Temecula Votes for "Very Low Income Housing".... (Los Angeles: apartments, rentals)

[CheckingThingsOut]

Thoughts??

TEMECULA: Condos converted into "very low-income" rentals : North County Times - Californian 05-26-2009 (http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/26/news/californian/temecula/z47cd75b2e4845c3e882575c20074a066.txt - broken link)

Eleven condominium units in the Temecula Lane development will be converted to rental property for "very low-income" area residents, a transformation engineered by the city and housing developer DR Horton.


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[firsttimeowner]

I think thats a good thing. Temecula is still over priced for many people. maybe now I should just forget buying a house there and rent one of those units.

[eclipxe]

As a long-time resident I think it's great news. All people deserve a chance to enjoy Temecula despite where they are in life or what their life experiences has been. The company that handles the renting has a good track record of doing background checks so a lot of the riff-raff is screened out.

[dweej]

I'm probably not going to be too popular with my view on this, but here goes. My concern is not for riff-raff. My husband works for the city of Poway and they have similar units there (and everywhere in Southern California). What I do think is a shame is that after a while, all of the units will be filled with people that have no incentive to grow and improve in their lives. Their rent will be so low that if they get a better job or start making more money somehow they'll have to leave and pay two, three, four times as much rent. Why bother doing that when you can have a pretty good sized condo in a nice city and work the easiest, lowest expectation job out there? Yes, in the beginning, people will need more space and buck up and move out, but eventually, one by one, each unit will fall into the hands of someone who's just looking for the easy way out. And all the while, it's our taxpayer dollars subsidizing the difference. If it was people who needed to get back on their feet for one reason or another, or young families who just haven't quite made it yet, and it was a short term solution, then I am all for it, but based on what we've observed in other cities, people become life-long residents and there's a waiting list a mile long of other people who will never get in. The idea comes from the right place, but in practice the truly lazy folk ruin it for the rest of the population.

[waggie]

i'm gonn have to agree with dweej on this one... sounds like they're seeding a ghetto.

[Dadshall]

There was an article that was just posted yesterday on the front page of The Californian about this. The abandoned construction site on Margarita and 79 South is going to become one of these as well.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/07/19/news/californian/temecula/zd417ad52298090e2882575f500131ac9.txt (broken link)

There hasn't been a vote on this yet but it seems that the Council has already made up its mind. Nearby Sparkman Elementary School has been shut down and will now be an "Alternative Adult Education Center".

It looks like they've been planning this for a while.

I've lived in this area for 6 years. I moved away from OC and LA after living near HUD houses and other low income projects. I promise you. Drugs, crime, and gangs are coming. It won't be the parents of these homes. It will be their unsupervised children when they grow into teenagers. The article mentions Tustin. Anybody been there lately?

[Ohs]

Wow, I grew up in Murrieta and Temecula area. They used to be a nice small "horse towns". People there were middle class or what might be considered lower middle class, but hard working people who didn't want to live in a big city. Now after all the growth it is more upper middle class and higher which is fine, but the city dynamics changed and turned into more of an orange county feel. It saddens me that things went that direction because I liked the small town feel, but what saddens me even more is the direction it is taking now. All these empty housing units of tract homes that were never finished and condos that won't sell. I currently live in nor cal because there are more job opportunities and am thinking about coming back. The cost of living there is actually pretty cheap by comparison to many other big cities in CA. So to hear that it is going to go down even more and accommodate "low income" housing is scary. I'm not going to try and sound politically correct when you bring in low income housing you bring in a certain cliental that is not a hard working class but are LAZY users. Who do not want to grow and move up in life because they have too many excuses for why life is so hard for them. Yes, there are many young families out there who come from these middle class families struggling to make it. The job market isn't very strong in this area, especially in construction which seems to have left many young families hurting in the area, so it would be nice to help them out. But this will also bring all the lazy problem causing types too. I may never get my chance to move back to live with my family because of the direction this once small town is taking. Lot's of commuter towns are going to face this reality. I know Temecula has to do something with all this extra housing but it will defiantly change the climate of the town and may not be one of the safest family friendly places to live anymore.

[Dadshall]

The reason I left the Orange County and Los Angeles areas was to get away from that because the type of people that tend to congregate in low income housing are not the most desirable. It always starts off okay but over time, their unsupervised children become involved in criminal activity. When problems start to arise within the housing project, desirable, hard working people stop moving in. That's when the undesirables will be allowed to move in just to keep the buildings occupied so that those in charge can claim that the "project is still working".

Cops were always showing up there, drugs were always dealt out of them, and then eventually gangs started popping up. It is not the best environment to raise a family and the problems associated with low income housing projects always effect the surrounding areas bringing the quality of life down for all.

They say they'll give them job training but what good is the training if there are no jobs to go to?

Even a video game like Sim City addresses this. Low income housing is depicted as a problem creating obstacle in a VIDEO GAME yet the city council doesn't see it that way. Sad to say, a kid probably gets the concept better than some adults.

[that1guy]

So we should continue the polarization of the classes by not allowing poorer people into the city during the worst economic downturn of our time? You do realize that the effects of this will be felt for MANY years. There is a lack of affordable units in Temecula...hell in all of Southern California.

The whole notion of "no incentive" if there is no affordable units is faulty at BEST. First off, the main incentive is to OWN property. The VAST majority of people subscribe to the notion that it is the American way of life to own a home. This in of itself is an "incentive" to better one's economic position. Another incentive is that better paying jobs have more disposable income. If you are in these units, chances are that you lack disposable income. Thus, again another incentive. People don't like being poor. The welfare queen myth is just that, a myth.

The laziest segment of the population is completely praised, while those that work hard and are poor are typically disdained. Is that truly fair? No it's not. The untouchable, inherited rich (Hilton, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Mellon, Ford) are the laziest segment of the population. The poor typically have multiple jobs. So it strikes me as odd when people equate "poor" with "lazy". Whereas, we should equate "inherited wealth" with "lazy" instead of our current celebrity worship with the socialites.

Drugs, crime, and gangs don't have to come in as long as Temecula provides social services, good schools, and the populace includes them and doesn't make them feel as outsiders. It doesn't have to become another Compton in which people left because they were afraid of change. Poor people lack money. That is it. Drugs, crime, and gangs occur when there is insufficent support to raise out of poverty. If you have after school programs to address tutor concerns and provide a good role model, then that is a HUGE step. In Teach for America, several of the tutors I spoke to stated that the WORST students were the ones that typically spent more time after school. All that time with the teacher led to significantly less behavoiral problems as well as better grades.

It's a shame that people are based in fear that they don't realize that this is a good thing for society as a whole. Studies indicate that class mixing is one way to solve many of the problems we see in poorer communities.

Let's not continue on the wrong track in CA.

[Dadshall]

Sorry that1guy,

There are plenty of affordable places to live in Temecula. They are called apartments. Just down Rancho Cali Rd, you can get one for $600/month no deposit. Just like everybody that has ever owned a home, you start with an apartment and work your way up.

I used to be a poor and worked my tail off to have a small modest home and I'm still trying to work my way up. Most of the poor that used to surround me were not interested in trying to better themselves. They were always complaining about what everybody should be doing for them. Instead of trying to better themselves and work hard for it, they were always looking for programs that provided the easy way out.

I remember being in college and the first thing that some of my friends would buy with a Pell Grant check was a turntable and a mixer for DJ'ing rather than books.

People don't like being poor. True. In reality, people don't like working even more.

I don't mind helping those that help themselves but from my experience living near these areas, most of them don't. They just complain about others keeping them down and not doing anything about it.

Speaking of role models, who would that be? Most poor kids look up to thug rappers and drug addicted musicians. The reason some of their parents are poor is because of poor choices they have made in the past. Some of these irresponsible behaviors will never change and they are sadly done at the expense of their children.

Class mixing also has brought the quality of life down for entire neighborhoods as well. There are very wealthy areas in Santa Ana but you wouldn't know it if you went there.