The Hypocritical Ingratitude of Christian Affordable Housing Advocates

National talk radio show host and Jewish theologian Dennis Prager is most perceptive in his comment: "Of all the ugly human traits, ingratitude ? the refusal to acknowledge the good that has been done for us ? is probably the ugliest. Yet its awfulness is only exceeded by its ubiquity."

Paradoxically, the scope of ingratitude and a sense of entitlement has apparently pervaded even the Christian community in its self-righteous political and media advocacy for affordable housing for the poor, most notably by both Protestant and Catholic activists in California.

Think about it - where else in the world would communities across the nation make available the cheapest single family housing stock near urban job centers for illegal immigrants (God bless them), thus forcing the working class to seek housing in "Edge Cities" with long commutes far from major cities? Where else would this occur without some sort of an uprising, major urban riot, or political upheaval?

Where else in the world would it be allowed for the marginally housed native population to be pushed out of former flophouses, single-room occupancy housing units, and old run-down hotels onto the streets as homeless to make way for immigrant housing?

Consider the City of Anaheim, home of Disneyland, where Catholic affordable housing advocates are lobbying the City to include low income "inclusionary" housing in new luxury condo developments, as reported in the Los Angeles Times of July 9 (see here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-affordable9jul09,1,7818496.story?coll=la-headlines-california).

Some 175,418, or 53%, of Anaheim residents are Hispanic, presumably a large portion illegal immigrants. The poverty rate in Anaheim is 9.6%, which is 3.6% less than the State poverty rate of 13.2% and 3.1% less than the 12.7% national poverty rate (see U.S. Community Survey Census - 2005). The reason there is relatively less poverty in Anaheim is the "golden egg" of jobs for immigrants in the hotel and motel tourist district surrounding Disneyland. Apparently, immigrants in Anaheim are relatively much better off than in most of California as indicated by its much lower poverty rate despite over half of the population being Hispanic.

How can there be an affordable housing crisis if such a large proportion of migrants already live in Anaheim with a lower poverty rate than the average for California? Look at the old residential neighborhoods surrounding the wholesale commercial district in Central Los Angeles which comprises the cheapest single family housing stock. It is overcrowded with illegal immigrants working in the wholesale food, clothing, hotel, flower, and toy markets. The same pattern prevails in Anaheim surrounding the Disneyland tourist district.

Christian affordable housing advocates continue to drag up photos of "poster children" and tear-jerking anecdotal stories to show the media of families headed by a single parent struggling to pay the monthly rent on a $7 per hour job. But such stories and photos, as profoundly moving as they are, belie the much, much bigger picture of entire neighborhoods with the cheapest housing stock occupied by immigrants. The blind guide of the media apparently only strains to find gnats of unaffordable housing while missing the camel of all the affordable housing occupied by low income immigrants (Matthew 23:24).

Jonas Geronimo, a St. Boniface Catholic Church parishioner in Anaheim, is quoted in the Los Angeles Times: "I've come to realize affordable housing isn't just a social issue, but a moral one," he said. "What would Jesus tell us to do? I think he would spread the message of love and brotherhood and helping your neighbor. Everyone deserves a decent living environment."

"What would Jesus do or say?" precisely begs for the bigger question that would likely be answered by Jesus in a surprising way in assessing the contentious housing affordability situation in modern Southern California. In all likelihood he would say something to the effect: "You hypocrites, first take the plank out of your own eye that keeps you from seeing all the housing that has been freely given to you, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5). Even Jesus' disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me" (John 2:17).

There is no moral higher ground when it comes to the issue of affordable housing in a "Push Down/Pop-Up World", where if you push immigrants into neighborhoods near job centers the working class are forced out to "Edge Cities." Those who advocate for affordable housing for the poor only displace the working class; and vice versa.

Faith-based affordable housing advocates apparently don't even know what "affordable housing" is, often mistaking it for luxury housing. Affordable housing is old, small, obsolescent, with few luxuries and as much deferred maintenance as is legally allowable, distant from shopping centers and public transit stops, and typically managed by a small time apartment or home owner. Unaffordable housing is new and stylish, with luxuries such as gyms, pools, and mini-movie theaters, with high homeowner's association fees for gold-plated upkeep, located on pricy commercial land next to job centers and public transit stations, and managed by corporate Real Estate Investment Trusts or government. Since when was it a Christian moral duty to advocate luxury housing for the poor as is occuring in Anaheim?

Affordable housing advocates and policy makers don't seem to understand that the more new housing that is built, the more obsolescent, and thus the more affordable, the existing older housing stock becomes.

Instead of Christian leaders taking a transcendent stance of reconciliation and gratitude in such contentious matters as affordable housing they have embraced the highly polarizing entitlement and activist models of secular politics. Helping immigrants to count their blessings of living in a country that has turned over some of its most desirable housing stock to immigrants would be a better Christian starting point to heal the growing divisiveness in our country over immigration. A Catholic Mass of Thanksgiving for America and the City of Anaheim allowing immigrants to live in highly desirable locations near jobs centers could send a signal of transcendence and reconciliation on the issue of affordable housing.

Dennis Prager has proposed giving an annual Ingrate of the Year Award to some particularly ungrateful group, country, organization or individual. I would sadly nominate the Orange County Congregation Community Organization and St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim as candidates for such a disgraceful award.

I do concur with affordable housing. Just get the rid of the regulations that inhibit the private sector from building it. But that's not what liberals mean by the term.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

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I grew up in a city. I was not forced out by cheap housing for immigrants. I was ready to leave even before blacks migrated to the cities in the 1960's when we were given the "Great Society." If the author had any experience with cities, he would have known they are noisy, violent, congested, and dirty places compared to the suburbs. You need to be rich to and live in a well to do neighborhood to enjoy the high society life. There is no peace for the middle class in cities.

The residential neighborhoods surrounding the “city core” discussed in the previous post once were the tranquil “suburbs.” They typically are comprised of smaller, older housing stock that, prior to the waves of immigration, served as starter or fixer homes for first time buyers. These homes were how first time home buyers were able to climb onto the lower rungs of the housing market and build up equity and then “trade up.” With this housing stock now removed, new home buyers are compelled to search further out for new tract homes which results in traffic congestion and pollution and highway budget funding crises. In textbooks it is called the “neighbhorhood filtration process.” This process of moving up the housing ladder has been radically interrupted by immigration thus resulting in the housing affodability crisis. So unaffordable housing is “caused” by the proletariat, not the bourgeouise gentrifiers as we are led to believe by the cognitive elites. This is not to bash immigrants or gentrification, but to point to an empirical reality. Our elite politicians and policy makers, and their cognoscenti in academia, have framed this as the rich inflicting the poor, when it is more like the poor crowding out the lower middle. Because of how the affordable housing crisis has been inaccurately framed, the faith-based community (wrongly)has intervened due to its “preferential option for the poor.” But the “poor” and the faith-based affordable housing advocates are just as much a part of the problem. Contrary to the faith-based advocates, there is no moral higher ground on affordable housing in a “push down/pop up” world.

You must be relying on 1960's textbooks. Get with the times. The urban planners are now on a "Smart Growth and Urban Density" kick.

Smart Growth is about the Stupid idea that urban planners have for us. They are necking down roads under the pretense of traffic calming to intentionally cause traffic congestion to encourage you to use public transportation. This is for real. This is worse than the Industrial Military complex in scope. It's a cabal of urban planners, architects, civil engineers, and governmental bureaucrats.

This movement goes hand in hand with the idea of preventing urban sprawl by increasing urban density - more people to live in multi unit buildings to save the wildlife.

Any Christian fake or real that is supporting housing for the poor is a mere pimple on the ass of progress run by the socialists in charge of the actual plan.

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