Eliminate the BMHA and privatize all low income housing

[moadib]

Eliminate the BMHA and privatize all low income housing

Why compete with local landlords?

[WNYresident]

i wold just about rather see them just give the money away versus having a department that is probally corrupt.

[WestCoastPerspective]

On this one I can agree with....vouchers are the way to go; not warehousing all the poor in decrepit 1950's era boxes. Look at the money spent on the Hope VI project on the west side. What were those built for- $150,000 a unit? Damn, might as well put them in single family new-builds in the 'burbs. Now that is government waste, even if it was federal funds.

[Boost Buffalo]

right, the whole BMHA thing is absurd. Another top-heavy local beurocracy designed to hoist the cash right out of your damn pocket.

BMHA is huge. And they have their own in-house architects, engineers, lawyers, police force, lawn cutters, many levels of managers etc etc etc.

[Riven37]

Originally posted by moadib
Eliminate the BMHA and privatize all low income housing

Why compete with local landlords?

Now you're getting into a partly federal funded area. I stay away from this right now. Baby steps, baby steps, we have enough on our plate with County govt.

[WestCoastPerspective]

sorry for using the term 'them' which sounds bigotted and derogatory.

I meant 'them' meaning the low income residents.

[citymouse]

Won't happen.
Your local business leaders don't want to own those complexes. They already have lucrative construction and demolition contracts. Supply contracts and such that bring in all those big federal dollars, The cleaning, Policing and day to day maintanence, Where you deal directly with the tenants, is all the BMHA employees do.
The well connected contractors like it that way, they get thier share of the federal pork and don't have to directly deal with "them" the tenants.
As for vouchers, That means they could live anywhere ther is an apartment. Clarence, East Aurora, Hamburg, Lancaster, or even
Williamsville.
Think you will ever see that?

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by Boost Buffalo
right, the whole BMHA thing is absurd. Another top-heavy local beurocracy designed to hoist the cash right out of your damn pocket.

BMHA is huge. And they have their own in-house architects, engineers, lawyers, police force, lawn cutters, many levels of managers etc etc etc.

So basically it could easily be a another patronage center and mis-managed quasi govermental "business" ?

[Mike M]

Originally posted by citymouse
...
As for vouchers, That means they could live anywhere ther is an apartment. Clarence, East Aurora, Hamburg, Lancaster, or even
Williamsville.
Think you will ever see that?

Actually, Allenhurst & Princeton are already privately owned low income housing in the burbs.

[crlachepinochet]

You don't have to worry about people with vouchers moving out into the suburbs, because there are already thousands of people with vouchers and they still concentrate themselves in poor neighborhoods with high poverty rates. I'm working on a site for this, so you guys just have to trust me until I get one. That's my only reservation about vouchers. A lot of problems come about when poverty concentrates. If someone could go anywhere they wanted, wouldn't you think they would go to a safe little neighborhood somewhere? There needs to be more government control about where people with vouchers can live. Maybe restrict them from living in hyperghettos (areas with more than 40% living in poverty).

[therising]

Let's not re-hash the Allenhurst thread again.

Privative all the city housing for all I care, but then you're gonna have everyone screaming about how the landlords are in bed with the politicians.

The Allenhurst thread proved one thing - many middle class people simply do not like the fact that poor people exist.

[lyn1639]

I think that it's not so much the unwillingness to admit there are poor people as it is a freaky mind-set that the poor=criminals. People in the 'burbs are strange that way. I have elderly aunts who are convinced that I will be mugged and/or killed whenever I go downtown. There's a faction in Cheektowaga that think that if the light rail was extended to the airport it would bring in "undesireables" and who think the mall curfew is wonderful. There's a weirdness about the 'burbs that seems to bring out the "I bought a house here to get away from the problems of the city and now you want to bring those problems to my door" mentality. There are people who are just unable to relate to anyone who is not just like them, and they seem to concentrate and intensify in the 'burbs. It's kinda creepy and Stepford-y.

[NoCtUrNaL]

Originally posted by lyn1639
I have elderly aunts who are convinced that I will be mugged and/or killed whenever I go downtown.

That happened to me once...I went downtown and I wasn't there 30 seconds before someone murdered me.

True story.

[moadib]

Everyone knows there are poor people & people arent prejudice against them! Heres why

THE STEREOTYPE OF LOW INCOME HOUSING WILL FOREVER BE THE 1950'S & 1960'S HIGH RISE PROJECTS (LIKE CHICAGOS CABRINI GREEN) poorly maintained, drug ridden and gang ridden. Where the poor are wharehoused together with little hope of socializing with people of different backgrounds, education or income.

MANY CITIES HAVE ABANDONED THE STALINESQUE LOW INCOME "PROJECTS" IN FAVOR OF TWO OPTIONS:
1) RENTAL VOUCHERS SO THE POOR CAN LIVE CLOSER TO POTENTIAL EMPLOYMENT AND SCHOOLS (breaking the cycle of poverty)
2) LEGLISLATING (THROUGH ZONING & BUILDING PERMITS) MIXED INCOME RESIDENTIAL & COMMERICAL DEVELOPMENT so that the city isnt responsible for managing low income housing on a day to day basis but in assuring that there is an adequate supply available to people of low incomes.

PEOPLE ARE NOT PREJUDICE AGAINST PEOPLE OF LOW INCOME. IF YOU HAD 10% OF PEOPLE IN YOUR APARTMENT BUILDING THAT WERE POOR AND YOU GOT ALONG WITH THEM, THERE WOULD BE NO ISSUE WITH THEIR INCOME.

PEOPLE ARE PREJUDICE AGAINST THE WHAREHOUSING OF POOR PEOPLE AND WHAT THE BEHAVIORS THAT SUCH LARGE SCALE DESTITUTION CREATES....BECAUSE THEY WITNESSED IT IN THE PROJECTS OF THE 50S AND 60S AND 70S. THATS WHAT PEOPLE OPPOSE.

LOW INCOME HOUSING IS EXEMPT FROM PROPERTY TAX BECAUSE ITS MUNICIPAL (CITY OWNED) PROPERTY. I WOULD MUCH RATHER GIVE THE POOR VOUCHERS AND LET THEM LIVE WHERE THEY CAN FIND JOBS AND SAVE SOME OF OUR HOMES AND NEIGHBORHOODS FROM DEMOLITION.

Much of Buffalo's homes are duplexes and small single family homes which could easily be rented and contributing to the cities tax base rather than being demolished for lack of tenants.

Personally in a city with a declining population and surplus housing, I wonder how many buildings would still be standing and how many neighborhoods would still be viable (w/o all the emtpy lots, boarded up buildings, foreclosures, etc) if there were people to live in them. I wonder how much mixed income residential and commercial development we could have subsidized if we didnt have responsibility for owning and managing the day to day operations of low income projects.

LASTLY, I FIND IF OFFENSIVE NOT JUST THAT MUNICIPAL LOW INCOME PROPERTY DOESNT PAY PROPERTY TAXES BUT THAT MUNICIPAL LOW INCOME PROPERTY OFTEN COSTS OVER $100,000 PER APARTMENT TO BUILD....AND OFTEN DOESNT LAST MORE THAN A FEW YEARS BECAUSE THE CITY/TENANTS DONT TAKE ARE OF IT.........MEANWHILE THERE ARE EXISTING HOMES IN BUFFALO SELLING FOR $50,000 - $75,000 - $95,000 LOOKING FOR BUYERS OR POTENTIAL BUYERS WHO WOULD WANT TO RENT THEM OUT AS INCOME PROPERTIES. ITS INSANE TO LET OUR NEIGHBORHOODS (RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL) FALL INTO DISREPAIR, FORECLOSURE AND DEMOLITION...SO THAT WE CAN MAINTAIN A TAX EXEMPT BEAURACRACY.

IF OTHER CITIES CAN CHANGE THEIR MUNICIPAL HOUSING TO BENEFIT THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS AND THEIR PROPERTY VALUES AND THEIR RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT, THEN SO CAN BUFFALO.

ITS NOT PREJUDICE AGAINST POOR PEOPLE. THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE WHO ARE POOR. ITS PREJUDICE AGAINST THE BEAURACRACY OF MANAGING THE POOR. PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THAT BEAURACRACY DOES TO THE POOR. IT PERPETUATES ALL ASPECTS OF IT.

[Linda_D]

There are a number of reasons that poor people congregate in the worst neighborhoods, even though, technically, individuals in the "section 8" program can rent an apartment anywhere in Erie County that's part of the program.

One of those reasons is that it's usually a neighborhood they're familiar with, and they'd prefer to stay there. Moving to a new area is traumatic even under the best circumstances. Maybe they have family and friends nearby (within walking distance) that they depend on -- or who depend upon them. Their children may be able to walk to school,and their church is close, too. Maybe their place is on or near a bus route that's convenient to work or doctors, etc. If they don't have a car, looking for a rental apartment in another area may not be feasible.

Another reason that vouchers aren't used in "better" neighborhoods or in the suburbs ver much is that there aren't many landlord participants in the section 8 program there. In the suburbs, many of the rentals are already in good shape, and the landlords can collect market-rate rents without getting involved with bureauracy, so their apartments aren't eligible, meaning the section 8 tenants wouldn't get a break on rent.

In Buffalo's "better" neighborhoods, I think most rentals are owner-occupied two families. I don't know if section 8 can be used in an owner occupied building, but it might not matter. When I lived in the city, resident landlords liked to stay "under the radar" so that they could be very selective of their tenants -- ie, refuse welfare recipients, families with children, tenants of races or ethnic groups they didn't want. Very few resident landlords advertised their rentals in the newspaper; instead they put signs in the windows. Oftentimes, they rented to extended family members or to the family of neighbors or friends or people from "the parish".