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As the son of former landlords who owned an 8 flat, I will pose this question: Is it fair for the mortgage paying, property tax paying, upkeep paying landlord to be dictated to as to what tenants they want to rent to?? Not always, but usually, the childless professional couple were better tenants as far as what shape the unit was in when they moved out, then the one parent renter with an unsupervised teenager at home. Of course there were exceptions, but is the State going to compensate the owner if the Section 8 renter leaves a unit in poor condition needing $$ of repair to rent again? If they did, it would be quite an incentive. The other benefit of renting to section 8 is less likelihood of non-rent payment and the lengthy and expensive eviction process. But there are 2 sides to the argument of owner vs. tenant rights!
As the son of former landlords who owned an 8 flat, I will pose this question: Is it fair for the mortgage paying, property tax paying, upkeep paying landlord to be dictated to as to what tenants they want to rent to?? Not always, but usually, the childless professional couple were better tenants as far as what shape the unit was in when they moved out, then the one parent renter with an unsupervised teenager at home.
Personally I don't think so but your esteemed Cook County Board of Commissioners doesn't agree with me. They just amended the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance to make discrimination based on Section 8 voucher status unlawful. Source of income was always protected but Section 8 vouchers were always excluded from that protection. "Housing rights" advocates (the majority of whom have probably never lived within 10 miles of a Section 8 voucher holder in their lives) had been fighting for years to change that. They just got their way and you can now be sued if you refuse to rent to a Section 8 voucher holder.
Of course there were exceptions, but is the State going to compensate the owner if the Section 8 renter leaves a unit in poor condition needing $$ of repair to rent again? If they did, it would be quite an incentive. The other benefit of renting to section 8 is less likelihood of non-rent payment and the lengthy and expensive eviction process.
No, that's not in the plan at this time. Tight budgets, you know. You evil capitalists with all your money should be able to cover that
But there are 2 sides to the argument of owner vs. tenant rights
There are, and owners have been getting trounced on this issue. I'm surprised realtor boards didn't resist this more to be honest. It's a pretty important issue for property owners.
There are, and owners have been getting trounced on this issue. I'm surprised realtor boards didn't resist this more to be honest. It's a pretty important issue for property owners.
Actually, the local Realtor boards did try to stop this. They went as far as calling members directly to ask for support. Obviously, they lost anyway, but I know they were trying since I got the calls.
Does "Sundown town" mean blacks had to leave by sundown? FYI Levittown NY, never considered a snobbish place, had racially restrictive covenants, later struck down by the Courts.
Does "Sundown town" mean blacks had to leave by sundown? FYI Levittown NY, never considered a snobbish place, had racially restrictive covenants, later struck down by the Courts.
In some cases, signs were placed at the town's borders with statements similar to the one posted in Hawthorne, California, which read "******, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne" in the 1930s
This is the latest nightmare in social engineering. Towns will be forced to take Section 8 and other housing schemes or lose all federal funding.
I was a landlord for 20 years in the Washington D.C.area. No longer. They recently passed a law that did not permit me to investigate WHERE a renter procured his income. Being unemployed was no excuse not to rent. At least section 8 "guarantees" a percentage of payment, albeit on someone else's dime. I would have been forced to rent to drug dealers, prostitutes, etc. or anyone else with untraceable income. No thanks.
Good link. Thanks! A huge problem was that for years middle class America looked the other way as these programs became more and more entrenched as they failed miserably at their intended purpose. "If not in my backyard then who cares?" was the mantra for decades, as people felt institutionalized poverty was a big city problem, and were generally pretty isolated from it.
Now, with Cook County's amendments to the human rights ordinance and the hare brained plan described in bungalowdweller's link, we're seeing that this is could never be the case forever. About the only thing good that will come of this is, hopefully, it'll get more people thinking about what these social programs are really doing.
You didn't answer my question: do you want the feds to impose "fairness" on society? And if not, what *are* you proposing?
Well, somebody's got to do it. So if people aren't willing to be fair on their own, I don't oppose the government providing some guidance or pressure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cubssoxfan
Not always, but usually, the childless professional couple were better tenants as far as what shape the unit was in when they moved out, then the one parent renter with an unsupervised teenager at home. Of course there were exceptions, but is the State going to compensate the owner if the Section 8 renter leaves a unit in poor condition needing $$ of repair to rent again?
Do Section 8 renters have to pay a security deposit? Wouldn't any damage come off of the security deposit just like any other renter?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vasily
Housing subsidy programs date back at least to the 1960s and the heady days of the Great Society whose goals were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. You tell me: how's that workin' for us? Last I checked, we still have a large underclass in this country almost 50 years later, mostly black and multigenerational. Rather than eliminating poverty, the Great Society institutionalized it.
You ask about people not being able to afford housing in areas where they live ... Wilmette is 0.8% black and 3.3% hispanic. It's basically a bunch of well-off white and asian folks, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the blacks and hispanics who live there are solidly middle class. Are you saying the feds should forcibly move poor folks into Wilmette so they can commute many miles to work and to buy groceries they can afford? Guess they'd then have a ready source of house help ... In the old days they called that "slave quarters".
Regarding affluent support of subsidized housing, rich progs love the poor as long as they don't live next to them ... Just like they're all for wind farms as long as they don't have to look at them.
I agree that the promises of the Great Society haven't worked to the extent that the developers of those programs imagined. And since that time 40 or 50 years ago, there hasn't been any large-scale overhaul or "rethinking" of how those programs should work.
But we will always have the poor (as Jesus said) and the thing is, as a society how are we going to treat them? Like outcasts who are shunned and sent off to communities that are already downtrodden (because communities like Winnetka and its property owners can afford the legal maneuvers or scheming to keep rent prices high and zoning lawsuits away?) Or are we going to do the hard work of uplifting people?
The point is, it is going to take work, and thought, and strategy, and cooperation to reinvent these programs and try to make them more fair and more effective. The thing is, people don't want to collaborate, and the funding and support isn't there for a new large scale vision or strategic plan. If well-off communities (and landlords) do nothing but play the NIMBY card, that's a defensive move. What we really need is people from those groups coming to the table to work on solutions. And change has to come from the other side too. If there are abuses of the system (which I think are mainly very exaggerated), those should be addressed as well.
Good link. Thanks! A huge problem was that for years middle class America looked the other way as these programs became more and more entrenched as they failed miserably at their intended purpose. "If not in my backyard then who cares?" was the mantra for decades, as people felt institutionalized poverty was a big city problem, and were generally pretty isolated from it.
Now, with Cook County's amendments to the human rights ordinance and the hare brained plan described in bungalowdweller's link, we're seeing that this is could never be the case forever. About the only thing good that will come of this is, hopefully, it'll get more people thinking about what these social programs are really doing.
I think most people in life, generally, want to do the right thing. I know those were the values that most of us who grew up in Catholic parishes or in small towns believed in.
So maybe if people have this pressure of now having to deal with what they pushed away all those years, at least some of them are going to try to work together to help the situation. The answer isn't gutting the social programs because that will lead us nowhere. It's re-envisioning them in some kind of better way. I don't have the answer. But maybe between non-profits and government and the private sector working together, something can be figured out that's different than what we're doing now.
My feeling is it's going to have to be a collaboration, because government trying to do it all by itself, didn't work. The danger when you get non-profits involved though, is, if its a religious nonprofit, are they going to only serve those who meet their own criteria? So government still has to have a role in ensuring fairness and access to all.
And part of the reason we’ve been active like never before is because the nature of discrimination has changed over the years. While blatant, “in your face”, discrimination is still very real today – a quieter form of discrimination has emerged that is just as harmful to our country.
This was a key finding of a HUD report released on June 11th on Housing Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities. It found that after an initial showing – real estate agents and rental housing providers recommend and show fewer available homes to minority families than equally qualified whites.
In the rental market, for example, African Americans learned about 11% fewer available units.
And when it came to purchases, Black homebuyers learned about 17% fewer homes.
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. We have more than tripled the number of Secretary-initiated complaints that we have filed since 2008. And in the larger picture—recognizing that discrimination is changing—we are changing our approach to Fair Housing by bringing it into the 21st century.
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.
So, I'm not seeing any message here about cutting federal dollars to communities. This sounds instead like it would apply civil actions to realtors or rental agents who show less choices to minority prospective renters/buyers.
Also "giving every community access to important neighborhood amenities" might refer to the actions of addressing the Chicago south side food deserts or working with other government agencies (he mentions the Department of Health and Human Services) to address healthcare discrepancies.
Good health care, schools, and streets isn't just a suburban phenomenon. There's Blue Ribbon schools in cities, also.
He also closes with talking about the poor and the working class, and for example in Indiana that is mainly a white, poor and working class (since Indiana is 86% white.)
Fox and Investor.com and these other fringe media sites have really cherry-picked the words to polarize this speech. I would fact-check before trusting what appears on those "news" sites.
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