumably very cheap and could be decent places with a bit of sweat equity. No reason a government agency needs to be involved other than for law enforcement.
Low cost public housing used to work. You had to be married and you had to be employed.
Mrs VS
I’m convinced this is affordable housing done right,” says Michael Bornemann, a longtime area resident, board member of the Waltherson Community Association and liaison to the church’s parish council on the project. “This is very sensitive to the community’s needs and interests. This is an opportunity for folks who are lacking means to live in a decent and well-managed apartment.”
“lacking means” is code for unemployed welfare recipients. I myself was “lacking those means” until I got a full-time job, and kept it.
I have a friend who owns several houses that are livable.
Not great places,but decent enough. he buys them cheap and rents them out to HUD section 8’s
The Government pays $800 a month and the resident is supposed to pay $200.
My friend says every month the check comes from the government and if the resident happens to pay the $200 thats gravy. He really isnt all that upset if they dont.
He uses the money to pay off the mortgage and when the tenant has finished with the house, if they havent destroyed it he paints it up a little and rents it again. If they destroy the house he tears it down and sells the land.
If you enforce the restrictions (old and poor) you solve the “children and grandchildren” problem.
And when Grandma takes in her delinquent offspring, you kick out all of them.
And the “fair housing” laws make it harder to reject the bad apples. (Why oh why didn’t Republicans fix this when they had the opportunity?)
I have a dream, that one day, the ability of our children to live in decent, safe neighborhoods, will be based not on the content of their wallet, but on the content of their character.
Just allow the private sector to build higher-density tiny affordable cottages or “mother-in-law” units (zoning changes will be needed, which the NIMBY crowd will oppose, and the deserving people who need affordable housing will be able to acquire it, without subsidizing the undeserving.
I’ve never done crime or drugs; should I be screwed out of affordable housing because other people are worried about crime that I will not commit?
I’m poor and I’ve never done crime or drugs. Where do you propose I live?
So low-income people who work hard and play by the rules should have to live in a ghetto full of criminals?
Please discuss this with your pastor next time you go to church and tell us what he says.
Your friend is a scumbag.
Where did employed low-income single adults live?
And why do you apparently support discrimination on the basis of marital status?
Yes, the Brooke Amendment (1969) was driven by the “welfare rights” movement of the 1960s. Entitlement-driven welfare recipients thought it was terribly (Michael Savage voice here) unfaaaair they couldn’t get into public housing.
Only a few old-timers today have even heard of the Senator Brooke or his amendment.
I live in a large city where one-third of all renters are paying more than 50 percent of their income for housing. (I am paying over 60 percent.)
Most of us are employed full-time; I am.
There are thousands of $8/hour workers where I live. Getting and keeping a full-time job has not, and will not, lift us into the middle class.
I can’t get Section 8 and I have a job, will he rent it to me for $700?
His friend is no different from many Section 8 landlords.
They buy cheap low-end houses in low-end neighborhoods, charge more than market rent IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD but not more than MEDIAN AREA RENT, and if they win the Section-8-tenant lottery, they get to laugh all the way to the bank.
If they lose the Section-8-tenant lottery, they have a horror story to tell for the rest of their life.
Government is transferring an awful lot of income to these landlords, but I don’t hear too many complaints about it.
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