Ft. Myers Ghetto? (Miami, Tampa, Orlando: rental, insurance, hotel)

[justNancy]

Originally Posted by kroeran

One idea is to set an official rent that is inflated, and that you get a discount each month based on your neighbours assessment of your good behavior.

Any good property manager would investigate complaints about a tenant to determine if they were valid. I certainly wouldn't want my neighbors spying on me and writing reports about my behavior!

[kroeran]

I guess it depends on your next best alternative.

Some may be willing to subject themselves to neighbourly judgement in exchange for having influence on who their neighbours are.

The system to a certain extent uses money and HOA rules to protect the financial middle and upper classes.

I don't see why a landlord could not build a business model for low income housing where the rules of behavior are very very strict, for the purpose of protecting decent folks who have fallen on hard times. Self policing like you have in a condo HOA.

The key is figuring out the rules and exact mechanism by which the tenants communicate to the property manager, and then the mechanism by which the property manager can force eviction or relocation on a hair trigger.

What you would work toward over time is a bunch of tenants who are very very careful how they treat their neighbours.

How is this for an idea. Each month you get a rating from your neighbours, so everyone in a building has an average confidential interaction "credit rating". You can watch your rating, and try to improve it.

Maybe once a year, the building gets reshuffled, so that people who have the lowest rating on their floor have to move down one floor, and pay for the move, and people with the highest ratings move up one floor, if there are vacancies.

Over time, people who are good at getting along with their neighbours move up in the building, and people who are not move down. If you get a bad rating on the bottom floor, you are out of the system.

[hiknapster]

Because this is America and we have laws that protect tenants against this sort of thing.

[kroeran]

well, the idea is that people on limited incomes would opt-in for this sort of arrangement, assuming the law would permit people to do this, or if there is a tricky work around. Or a better idea if someone has it.

The above postings seem to indicate that the status quo is not working for decent folks going through a period of bad luck.

but as the conversation indicates, people are set in their ways and its a challenge to develop new ways of doing things.

[hiknapster]

I understand what you are saying but Americans are all about their constitutional rights, and that is a good thing. Some HOAs are actually coming close to violating those rights, such as Ave Maria with their ban on condoms in their drug stores. Fortunately, we are also a capitalistic society and the truth is that decent folks will work their butts off to get out of public housing. Others will stay. And if I don't want a HOA telling what color I can paint my house and the size of my mailbox or I can't practice safe sex I can choose not to buy there.

[kroeran]

well, that is a good freakonomic (in a positive sense) angle on it that I like...make it as miserable as possible to motivate you to get out, at least if you are living on public dime.

I was thinking more along the lines of the temporary working poor with kids paying their own way, and how unfair it might be to put them in with the hard cases.

At Anna Maria, I think they ended up backing off on the condom ban, or side stepping the issue by not putting in a drug store, but that is probably old news...but there is a big new Publix there now - wonder how they resolved the issue

just to further make your head spin around, if I was short on money and was worried about my kids, I would see if I could wangle my way into Anna Maria somehow - an extension of the idea of putting your kids in parochial schools, even if you are not Catholic or are even athiest

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by kroeran

well, that is a good freakonomic (in a positive sense) angle on it that I like...make it as miserable as possible to motivate you to get out, at least if you are living on public dime.

I was thinking more along the lines of the temporary working poor with kids paying their own way, and how unfair it might be to put them in with the hard cases.

At Anna Maria, I think they ended up backing off on the condom ban, or side stepping the issue by not putting in a drug store, but that is probably old news...but there is a big new Publix there now - wonder how they resolved the issue

just to further make your head spin around, if I was short on money and was worried about my kids, I would see if I could wangle my way into Anna Maria somehow - an extension of the idea of putting your kids in parochial schools, even if you are not Catholic or are even athiest

I made an error. It is Ave Maria. There is an Anna Maria in Florida. Beautiful island town just north of Sarasota. I didn't want anyone to think they had some sort of a family planning issue over there.

I've never lived in public housing. Knock on wood. I have lived in some rough areas in Florida, but without children. Even still, I didn't want to be there and got out as soon as I could. I think that if it came down to it, I might not move my children to an area where their lives could be in danger. Perhaps sleeping in a vehicle is preferable.

As you know, I have enormous empathy for poor working folks. And there are more rules in public housing than in a regular apartment complexes. For instance, if you have committed a felony you can't live there. But people do, anyway. There are ways...

But yes, capitalism definitely works things out. Everything in moderation, in my opinion.

I can't agree enough about the raising kids angle.***MOD CUT***

[faithfulFrank]

Folks,
please stick to topic.........Ft. Myers..........

Frank

[ChrisA70]

Originally Posted by faithfulFrank

Folks,
please stick to topic.........Ft. Myers..........

Frank

I just stuck mine in for humour. No way am I going into a religion thread!!!!

[faithfulFrank]

I love debating Theistic Epistemology and Christian Apologetics....but we must stick to the topic.......the good and bad of Ft. Myers......

Frank