U.S. neighborhoods grow more crowded

USA Today ^ | 07/02/02 | Haya El Nasser

[FreedomFriend]

TRENTON, N.J.

[FreedomFriend]

ping

[hedgetrimmer]

This is old news in Watsonville, California. We had one woman who dug a dirt basement under her one-bedroom house and had 19 men living there each paying $500 a month in tax free rent. When her house caught fire from an overburdened electrical outlet, not a thing happened to her. Local taxpayers however had to pay for hotel rooms for the men while they found other housing and had to pay for the social workers who helped them to find housing.

[FreedomFriend]

While USA Today tried to be moderate, this article is slightly biased towards the "immigrant" side.

[FreedomFriend]

A dirt basement? That means that the men had to come into the house to take showers, use appliances, etc.

I suppose that it is the money aspect that led her to forget about American sovereignty and the rule of law. It's similar to our politicians and campaign contributions.

$500/mth. That's crazy. A dirt basement? You can stay at an extended stay hotel for roughly that price.

[hedgetrimmer]

I might add to the Watsonville story, that complaints to the fire marshal went unanswered, until there was a fire. The city planning department was urged to red tag or fine landlords violating the office of the state architects recommendations for the number of persons per square foot inhabiting a home. They pretty much get paid for that job, but not once 10 years have I ever seen the city planning department do what it was paid to do with respect to upholding the zoning and safety ordinances.

[hedgetrimmer]

If you are illegal, you stay where you think you won't get caught. And $500 per month is cheap in this area and you don't have to get a credit check or sign any rental agreements. You just pays your money.

We have had illegals living in dirt caves in Monterey, to stay under the radar, so a dirt basement is a downright palace I suppose.

[Don Myers]

We are rapidly becoming a third-world country. The world sees the blessings of America. They all come here. There are no more blessings for anyone. End of story.

[Carry_Okie]

Meanwhile the last time I checked (about a year ago) the average total of costs and fees for a building permit for a 2,400 square foot house in the County of Santa Cruz nears $30,000 (that doesn't include interest costs, folks).

[Slyfox]

"Many of these immigrant families seem to have a great deal of wealth," former school board president Lynn Thornton says. "They buy the larger homes so they will be able to accommodate more people."

They aren't neccessarily wealthy. They get vouchers from the government which helps them to buy a house they normally could not afford. In our neighborhood, people from the federal housing department are pestering older couples into selling their houses. Houses that are paid off and where these older couple had planned to spend their retiring years. They are getting pestered to sell their houses so that the feds can bring in people who really can't afford to live in the neighborhood. Yep, two to three families and four to six cars and trucks parked out front. It's a mess and it makes the neighborhood look like crap.

[FreedomFriend]

Santa Cruz is a nice place, isn't it?

[FreedomFriend]

Are your referring to HUD? I know that some neighborhoods in our area have had an influx of "HUD HOMES" over the past few years. However, I haven't seen any within the past six to eight months. Perhaps the market is getting tighter.

[FreedomFriend]

Well, it appears that is the case.

We just purchased a can of "Pringles" and noticed that Spanish is written all over the can. Apparently, Procter & Gamble own them, and that particular company has made all of their products' labels bilingual. Boycott Procter & Gamble?

[FreedomFriend]

Good grief.

[Carry_Okie]

Some of it is. The further you get from the coast, the better. Must be the water. My dad has a theory that the relative insanity of a city is directly related to its proximity to large bodies of water. I guess that would explain Manhattan, Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco...

[FreedomFriend]

Hmm, that's odd, because in Los Angeles, the coastal areas are the nicest and the inland areas are the worst.

[Drew68]

We are rapidly becoming a third-world country. The world sees the blessings of America. They all come here. There are no more blessings for anyone. End of story.

As the article stated,

"American middle-class housing standards may no longer apply in an increasingly multiethnic society."

In other words, our standard of living is too high to accomodate immigrants from third-world nations, so we must lower our standards of what we find acceptable. Disgraceful.

[Slyfox]

Yeah, that's HUD. Some program they have had going for the past few years. The real estate agents are even beginning to complain about it at homeowner association meetings.

[Don Myers]

I don't think that boycotting is the answer. I am not sure there is a reversal of what the left has done to this country.