Rental needs(thanks W, now Sect 8 Welfare recipients can't afford to move next store)

Baltimore Sun ^ | July 5, 2005

[marylandrepub1]

LEGISLATION PENDING in Congress that would convert a popular federal rent-assistance program into a fixed grant program has public housing authorities around the country worried - and with good reason. Under the legislation, public housing agencies would be limited by caps in the number of poor people they could help, and unable to move thousands off waiting lists for subsidized housing into affordable apartments. Given the nationwide shortage of affordable housing and other recent funding cuts to federal public housing programs, changes to the rent-assistance program known as Section 8 are sure to worsen the problem and force people to spend more on rent or live in substandard housing.

The bill in Congress comes on the heels of three years of funding-formula changes in the Section 8 program that have exacerbated the housing crisis in communities around the country. According to the Council on Large Public Housing Authorities, an advocacy organization, housing agencies have been forced to make retroactive budget cuts, lower rent payments, cut the number of rent vouchers they distribute and freeze voucher waiting lists. Landlords who participated in the program are bailing out and no longer accepting the vouchers as payment. Investors have withdrawn from affordable-housing developments supported by the program.

The voucher program has worked well for more than 30 years and has received high marks from the White House Office of Management and Budget. It has helped millions of low-income families live in affordable housing that meets federal living standards, and helped the federal government ease the national housing crisis by allowing housing authorities to use the private housing market.

The program is far from broken; lawmakers don't need to fix it.

[rabidralph]

"Next door?! Penguins don't come from next door!"

[VRWCmember]

Nothing can be done. My folks are losing their house that was paid off through their hard work. That they were supposed to be enjoying in their golden years. Gee, thanks, Pres Bush.

Perhaps you should be thanking the liberal democrats who implemented the welfare laws that created this situation. The article is lamenting how the evil Bush spending cuts (what a laugh) are cutting into these programs.

[Freee-dame]

The program is far from broken; lawmakers don't need to fix it. (Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...

If the Baltimore Sun thinks it's a good program, you can bet it's a big government money transfer from taxpayers to taxtakers.

[marylandrepub1]

Meanwhile, the POS HUD family gets to "own" a house courtesy of taxpayer subsidies,



THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for
the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper
has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, Building his house and laying up supplies for
the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a
press conference and demands to know why the ant
should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others
are cold and starving. CBS, NBC and ABC show up to
provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to
a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a
table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can
this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the
grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's
Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a
demonstration in front of the ant's house where the
news stations film the group singing "We shall
overcome". Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray
to God for the grasshopper's sake. Al Gore exclaims
in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has
gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls
for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay
his "fair share". Finally, the EEOC drafts the
"Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act",
retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant
is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of
green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his
retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the
government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the
grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and
the case is tried before a panel of federal judges
that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent
welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing
up the last bits of the ant's food while the
government house he is in, which just happens to be
the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he
doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the
snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug
related incident and the house, now abandoned, is
taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.

[Disambiguator]

Could have been ended by ONE neighbor with ONE match ;)

I've heard of justifiable homicide. Are you proposing justifiable arson?

[Nathan Zachary]

I own a few rental properties as well, thinking it would be a good source of income for my retirement years.
You quickly learn to carefully screen tenents, or you will loose money in an awfull hurry. Welfare scumbags, and others with no ambition in life to better themselves do not care about other peoples property. they will smash it up and just move on to the next place.
Those people deserve to live in rat holes, because they are the ones who created them in the first place.

[elmer fudd]

I accepted a section 8 tenant once in a duplex I own and I won't do it again. The government sent me a check every month, so I didn't have to worry about the rent, but the tenant was a PITA. Even with free rent she was a financial basket case. She couldn't pay her garbage bill, so they stopped picking it up. By the time I figured this out it was over a month later and the garbage bags on the side of the house were starting to attract rats. I had to haul off the garbage myself, (billed against her deposit), and threaten her with eviction to get her to pay the garbage company. She seemed to have a new boyfriend every couple of months and I got calls periodically from the the neighbors about noisy parties. Fortunately she moved out on her own and while she left the place a little messy, the only damage was a hole in the drywall and a door.

She wasn't even close to being the worst tenant I have had, but I was happy to see her leave and I don't intend on renting to any more section 8 tenants.

[Nov3]

Amen. They should move them in with the limosine liberals.

[Tired of Taxes]

I'm glad for those little spending cuts.

But the program to which I referred (the HUD home ownership voucher program) was implemented by the Bush administration.

[Aquinasfan]

Yup. The voucher program has destroyed one neighborhood after another.

My wife wouldn't rent half of her old duplex to Section 8 people, even though the voucher was worth more than the income she received from renters. You can probably guess the many reasons. She could get away with it because in Massachusetts the landlord can reject Section 8 people if he lives on the property.

"Are you Section 8?"

"Yes."

"Sorry."

"You have to rent to me!"

"No I don't."

"I'm calling the housing authority!"

Click.

[Tired of Taxes]

Classic stuff. :-)

Very appropriate for this thread, too.

[Nov3]

One word: snakes. They will move post-haste

LOL! It is amazing. I used to see a woman behind my old apartment putting out sulfur by the 50 lb bag. I asked her what the deal was and she told me. It must work - I only saw one snake the entire time I was there.

[Aquinasfan]

Welfare scumbags, and others with no ambition in life to better themselves do not care about other peoples property. they will smash it up and just move on to the next place.

Best unsolicited advice I ever got: ask for the previous 12 months' cancelled rent checks from prospective tenants.

[Nov3]

Could have been ended by ONE neighbor with ONE match ;)

Unfortunately it was a townhouse by his description!

The match and a gallon of Coleman fuel (harder to smell) have burnt more than one crack house.

[bk1000]

" Are you proposing justifiable arson?"

Of course not! That would be advocating violence, and would get me banned from FR!

[sandydipper]

You can make book on it - if the government offers to help run the other way.

[Disambiguator]

If it's justifiable, then it's not really violence...

;^)

(Disclaimer: sarcasm tag implied.)

[adam_az]

"The program is far from broken; lawmakers don't need to fix it."

It's VERY broken, they need to ELIMINATE it.

[Nathan Zachary]

That is a MUST! Always get their rental history, and DO follow up on it. You'd be surprised at how may applicants lie about it, or not even bother to include some of the places they rented. Sometimes by talking with their previous landlord, You can get that information. But be careful, some landlords will say anything to get rid of a tenant. Take a drive and check out the place they are living at if possible.
Do a credit check, and call their employer. The time you take to screen a tenant is well worth it. It can save you a lot of grief.

[Lijahsbubbe]

I could care less.