People work hard, save money, make sacrifices, and buy houses (for a premium) in safe, clean neighborhoods, and a gaggle of liberal lawyers ask a judge to dictate social policy and ship in people who didn’t do those things, people dependent on the government.
“Good schools” is one of the reasons cited. Does anybody want to guess why the schools are good? Never mind. The question’s rhetorical.
You maintain and care for something you own much better than something you rent. And when the government (taxpayers) pays a large portion of the rent, you care even less about it. It’s not yours. We all know how it works.
If this goes through, property values will drop (partly because of Section 8 housing), crime will increase, and the tax base will shrink (adversely affecting those “good schools”) because the better-off who work to pay for the schools will move again. And again. And again. At least for now, people are still free to live where they want to live in this country, government social experiments notwithstanding.
There ought to be a law…
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{ 31 comments }
I had to check the top of the web page to make sure it said “Baltimore Sun” and not “The Onion”. This is a horrible idea on every level. Maybe by the time I have kids all they’ll have to do is.. well, nothing, and then they’ll get moved right on up to the ‘burbs!
Property VALUES might drop (more like a certainty), and yet…property TAXES for the same “blighted area” homes goes UP….and this cyclical bane rolls ever onward.
At least it does on the south side of Fort Wayne.
My wife and I happen to be *one of THOSE* families that tries to maintain our property. Yes, we OWN the house (and pay the aforementioned taxes so all the “others” can get the section 8 gig).
The politicos scramble EVERY year when the budget comes around because the tax base IS deteriorating, thanks not only to all the outsourcing of jobs, but also the moving away of other companies that get even BETTER tax abatements than our city can provide (replete with no guarantee by the company that they will stay and provide those jobs for any length of time).
Yet there ARE those who maintain it’s all about *poverty*, to which I would reply (in no certain terms)…Bull-s**t!
Poverty means you DON’T waste stuff, be it food, papers or whatever. When half-eaten food is tossed about MY property by some moron dumber than a bag of rocks who is living in section 8 housing (on my street no less), while driving a nice NEW SUV and paying for several HUNDRED dollars of food with STAMPS, while we work our butts off to live a relatively sedate lifestyle…I take umbrage in the “poverty” aspect of that person.
It’s called LAZY. It’s called not giving a rat’s backside about anything OR anyone. And it’s called “Playing the system”.
THAT is the REAL problem. I’ve known my share of REALLY poor people, and they sure don’t act like this.
We are privy to all this…merely for the sake of “diversity”…it makes the mind boggle.
Creating more *programs* like all day kindergarten do nothing.
Dumbing down tests so students can ALL get a fair shake….wrong. Where is the CHALLENGE these kids are supposed to take up and run with (like WE did)?
Free breakfast and lunch…..anyone that can’t figure out the whole “bowl…cereal…milk” thing needs to be placed in the hands of a caregiver, and NOT mainstreamed into a normal environment…same goes for all the “special-ed” kids….almost 85% of them should NOT qualify for that moniker. Having a social-interaction problem should NOT make any child “special-ed”…it should make them able to be placed in a school that addresses THAT issue…used to be called REFORM SCHOOL.
But then again….I suppose the government(s) NEED to waste money SOMEWHERE…right?
Let me know if they want to waste some in *MY* direction…please!
Bob G.
If Baltimore wants to dilute the city’s concentration of poor, perhaps they should do something, perhaps encourage job creation, and vigorously police neighborhoods instead of shipping the poorest off to the counties.
LaShawn, it will only get worse. Check this out
http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/census2000/race_census/racecontours/ethington/ethington_maps5.htm
I grew up in a social experiment–went to diverse schools with rich kids and welfare ones, and was even bussed (I’m not black) to “balance out” a school. I definitely had negative and positive experiences, but I don’t think I’d want to send my kids through the same experiment, especially when those types of social decisions exclude God and anything Biblical.
My experience is similar to Bob G…as it turned out, the house next to the first house we owned was owned by the Housing Authority, and the seven kids who lived there had no respect for our property (one of the kids tried to convince us that the previous owners had let them have free run of our playscape on the day we moved in). The kids would ride their bikes across a lawn we tried to keep looking well-maintained, and they would climb on our fence all the time (including one instance in which the mother had to come to our door wanting to retrieve her one-year-old, who had fallen into our yard), which eventually contributed to its collapse.
Those neighbors, our other neighbor who parked in the grass between our driveways, and the ubiquitous “for lease” signs appearing throughout, all made our decision to move to a neighborhood with a homeowner’s associaion really easy. Here everyone respects property, since residents face fines from the HOA if they don’t.
Growing up in Baltimore I saw first hand what happened after many of the high rise apartments in the projects were torn down and people were put into section 8 housing in areas like the Baltimore County side of Liberty Road. (Baltimore County is a county on the outskirts of Baltimore City. Unlike some areas where the city is part of a county, Baltimore county is totally separate from Baltimore City.) No this is nothing new and it’s happened in Maryland before. Although Liberals keep pushing for it to be done on a more massive scale.
Schools in the area like former Milford Mill and still existing Randalstown High went DOWNHILL AND FAST. Crime went up. Several good businesses left.
And now they simply want to spread the Section 8 housing out even more.
Which means more middle classed areas will be affected. No really high income area will have any of these Section 8 homes. Not that they or even the middle classed should have to endure the burden by government mandate.
Cleaning up PART Baltimore’s Harbor area was good for the City. Although it all was not cleaned up and anyone living in Baltimore knows what I’m talking about
. Hang around the old Shot Tower late at night and YOU might get shot!
In cleaning up areas, the Section 8 housing should not have been made into a burden for the rest of the state. It was like the City was upset it had too many poor people and told the rest of the state HERE YOU TAKE THEM WHILE WE BUILD UP THE AREAS WHERE THEY USED TO LIVE! Baltimore’s current Mayor is against the latest efforts, but it was not like that when Kurt Schmoke was mayor, he was all for unloading the poor elsewhere.
The poor should have been placed into homes/apartments in another low income area. And the only additional funding should have been for a STRONGER POLICE PRESENCE!
The real issue is that Liberals feel that getting a concentration of the poor out of the city will help. But then they are only placed in smaller concentrations in areas with more money. They (poor) will cling to each other because they can relate to on another. Meaning they will only keep their old bad habits in the name of preserving their way of life. Otherwise many of them will feel like a “sellout” that is “acting White”. I’m only saying what I’ve seen with my own eyes.
If you could spread them to about 50 miles away from each other, so the only families they were left to interact with were people doing better than them, some of the kids in these poor families just MIGHT strive to do better by looking at their new friends. Although the opposite could occur. Just the same that’s not how the plan is done. And the expense of that idea would be way too high. (Personally I would have liked to have seen this done with New Orlean’s Katrina evacuees that were living in public housing. Just to see if it would work. Assuming they were only placed in a town that would accept just 1 poor family.)
All poor areas need is a strong police presence, so that kids who want to attend school and learn something can do so. I know too many Baltimore teachers to know that those schools are not “bad schools”. Those schools have BAD KIDS. Being raised by BAD PARENTS. This means schools should be able to toss a bad kid out more easily.
O’Malley is a Liberal, but he beefed up the police in some areas and those areas improved. When I go back home I speak with people who tell me this is true. They themselves live in some of those high crime areas.
I wasn’t making that connection at all. The point is moot anyway since the post is closed and, therefore, your comment is off-topic. But I appreciate your initiative. – Admin
I know it sounds harsh, but there are just some people I wouldn’t want living near me and areas I would never dream of moving into. And when the types of people who inhabit these areas start popping up in your area, it can be quite alarming.
When certain people are accustomed to not working hard, not playing by the rules and not maintaining a respectable standard of living, they do not make very good neighbors. Take Chicago for example. When my parents and grandparents lived there years ago, it was a good place to be and a safe place to raise a family. That was then. Once the current demographic took over, the whole city went to hell and that chased the people who were there in the first place farther out into the suburbs and rural areas. Today, Chicago is an overpriced crime ridden cesspool, and I’m grateful not to live there.
A huge part of the problem in big cities like Chicago is the fact that people there are largely out of touch. A town where flashy spinning hubcaps are more impressive than a good education, a well paying job and a nice clean lawn is no place I want to live.
O’Malley is a Liberal, but he beefed up the police in some areas and those areas improved. When I go back home I speak with people who tell me this is true. They themselves live in some of those high crime areas.
OMalley fudged the crime stats. The police fudged the crime stats. Channel 11 News is doing a GREAT investigative series that exposes what is going on.
“People dependent on the government”?
You mean like defense contractors and tax preparers there, La Shawn? [[Grin]]
No, I’m referring to people who don’t work for their keep and subsist on money that somone else earn. WORKING for the salary is the focus, not who pays the salary. – Admin
In a “prior life” I taught school in an institution in Indiana. One part of it was both rewarding, and heart breaking. One of my classes consisted of what were then known as “retarded people”. Rewarding because they would try so hard to learn to read and write. They just knew that if they learned to read and write they would be smarter. A range of IQ’s from ? 60 to 80 ?
Heart breaking because after trying so hard and learning so painfully slow, they could not retain it. People whose behavior and demeanor made them some of the most loving and sincere individuals I have ever known.
A slap in the face contrast were other classes of “normal” kids (also with similar scores) who could care less if they ever learned anything. Anything at all. Who were too “slick” to be fooled by any of that junk. Must be grateful for the exposure. Without such exposure (and my reaction to it), do not know where I would have ended up.
Government tries to take people out of poverty. Unfortunately, people bring that poverty with them and trash their new surroundings. The Lord, if we are willing, takes that poverty out of us. With the basics we need to know in life available in our new surroundings (various churches) life can become (more) successful.
We are not told we will not be tested. He promises us that we will be tested, sometimes quite hard indeed. Its just that a lot of the stupid things I would have had to have lived with never came to pass. Thanks to those who have shared those things with me.
In an earlier set of posts I have disagreed with some of the assumptions about IQ’s. In part that was because of some things I have been slapped in the face with in my life. Still believe there are depths and currents in people not properly addressed by anything I am aware of.
Let’s see….. the federal government once again steps over the line of its constitutional authority to mess up yet another matter that should belong to the states exclusively….. yep, situation normal.
Has anyone in Washington actually READ the U.S. Constitution? If so, I’d like for them to point out the constitutional authority for bungling bureaucratic nightmares like HUD. Hint: They can’t, because it isn’t in there, which means that the feds are not authorized to do it.
“Good schools†is one of the reasons cited. Does anybody want to guess why the schools are good? Never mind. The question’s rhetorical.
I agree with this totally, but the same thing applies to school vouchers. Those good private schools are good because certain types of students don’t attend them. We send these types of students to the private schools via vouchers and those schools go down.
Students make or break schools, not the teacher, administrations nor teachers unions. Moving problems from one location to another solves nothing. This whole situation will simply result in white flight, which will result in an even faster drop in property value, which will result in the creation of new ghettoes. The nicest middle class minority neighborhoods are those that were minority from the jump and never went through the whole white flight dynamic.
My now deceased husband is from Baltimore. He grew up on Mt. Royal avenue when it was a ghetto. He was white. But, at that time (in the 60’s) you got on a school bus and went to a school of choice that offered what you were interested in. He went to Polytechnical Institute. He traveled by city bus a long ways. He was required to wear a shirt and tie every day. Folks I’m not from Baltimore, so bear with me. In any event, it was an Engineering High School. Even though he was dirt poor, he received a wonderful education.
Now, I realize racism was prevalent in those days. I’m not sure blacks were even allowed to attend Poly, but the point is, if we eliminate race as factor as the law does today, why not provide a system whereby a kid can get on a bus and go to their school of choice via voucher where they can vest in something that provides a potential career?
Moving people from one area to another isn’t going to solve anything, but providing options for education can.
Wow, I read the article and I think you folks are being a little extreme. Now of course, I have to say it really depends on what Maryland has in mind, but in general, placing section 8 housing in the suburbs is not a bad idea, and it does not hurt property values.
If you are envisioning large public housing tenements, I could see the concern, but in general, that is not what is done.
I live in Northern Virginia and our housing values are doing very well, but we have dispersed section 8 and public housing projects. Often you cannot even tell until you try rent and discover you exceed the income limits. The properties often look just like other properties in the area.
I used to live in a townhouse development that was right next to public housing, from the street you could not tell, because they were essentially the same property. It appeared to be converted military housing. Some owned by a private business and some by the government. The only way to tell the difference was little blue signs telling you the property belonged to the housing authority.
The elementary school, jobs, groceries stores, restaurants, and the bus line were in walking distance. It is very nice neighborhood. Frankly, I could not afford to own in the area. I brought my townhouse in western Fairfax, but there too one can find low-density section 8 and public housing. I believe there are some such properties in my housing development.
Where I live there is an apartment complex, back-to-back townhouses, 2 and 3 level townhouses and single detached houses. There are two tot lots, a community swimming pool, tennis courts and basketball courts. I am certainly not bothered that a few units are section 8. My home has appreciated substantially.
Now I will freely admit I will not send my child to our local public school, but it is not because it is a bad school. I just want my daughter to have proper Christian education.
The advantages are low density, and people have access to jobs, which helps them to move out of the subsidies housing.
Disperse these people concentrations of poor people drive down property values and become blighted because there is no tax base. Poor people cannot support businesses so the businesses fail and then there are no jobs. However, because people live there the government is there trying to provide services that no one can afford. It is just a cycle of failure.
Move them out to the burbs were they are vastly out number by successful citizens.
@10
As I mentioned I am speaking from my own conversations with people who actually live in the high crime areas. Actual family and friends. Not stats.
When you see less bullets flying by your house and more cop cars do you need a TV crew to run the numbers to try and tell you that you’re not really better than before?
Not to say that every area was made better. But some of the areas of focus were improved and it was done with a stronger police presence.
The bottom line is that “my people” said they felt safer and when going to visit them I saw less junk in the area.
Please provide links to the WBAL (TV 11 Baltimore) news reports for review.
O’Malley is more than just a Liberal, he’s a partisan Bush hating Liberal. I don’t like that at all. But the facts are the facts. He did help make some areas safer than they were before.
I should add I do not support the idea of public housing, or rent control. I would agree the power is not granted in the U. S. Constitution. I understand the libertarian position. Government cannot provide charity; it is Government theft (taking one citizen’s money and giving it too another citizen.)
However, when the choice is heavily concentrated area of public housing or dispersed low concentration, Dispersed low concentration is preferable.
>> We send these types of students to the private schools via vouchers and those schools go down.>>
Except that private schools are private, and therefore get to accept or deny individuals the right to attend. Personally, if I were responsible for a private school, I’d be scared to death that accepting vouchers would then mean that I’d lose the right to refuse certain applicants – in which case, I’d agree with you. I’d rather go the other way – allow public schools to actually expel students who refuse to do the work and/or who cause problems with other children learning. The problem then is what to do with them…putting them in institutional schools might be an answer, or not – I don’t know. But having them in public schools just reduces the quality of the public schools.
Except that private schools are private, and therefore get to accept or deny individuals the right to attend.
In theory yes, but all to often when government puts money into an institution, things change. There have already been suggestions regarding current voucher proposals that vouchers students in parochial schools be allowed to skip religion classes and religious ceremonies.
Government always makes demands when it puts money into something and I doubt that those private schools will be quick to kick the government out, especially when they are in jeopardy of losing that voucher money and appearing insensitive to the voucher students. What will happen in my opinion is that the a voucher system can and will create an extended public school system that includes former private schools and a whole school voucher bureaucracy.
Please provide links to the WBAL (TV 11 Baltimore) news reports for review.
A mix of video and text:
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/7057074/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/video/7380035/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/7056945/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/video/7103408/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/7097697/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/video/7627244/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/station/7366021/detail.html
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/7379947/detail.html
Thank you for the links. WBAL really has exposed some serious issues.
Of course it’s terrible and needs to be corrected. But this does not disprove that areas with a stronger police presence are better than before O’Malley as I mentioned.
Hopefully this will be enough for people not to want to elect O’Malley to higher office.
Ultimately the crime is a sort of reflection of the people in the city.
As I say the real “ism” that is a problem is THUGISM. And we know the Section 8 areas have plenty of it. Existing Section 8 areas in the city should not be spread to other areas in the state.
Let’s be honest, the people who buy in higher classed areas worked hard to move away, in order to avoid the mess. Or as my friend BJ Ellis says, “they did not forget where they came from, THEY ESCAPED”.
Just heard on the news feed about GM’s Hamtramck (Poletown) plant being closed in Michigan.
While this is an Eminent Domain issue, the parallel to the current discussion is politicians meddling in the free market of housing. In both cases it is out and out property theft with taxpayers bearing the brunt of foolish politicians.
With Poletown, the poor to middle-class people, as a tax-base, didn’t look as profitable to Mayor Coleman as the potentially larger tax revenue from the GM plant. Most of the former Poletown residents moved outside of Detroit city limits and now the plant is going to bring $0 in taxes.
Way to go Liberals!!!
Ciao
shade-
I agree with this totally, but the same thing applies to school vouchers. Those good private schools are good because certain types of students don’t attend them. We send these types of students to the private schools via vouchers and those schools go down.
Students make or break schools…
The “bolded” lines illustrate the entire rationale behind vouchers.
You speak of “these types of students”… I say that “that type of student” almost always has a parent that will not take advantage of the opportunities offered by a voucher program, even when offerred.
But, if you happen to be one of the caring parents of a child in a school where 70+% of the parents don’t care– thus, the teachers are spending more of their time on discipline and remedial tasks than actually “teaching”… vouchers are the ticket out!
I would also be willing to wager that “voucher children”– those from parents interested enough to be actively investigating the potential gains offered by changing schools through a voucher program– will not appreciably affect the overall quality of the school attended…(of course, this means the teacher’s unions and public schools are correct in being worried by the voucher movement- they are being left behind.)
As I recall, Section 8 homes are not owned by the government, but by a Real Estate investor-a private sector person.
What right do you have to tell a private sector property owner who he or she can or cannot rent to? If you have a problem with the tenant, talk to the property owner. If the tenant is tearing up your property, take the owner to court.
I have known bad people on Section 8, and I have known good people on it, just like I have known good Christians, and I have known Christians that give the Gospel a badname-should I cancel the Church because of the hypocrites who don’t seem to know the difference between holiness and whoremongering? I think not. The same thing is true with Section 8.
Not every person that grew up in the hood is a hoodrat, I did (Gary, IN), and I’m not. Neither are most of the people that I grew up with.
Grace to you, and Peace…
Panoplia Soljah
Eph611.blogspot.com
I know people who grew up in subsidized housing, including members of my family, and not all ended up dependent on welfare, so I’m certainly not implying that this applies to all who do. And no matter who owns the home, the government is still paying for a large portion of the rent. Some owners have been sued for refusing to rent to voucher holders, so it’s not all voluntary free-market. – Admin
Abolish the HUD !!!
HUD can use eminent domain to come in and take your property and turn it over for subsidized housing.
Folks, that’s where we’re headed.
La Shawn, in Wake County, N.C. – Raleigh, Cary, Apex, etc …
… they’ve got a thing called “redistricting.”
They say its to make sure all schools are full. That’s partially true. It’s also true they take kids out of nice neighbhoods and nice schools and send them to crappy run-down schools.
That is until the parents can’t stand their little loved ones losing 2 to 3 hours of their life on a bus out of their neihborhood for a sub-par education.
Needless to say, homeschooling and private schools are booming in Wake County.
I’m sorry La Shawn, that should be ‘reassignment’ not ‘redistricting’
Here is an article about how 10,000 children will be jockied about next year:
http://www.newsobserver.com/1056/story/400816.html
Note, the paper says nothing about good or bad neighborhoods … after all … putting them on a bus for hours … it’s for the children.
scott
I understand where you are coming from, but I think that you may be giving too much credit to those “parents interested enough to be actively investigating”. Such active investigating is, in my opinion, is far less an indicator of how they prioritize education than actually coming out of you pocket every month to pay tuition. I have learned that people are far less likely to scrutinize a service that they receive for free.
Contrary to popular belief, the rich are not the only people sending their kids to private schools. I sent my first kid to a nearly all black parochial school that sits dead in the middle of the hood. The tuition was just under 300 a month and I was far from being rich. I had to sacrifice personal luxuries in order to do this. This school was very high performing.
Now right next door to this school is the neighborhood public school, which, as commonly is the case, is low performing. Now if those students from that public school become eligible for vouchers, those parents overall are not going to investigate various private schools. They are going to send them to the private school closest to them which is the one next door. Their kids can still walk to school and all that will be required is the paperwork to receive the vouchers and get into a nearby school that has been proclaimed to be better than the public school.
Now here is a real life example. A handful of students at the private school were allowed in at nearly no charge because of their parents low income. These very students were the ones who ended up being the biggest disciplinary problems, yet they were never kicked out.
Going back to my childhood, many kids went to better schools using minority to majority transfers. Many low income parents took advantage of this to sent their kids to good schools, but the kids still brought a lot of disciplinary problems. A single mother who takes some priority in her kids getting a good education still has kids who were deprived of a fatherly influence and often bring the effects of this deprivation to the new school.
If all the poor from one area are being moved en masse into one suburban neighborhood, then yes, this is a stupid idea. However, if you were going to relocate 100 poor families from a public housing slum throughout 50 different wealthier neighborhoods, then this would actually be a good thing. It was unclear to me from the article whether or not this is what was intended (but then, I read it fast).
As Jesus says, the poor will always be with us. Much better for them to actually be with us as neighbors that we can meet and greet and influence with examples of hard work than off in poor people zoos.
See “suburban nation” by Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck for more about using city planning to mitigate the effect of poverty through city-planning.
Just more evidence the world is crazy and messed up. One side wants to force help on the poor with tax money, the other side wants to put the poor out of sight and mind. Both think they are helping the poor by doing so.
I say take government out completely, put churches in charge of social issues like these. None of this halfway faith-based initiative stuff Bush has going on.
Whoever comes up in the near future supporting this ideal I will support and vote for. So far, no one is stepping up.
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