What is Obama's current relationship with all of these people and companies mentioned in the article who were in charge of maintaining these housing developments? Perhaps I missed that part in the article. If not then could someone provide documentation citing his current relationship with all of them?
- Aug 24, 2001
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Again, lighten up Francis. I'm simply providing a counter-point.
The point of Section 8 is to do exactly what Sandorski just proposed - mixing the low-income with higher-income neighborhoods. Unfortunately, this didn't work out for a multitude of reasons as detailed in the article. The primary reason, as I understood it, though was because these low-income people were sent out to these middle-class neighborhoods with their Section 8 checks and left to fend for themselves without any of the underlying support or any sort of observance on how the change would affect them. As a result, the gang-bangers and drug dealers re-established old connections along with new connections and crime skyrocketed.
My solution. I don't have one. But I can definitely point to a government program where something was subsidized and then ignored which ultimately resulted in failure. Kind of like Obama's legislation.
It isn't straw man at all. I took his actions and his statements and pointed out how they were not working together.
I mentioned his failed policy in that post and others.... both of them have to do with the topic at hand. You want to see a strawman, look at ayabe's post above.
Whatever you want to call it. The idea was to get them out of their situation. The problem is they are the situation. Moving their location or scenary doesnt do a whole hell of a lot.
- Aug 24, 2001
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It only works for those that truly want to improve their situation. In the pilot program that Section 8 was based off of, applicants were screened and processed for that desire. Not even all of those were selected. The participants were monitored to see how their situation changed and how it could be changed to help.
That pilot program was successful for the most part. However, when it was fully implemented, instead of keeping with the spirit of that pilot program and screening those that want to improve their situation, everyone was given a check and sent out into the wild to fend for themselves.
I doubt that there's any hope for people like that. I mean, come on, there's a fucking school. Go to it. Learn and make your life better. If they can't understand that, there's no hope. IMHO, it's better to lock them up and throw away the keys.
And as witnessed time and time again many will bring it with them causing misery to their new neighbors driving them out.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,101
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Myabe, but it won't be as bad as the Projects. I'm sorry, you're looking for a complete solution, there isn't one. You're also looking to be insulated from some of the negatives within Society, you're not special to be afforded such a thing. Continued sheltering only perpetuates the situation and makes it worse.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,415
- 14,305
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Just because you can't make it drink is no reason not to lead the horse to water.
What I'm saying is that you're being unrealistic. The success or lack of with many of these programs is more a matter of opinion than anything else. If you expected 100% success, then obviously, they were a failure.
I'm lukewarm (to say the least) on these programs, but quite frankly, I don't like your attitude. The biggest challenge for the poor IMO is not that they are all bad, but that they invariably get treated like they are. This is counter-productive for society, because the harsh environment they live in also produces some of brightest and best as well as the worst. Society has an obligation (to itself) to find these best and remove them from that environment so that they can work FOR society instead of against it. Because it is the nature of intelligent people that if they are not given the opportunity to work for society, and be rewarded likewise, then they will work against it. Hell, history is literally dominated by this.
Yup. If there is one thing that is for certain, we cannot just continue to sit back and pretend this problem doesn't exist and nor can we expect it to fix itself because we have tried both of those before and it just doesn't work. We have to do something and that "something" will entail everyone chipping in a little some how. Like it or not, ignoring the issue and throwing temper tantrums about how you shouldn't have to be effected by such things will get you no where. As long as the issue exists, we will all be effected negatively by it whether the government gets involved or not.
Thank you Ronald Reagan.:frown:
Reagan?s Legacy: Homelessness in America
By Peter Dreier
As some Americans mourn the death of Ronald Reagan, let us recall that the two-term president was no friend to America?s cities or its poor. Reagan came to office in 1981 with a mandate to reduce federal spending. In reality, he increased it through the escalating military budget, all the while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working class Americans, particularly the poor.
Reagan?s fans give him credit for restoring the nation?s prosperity. But whatever economic growth occurred during the Reagan years only benefited those already well off. The income gap between the rich and everyone else in America widened. Wages for the average worker declined and the nation?s homeownership rate fell. During Reagan?s two terms in the White House, which were boon times for the rich, the poverty rate in cities grew.
His indifference to urban problems was legendary. Reagan owed little to urban voters, big-city mayors, black or Hispanic leaders, or labor unions ? the major advocates for metropolitan concerns. Early in his presidency, at a White House reception, Reagan greeted the only black member of his Cabinet, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Samuel Pierce, saying: ?How are you, Mr. Mayor? I?m glad to meet you. How are things in your city??
Reagan not only failed to recognize his own HUD Secretary, he failed to deal with the growing corruption scandal at the agency that resulted in the indictment and conviction of top Reagan administration officials for illegally targeting housing subsidies to politically connected developers. Fortunately for Reagan, the ?HUD Scandal? wasn?t uncovered until he?d left office.
Reagan also presided over the dramatic deregulation of the nation?s savings and loan industry allowing S&Ls to end their reliance on home mortgages and engage in an orgy of commercial real estate speculation. The result was widespread corruption, mismanagement and the collapse of hundreds of thrift institutions that ultimately led to a taxpayer bailout that cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
The 1980s saw pervasive racial discrimination by banks, real estate agents and landlords, unmonitored by the Reagan administration. Community groups uncovered blatant redlining by banks using federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information. But Reagan?s HUD and justice departments failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending. During that time, of the 40,000 applications from banks requesting permission to expand their operations, Reagan?s bank regulators denied only eight of them on grounds of violating CRA regulations.
By the end of Reagan?s term in office federal assistance to local governments was cut 60 percent. Reagan eliminated general revenue sharing to cities, slashed funding for public service jobs and job training, almost dismantled federally funded legal services for the poor, cut the anti-poverty Community Development Block Grant program and reduced funds for public transit. The only ?urban? program that survived the cuts was federal aid for highways ? which primarily benefited suburbs, not cities.
These cutbacks had a disastrous effect on cities with high levels of poverty and limited property tax bases, many of which depended on federal aid. In 1980 federal dollars accounted for 22 percent of big city budgets. By the end of Reagan?s second term, federal aid was only 6 percent.
The consequences were devastating to urban schools and libraries, municipal hospitals and clinics, and sanitation, police and fire departments ? many of which had to shut their doors.
Reagan is lauded as ?the great communicator,? but he sometimes used his rhetorical skills to stigmatize the poor. During his stump speeches while dutifully promising to roll back welfare, Reagan often told the story of a so-called ?welfare queen? in Chicago who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husbands. Journalists searched for this ?welfare cheat? in the hopes of interviewing her and discovered that she didn?t exist.
The imagery of ?welfare cheats? that persists to this day helped lay the groundwork for the 1996 welfare reform law, pushed by Republicans and signed by President Clinton.
The most dramatic cut in domestic spending during the Reagan years was for low-income housing subsidies. Reagan appointed a housing task force dominated by politically connected developers, landlords and bankers. In 1982 the task force released a report that called for ?free and deregulated? markets as an alternative to government assistance ? advice Reagan followed. In his first year in office Reagan halved the budget for public housing and Section 8 to about $17.5 billion. And for the next few years he sought to eliminate federal housing assistance to the poor altogether.
In the 1980s the proportion of the eligible poor who received federal housing subsidies declined. In 1970 there were 300,000 more low-cost rental units (6.5 million) than low-income renter households (6.2 million). By 1985 the number of low-cost units had fallen to 5.6 million, and the number of low-income renter households had grown to 8.9 million, a disparity of 3.3 million units.
Another of Reagan?s enduring legacies is the steep increase in the number of homeless people, which by the late 1980s had swollen to 600,000 on any given night ? and 1.2 million over the course of a year. Many were Vietnam veterans, children and laid-off workers.
In early 1984 on Good Morning America, Reagan defended himself against charges of callousness toward the poor in a classic blaming-the-victim statement saying that ?people who are sleeping on the grates?the homeless?are homeless, you might say, by choice.?
Tenant groups, community development corporations and community organizations fought to limit the damage done by Reagan?s cutbacks. Some important victories were won when Clinton entered office ? the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and stronger enforcement of the CRA. Funding for low-income housing, legal services, job training and other programs has never been restored to pre-Reagan levels, and the widening disparities between the rich and the rest persist.
President George W. Bush, who often claims Reagan?s mantle, recently proposed cutting one-third of the Section 8 housing vouchers ? a lifeline against homelessness for two million poor families.
We?ve already named a major airport, schools and streets after Ronald Reagan, and since his death some people have suggested other ways to celebrate his memory. Perhaps a more fitting tribute to his legacy would be for each American city to name a park bench ? where at least one homeless person sleeps every night ? in honor of our 40th president.
Text
Reagan?s Legacy: Homelessness in America
By Peter Dreier
As some Americans mourn the death of Ronald Reagan, let us recall that the two-term president was no friend to America?s cities or its poor. Reagan came to office in 1981 with a mandate to reduce federal spending. In reality, he increased it through the escalating military budget, all the while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working class Americans, particularly the poor.
Reagan?s fans give him credit for restoring the nation?s prosperity. But whatever economic growth occurred during the Reagan years only benefited those already well off. The income gap between the rich and everyone else in America widened. Wages for the average worker declined and the nation?s homeownership rate fell. During Reagan?s two terms in the White House, which were boon times for the rich, the poverty rate in cities grew.
His indifference to urban problems was legendary. Reagan owed little to urban voters, big-city mayors, black or Hispanic leaders, or labor unions ? the major advocates for metropolitan concerns. Early in his presidency, at a White House reception, Reagan greeted the only black member of his Cabinet, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Samuel Pierce, saying: ?How are you, Mr. Mayor? I?m glad to meet you. How are things in your city??
Reagan not only failed to recognize his own HUD Secretary, he failed to deal with the growing corruption scandal at the agency that resulted in the indictment and conviction of top Reagan administration officials for illegally targeting housing subsidies to politically connected developers. Fortunately for Reagan, the ?HUD Scandal? wasn?t uncovered until he?d left office.
Reagan also presided over the dramatic deregulation of the nation?s savings and loan industry allowing S&Ls to end their reliance on home mortgages and engage in an orgy of commercial real estate speculation. The result was widespread corruption, mismanagement and the collapse of hundreds of thrift institutions that ultimately led to a taxpayer bailout that cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
The 1980s saw pervasive racial discrimination by banks, real estate agents and landlords, unmonitored by the Reagan administration. Community groups uncovered blatant redlining by banks using federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information. But Reagan?s HUD and justice departments failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending. During that time, of the 40,000 applications from banks requesting permission to expand their operations, Reagan?s bank regulators denied only eight of them on grounds of violating CRA regulations.
By the end of Reagan?s term in office federal assistance to local governments was cut 60 percent. Reagan eliminated general revenue sharing to cities, slashed funding for public service jobs and job training, almost dismantled federally funded legal services for the poor, cut the anti-poverty Community Development Block Grant program and reduced funds for public transit. The only ?urban? program that survived the cuts was federal aid for highways ? which primarily benefited suburbs, not cities.
These cutbacks had a disastrous effect on cities with high levels of poverty and limited property tax bases, many of which depended on federal aid. In 1980 federal dollars accounted for 22 percent of big city budgets. By the end of Reagan?s second term, federal aid was only 6 percent.
The consequences were devastating to urban schools and libraries, municipal hospitals and clinics, and sanitation, police and fire departments ? many of which had to shut their doors.
Reagan is lauded as ?the great communicator,? but he sometimes used his rhetorical skills to stigmatize the poor. During his stump speeches while dutifully promising to roll back welfare, Reagan often told the story of a so-called ?welfare queen? in Chicago who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husbands. Journalists searched for this ?welfare cheat? in the hopes of interviewing her and discovered that she didn?t exist.
The imagery of ?welfare cheats? that persists to this day helped lay the groundwork for the 1996 welfare reform law, pushed by Republicans and signed by President Clinton.
The most dramatic cut in domestic spending during the Reagan years was for low-income housing subsidies. Reagan appointed a housing task force dominated by politically connected developers, landlords and bankers. In 1982 the task force released a report that called for ?free and deregulated? markets as an alternative to government assistance ? advice Reagan followed. In his first year in office Reagan halved the budget for public housing and Section 8 to about $17.5 billion. And for the next few years he sought to eliminate federal housing assistance to the poor altogether.
In the 1980s the proportion of the eligible poor who received federal housing subsidies declined. In 1970 there were 300,000 more low-cost rental units (6.5 million) than low-income renter households (6.2 million). By 1985 the number of low-cost units had fallen to 5.6 million, and the number of low-income renter households had grown to 8.9 million, a disparity of 3.3 million units.
Another of Reagan?s enduring legacies is the steep increase in the number of homeless people, which by the late 1980s had swollen to 600,000 on any given night ? and 1.2 million over the course of a year. Many were Vietnam veterans, children and laid-off workers.
In early 1984 on Good Morning America, Reagan defended himself against charges of callousness toward the poor in a classic blaming-the-victim statement saying that ?people who are sleeping on the grates?the homeless?are homeless, you might say, by choice.?
Tenant groups, community development corporations and community organizations fought to limit the damage done by Reagan?s cutbacks. Some important victories were won when Clinton entered office ? the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and stronger enforcement of the CRA. Funding for low-income housing, legal services, job training and other programs has never been restored to pre-Reagan levels, and the widening disparities between the rich and the rest persist.
President George W. Bush, who often claims Reagan?s mantle, recently proposed cutting one-third of the Section 8 housing vouchers ? a lifeline against homelessness for two million poor families.
We?ve already named a major airport, schools and streets after Ronald Reagan, and since his death some people have suggested other ways to celebrate his memory. Perhaps a more fitting tribute to his legacy would be for each American city to name a park bench ? where at least one homeless person sleeps every night ? in honor of our 40th president.
Text
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