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Plenty of minimum wage jobs here and maybe a dollar or so more. One problem is not public transport to the somewhat higher wage jobs in the industrial parks. That's really hard on the budget but ours is a car culture.
I am very serious when I ask why haven't one of these people let you clear out a room in their basement or install a shed in their back yard. It seems that is the way out of poverty, fmkt.
1. NIMBY - no one wants there property values to drop by having low income housing in their neighborhood. Homeowners and HOAs have been known to sue their government over such proposals.
There are parts of town that arent NIMBYs. You just have to find them. There are parts of any town that never complain. Especially if you put in a park, or promise to clean up the streets. Some neighborhoods are cheaper to buy off than others. Put them there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140
2. The city/county/state get a lot more tax revenue from luxury condos and McMansions than from low income apartments, older small houses, or tiny houses, and they control the zoning and permits.
True, but this isn't an alternative, it's an addition. Poor people's housing will bring in more revenue that illegal tents under a freeway overpass.
Poor housting must be built in wealthy parts of a city, or visa versa wealthy housing must be built in ghettoes without replacing original inhabitants. Wealth accumulation generates poverty as well as zillion of externalities the less blessed groups get disproportioned share of. It is only fair to ask wealthy folks to own their fair share of the wealth building factory as a whole, not just wealth output. With that approach most of the crushing problems we have will decrease in magnitude or vanish. Otherwise, the pressure and dystopian social control methods will progressively increase.
My neighbors are considerably poorer than myself, I guess that means I'm nobody.
It's common in small towns, even in my mid size city you'll see poorer neighborhoods right next to where the upper crust live - a remnant of the time when there were servants. The Victorian houses I own have a servant's room at the top of the stairs - so that's a poorer person right inside the house!
You'll see this in the early stages of gentrification. Not the third wave which gets all nimby, but early gentrifiers will be social work professors, activists, and people who are rich enough they don't get their self-worth from their domicile.
The people I know who are most vigorously opposed to living among the poor are people who escaped from very poor upbringings. Is that the case with you, oldtrader?
No it s not the case in my situation. I grew up in a good middle class environment. Grew up on a large ranch. I got a draft notice to go to the army in 1950. Instead I had already set it up with the navy recruiter to go to the navy if I received a draft notice. Within a year from out of the Navy in 1954 I had worked up to making $125,000 plus in today's dollars selling furniture during the housing boom of Vets coming home. I have never been poor in my life, always in middle class areas of town and up.
I know about the housing problem with the poor, from working on city commission as a volunteer, and having been in the real estate investment property business from 1972 till I retired. I sold only a total of 6 single family dwellings for personal use, helping friends. I have bought as many as 14 houses in an afternoon for investment clients who bought from 2 to 5 each that day to be used as rentals. I have developed houses for investment clients to use as rentals, multi family, and commercial properties. I have subdivided land.
If I could have figured out how to produce housing at a price the very poor could afford to live in without a government subsidy, I would have developed the projects. I have been in national conferences, where such things were discussed, and no one else could figure it out either.
Housing for the very poor, is a huge problem in this country. Some areas of the country such as California where real estate values are through the roof, are making it terrible hard for those living below the poverty level (almost 1 in 4 people) to be able to put a roof over their and their families heads, and still put food on the table so they can eat.
And NO, the rich and middle class up, are not going to live around the poor, as the property is so expensive in their neighborhood, that there is no way the poor can live there. My wife and I bought our first home (not the cheapest available by far) in Silicon Valley at Cupertino Ca. We paid $13,750 in 1956, and houses just like it on the same street were selling for $850,000 over 10 years ago. Our old home was torn down to find a place to build higher priced homes. And the other 3 homes we owned in the area, Cupertino and Saratoga raising our family and moving up all sell for over $1,000,000 today.
That is why California is so difficult for poor people to exist. Many other areas of the country have the same problem, just worse in California than other places in the country.
Today we live on 5 acres across the road from the highest priced area of our town. A 3,700 sq. ft. luxury 4 level contemporary home. Due to my and wife's ages, we have installed 3 chairlifts, so we can move safely between floors. We have a housekeeper that comes in 3 days a week, to keep the home clean and nice. We have outside help, that mows our acre of lawn and cares for the landscaping. The other 4 acres is pasture and a large barn with 2 stables. We have to have that mowed down about 3 times a summer. We have a person that does it using our tractor, and equipment. In the winter we install a blade on the tractor some rear tire chains, and it plows our 500 foot lane leading up to our about 1/4 acre parking area done by the yard help. A lot more home than we need, but we can have a family gathering of family that come in from around the west, and could not do this with a small house or apartment. We have a fantastic view of the Rockies, and open space all around us. No poor person can afford to live in our area of town, so no we don't live around poor people, because you have to be above average in income to afford to live where and like we do.
1. NIMBY - no one wants there property values to drop by having low income housing in their neighborhood. Homeowners and HOAs have been known to sue their government over such proposals.
2. The city/county/state get a lot more tax revenue from luxury condos and McMansions than from low income apartments, older small houses, or tiny houses, and they control the zoning and permits.
How does that work? I'm low income, how does my presence in a neighborhood cause property values to drop???
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,298 posts, read 80,577,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freemkt
How does that work? I'm low income, how does my presence in a neighborhood cause property values to drop???
It probably doesn't, however a low income housing project with many low income tenants does. More so those closest to the development. It just makes the area less desirable for those with higher incomes, and that means they will get less for their homes when they sell. This is, as I said, for NIMBYs. A new development of low income housing in a depressed area can actually increase property values.
How does that work? I'm low income, how does my presence in a neighborhood cause property values to drop???
Even you don't want to live in your house with all the drunks and crazies. Maybe you have no choice, but other people don't want to live next door to them and if they can afford a better neighborhood, they don't have to.
Moderator cut: .
Last edited by toosie; 03-30-2017 at 06:31 PM..
Reason: Don't drag old personal history into it - off topic
Where are the low income people like me supposed to live? All cities are becoming too expensive for the working class and there's no way I'm going to move back to some crappy small town again.
Where are the low income people like me supposed to live? All cities are becoming too expensive for the working class and there's no way I'm going to move back to some crappy small town again.
In Portland a lot of people live in tents - there are literally hundreds of parks where this is possible, although the parks are officially closed at midnight and cops do clear out campsites. Many people also live in RVs, usually on private property (there's one (occupied) on the property where I live) but sometimes parked on streets until they get a TOW sticker, at which time they are either moved or towed.
Where are the low income people like me supposed to live? All cities are becoming too expensive for the working class and there's no way I'm going to move back to some crappy small town again.
There are plenty of low cost places to live in the city, but those are usually filled with minorities and high in crime, so people like you do not want to live there and want to live in the low crime, hip area that also happens to lack minorities and costs a lot to live there.
For all the complaining in Miami (where I live) about housing costs, I can find right away dozens of low cost places to live, but the people complaining do not want to live in Little Haiti, they want to live in the expensive Brickell down the street. Same in DC, lots of low cost places in NE and SE DC, but those are high crime places and they want to live in hip places in Georgetown and across the rive in N. Arlington, VA.
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