I had previously written an article about drug testing welfare recipients and those receiving other public assistance. There are many people in public housing that are good honest and hard working people. Some may not work because of either age or disability. I do understand this and am not addressing them in this article. This article is more about things I have seen and read. Many will try to challenge facts that I point out in this article. That is fine and I welcome dissenting opinions. That is the only way we can learn anything, but we do need to respect the right of others to have a differing opinion.
There are a quite a bit of people on public assistance in the united states with our economy the way that it is today and I don’t see it getting much better. A report just came out that jobs were added. This is a good thing, but I don’t know how adding jobs helps when the unemployment rate goes from 9.6% to 9.9% during the same time. I guess those are Obamanomics. There are of course economic issues of public housing. My article is more about the social consequences that are occurring and are unintended. As a very blue dog southern democrat I realize that we need social safety nets for our countrymen. I also realize that my party has been hijacked by gangsters, deviants, abortionists, atheists, and hypocritical members of the Catholic Church who profess to be catholic but their votes almost reflect an evil worldview. Nancy Pelosi is a great example. She claims to be a Roman Catholic yet is a flaming liberal who 100% supports abortion on demand and gay marriage. Both are condemned by the church. I am sure if there was a way to abort a baby at the ninth month just because someone changed their mind she would support it. I am not sure how she does not burst into flames when she sets foot on church grounds or why the Pope has not excommunicated her.
Public housing initially was something that was set up in the early 1900’s. The simplest way to think of public housing is that it’s a way that poor people and families can not be on the street of living with relatives. It’s pretty rare that single people are in public housing unless they are elderly. Often you will families in public housing. There are three phases to the current state of public housing in this country. Initially there were many middle class people in public housing with the goal often to be able to buy a home with some help. This was followed by the advent of the housing projects. These were often connected homes like duplexes and row homes. Problems that I will discuss in a few moments led to the third phase of public housing know as Section 8. No new housing projects have been created since 1983 and no more will likely be build do to Section 8. Richard Nixon signed Section 8 into law in 1974. I am sure that if he could see what has happened with it he would at a minimum re-think signing that document. At a Maximum if the founding fathers should have cultivated their own crops.
There are problems that can and have happened with public housing in the United States. I will mention first that there are good decent people that live in public housing, but there are also some people that are not model citizens either. I am basing this upon what I have personally seen since the school district attended had the largest housing project bused into it while I was in school.
The most obvious thing about public housing today is that people in it are often poor (unless committing criminal activities or working their way up and out) and unfortunately there are many problems that plague poor communities. The most notable is drugs. It can be either drug use or sale and distribution of drugs, but there is no doubt that drugs are a major problem and epidemic in actual housing projects. With drugs you typically will have crime. This will almost always include prostitution, robbery, assaults, rapes and murders. Much of this can be over drugs, but it can also stem from simple wanting things. There are many who have been killed in projects over someone else wanting their Nike Air Jordan sneakers. You will find barbarians who would kill someone over sneakers more often in an urban housing project that you would a suburban neighborhood. People can say what they want of that opinion, but we all know that is the truth and a main problem of “The Projects” as they are often referred. The biggest thing is the violence. You often have a “people” who are uneducated, very complacent to living off the taxpayer. This in turn can lead to a sense of entitlement of the “people”. Unfortunately today my party often uses these people to win offices and really does nothing for them. When President Clinton reformed welfare many leading Democrats including Nancy “We need to pass the bill to see what is in it” Pelosi voted to maintain the status quo. The reality is many people in public housing also receive some type of social welfare. This can be welfare, food stamps or other programs. In addition to drugs alcoholism can be a big problem as well.
One of the biggest reasons that “The Projects” have been moved away from is the cycle and generations of people dependent on the system that it can create. First off there usually are broken homes and more times than not any father in the house. He could be dead, in prison, or just absentee. You also have the parent who is too worried about their next dope fix, bottle of Olde English than taking care of their kids and having pride in themselves. Some “mothers” are more concerned in locating their next sexual partner to claim more welfare money by having another illegitimate child and breeding like animals. Unprotected sex is more common than in more civilized developments and aids rates are usually higher than the general population) Discipline at home is usually bordering on abuse or totally absent in the house. Many of the single parents have multiple children all living off the dime of the hard working tax payer. With no male role models at home in many cases the young men often will turn to crime as crime rates are incredibly high in housing project neighborhoods. The young women who don’t turn to crime often repeat the cycle of starting to breed at around 14 and having several illegitimate children and living in the same project and mooching off the government. I have personally seen cases were the grandmother, mother and then the daughter that I am trying to educate all went through the same cycle. There are almost no social skills. The people border on being called people, many act more like animals. In this case the daughter was also pregnant. I heard the “young lady” say “I don’t need school, I have a baby and ill get WIC, welfare, food stamps and a row home in Riverside”. I actually had to contain myself because what I would have said to her would have defiantly got me fired at the time.
Things like this are what caused Section 8 to be developed. It was believed that by mixing the “people” from the projects into the rest of civilization that they could become more humane and there would be a better chance of them getting out of the cycle. While it is true that there are less cases of generations in the cycle of poverty there is also a down side. What the government basically did is put the criminal element on a majority non-criminal population in the suburbs. Many neighborhoods have become in effect “Section 8 Neighborhoods”. You then basically have the same thing you did in the urban housing project. Now though you have hard working citizens that live in areas near the “Section 8 Neighborhood” who end up being victimized by the crime. It could be getting robbed, raped, or even murder. That is not to mention those people selling that poison to our children that are our future. The children of “these people” then go to schools and often create problems such as disrupting the learning process, selling drugs and so forth. A vast majority drop out. I think two kids that were from the projects I went to school with out of over 100 actually graduated. That is pretty darn pathetic in my opinion and it should be to any tax payer.
I see the logic in not keeping all of your eggs in one basket, but had the government not put the “criminal element” into civilization then there would only be one area affected by the problems these people create. In the current system the problem becomes like a disease that spreads out to various areas and affects much more of the population instead of just one area. As an educator I had learned that even though the textbooks make it out like you need to reach them all you can’t. If a couple thugs get lost in the system so 10 kids that want to learn can it’s a fair trade. Is it better for those two thugs to cause 3 of the ten kids to turn out bad? I would rather have two criminals in society than five.
I thought I would share an example of one of the people I dealt with from the projects. This particular girl went to middle school and high school with me. In talking to people I was able to find her grandmother settled the projects she was in. her mother and father were not together. The girl was very loud, rude and obnoxious. I honestly think the only reason she came to school everyday was for the free lunch she got courtesy of the tax payer. She almost acted proud to be on welfare? She walked around like she was in lala land and once when she was not watching what she was doing a friend of mine bumped into her and said he was sorry and she wanted to start a bunch of trouble over it. I know certain people can be barbaric in nature but that was pathetic. I knew she would be a welfare queen when she was older. When we were in high school (before she dropped out) we were in the lunch line and I was in front of her. We both ordered hoagies and I ordered a pretzel with mine. The lunch lady put a try up and I started to just grab the very edge of the tray no place near the food and the lunch lady put the pretzel on the tray behind it. Since that I was mine I took it. Kenya (that was her name) started to throw a fit about eating a sub that I was “playing a messin with”. The lunch lady was shocked. I had enough of her stuff, so I said to her, “What do you want it’s free anyway”. I knew by her barbaric nature and that of the type that she would swing on me. She did and I moved out of the way and she hit the glass and broke it and cut the heck out of her hand. I normally would not laugh at a person’s misfortune. In her case I would not help it nor could most people who saw what was happening. I had not seen her since my sophomore year. I think she was a three year freshman and dropped out at 16. The last I heard was she spent some time in jail, got into drugs and had three kids and was not with any of the fathers. She was living on the tax payer’s dime a few streets over from her mother. I could say I knew it all the time. In fairness I would have much rather seen her do something with her life, but with the type of person she was she should not have been allowed to be the burden she was in school. She took the most basic level classes and no one could learn in those classes from what I was told. I was not in any academic classes with her since I took college prep that God.
So what is the solution? That is the question and its one that is hard to answer. New housing projects are not being built and with that you have many problem elements spread out over other areas. This can cause the crime and drugs to spread like a disease instead of it being confined to the one area if there were still housing projects. I personally think one way to help is education. Our country can be pretty strange at time. They will pay a young girl to get pregnant, have illegitimate children, and live off public housing and assistance, but they won’t find ways to allow that same young girl to go to college so she can escape the ghetto and become a better person and a role model for future generations. Many people in these communities continue voting people into office because they are not intelligent enough to realize that those same politicians need to keep them in the ghetto so they stay in office. If they really wanted to improve people’s situation they would.
Another thing I believe is that people need to quit being rewarded over wrong behavior. I believe the governments have a responsibility and duty to drug test anyone who receives public assistance whether it be food stamps, welfare, WIC, or public housing. Many decry this as racist and I challenge that as saying they must have a guilty conscience. If someone can afford dope and booze they can afford to pay their rent and buy their kids food. Some will then say “what about these people”. I say well the kids will be products of the system anyway, so I would rather pay a foster family to take care of them than their own parents. Some foster parents do a pretty darn good job and there are horror stories, but most people could do no worse than parents who are using drugs on the taxpayer dime. I think there should be a chance, but with too many failed tests the person should be told they will lose the benefit and potentially their children. Here we save money on the person that is a waste anyway using dope and the kids might turn out better out of that situation. You also could have better people in these areas and on the benefits that really need the help and are not trying to work the system. Many people think these benefits are a way of life almost like some type of reparations for a past way ancestors might have been treated and others are just plain lazy. It seems the ones who want help and to better themselves don’t get the chance.
Large amounts of these “people” also continue having children they can’t afford just to get the public assistance benefits. I can say that it’s almost like how animals breed and is pathetic. Everyone is entitled to have a family, but if you can’t afford it I think you need to have your tubes tied or a vasectomy after one or two kids if you are on public assistance. I am not speaking of someone down on their luck, but people making a way of life out of it. I really think this is the case when generations have done the same cycle. Once someone is in public housing common sense should tell them they should not be having more kids. Many don’t care and still do it though. I have given examples of this and the sick sense of entitlement of some of these people. They won’t use protection. It is almost like their reproduction organs are a “welfare dispensing factory” or public assistance production factory. That should make any person of any race who works hard be upset. I would be ok with offering money like $25 a month for these women to be willing to have Norplant put into them as some type of credit. If you can’t feed them you should not be breeding them. In the short term it would cost a little bit, but the savings over a generation would be astronomical socially, morally, and financially.
The Lieutenant governor of South Carolina was decried as “immoral” and “racist” When he made this statement at a Town Hall meeting.
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals,” …….”You know why? Because they breed! You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.”
Lt. Governor Andre Bauer was right when he said this. I am not saying, or was he, that we let people starve who are poor, but there needs to be a way to keep it from being a way of life as it has been. President Clinton reformed welfare but that has gradually been undone and can be a way of life again by continuously having children. These “Welfare Queens” can get up off their hind parts and work at McDonald’s or clean offices while there children are at a daycare center and show some pride in themselves. There are various state and federal programs to help pay for it and I am sure with the savings we would have from the welfare savings and the druggies not getting our tax dollars that some help with daycare could be done. IN many cases the children would be better off in daycare than at home with a lazy “Welfare Queen”. If you want to take an example literally of his statement look at many of the countries in Africa that received various aid in the 1980s and are still receiving U.S. tax payer aid. In over 20 years very few of their lives are any better, most still breed like animals and won’t use protection because they know hard working tax payers will be forced to send our money over there. Think of all the money saved if we had conditions on our aid like the fact that the people would actually try to better themselves. IN many of these countries people still bathe in cow urine, get high off human fecal matter, have some of the highest AIDS rates in the world. It’s almost like we wasted our money. We could have helped poor people right here in the United States of America. We should concern ourselves with our nations own problems before other countries. This is especially true of nations that do nothing with the aid we give them.
There are people that will cry racist over aspects of this article. First off there are no slurs that are used and it meats all guidelines. Second of all I welcome dissenting opinions and challenge people to refute the claims made. Keep in mind that I did not say all, but most when you do this. . This is the only way that people will become better people as a whole. While I do not think everyone in the projects are bad people I am willing to say that if all housing projects were vaporized in every inner city the crime rates would SIGNIFICANTLY decrease. I do not in any way advocate that or violence, but this all you need to do is a bit of research to see that I am right and say what many people either wont say, don’t want said, or are not enlightened enough to realize that what is written above is accurate a vast majority of the time. Not all people in these areas or on Section 8 and other public assistance are like this, but I would say that more than 60% are and when people are broken down demographically there are groups that it gets into the 90% or more. Think of what we could do if a generation in that situation got away from depending on the tax payer. There are certain groups that look at it as an almost entitlement and some politicians keep that way of thinking alive. When I was born my father had been hurt at work. My parents were living in a motel with five children. I think she said they had like $50 a week after paying for the motel to feed us. We did end up in public housing. As a matter of fact the very one I am speaking of. My mother was no complacent though and did not allow us to run wild. She looked for work and got a job to get us out of that place. She had pride in herself and wanted the same for her children. There is nothing wrong with a hand up but many people want a hand out.
Sources.
Some stats can be hard to find because they are hidden because people don’t want true demographics found. It does not take much though to drive through these areas with your doors locked to see I speak the truth.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/26/2010-01-26_sanfords_lieutenant_governor_andre_bauer_likens_government_assistance_to_feeding.html
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/html/20000216.html
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-59966892/hud-studies-gun-violence.html
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/127/section8.html
http://www.realestatewindfall.com/2009/01/02/section-8-controversy-over-bay-area-tenants-hotting-up/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ADi-yy25k woman is more concerned about food stamps than child dying. This should make you sick.
Time Magazine (sorry I forgot the issue)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-08-10-africa_N.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VjMgxGBQ9U
http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TS6CBT754MKNC4E90
https://www.msu.edu/user/skourtes/myths.html some welfare myths about just one race being on welfare. It plagues all races but some more than others based on population percentages. Some of these are skewed to the view of the author but I do like this article
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_wel_cas_tot_rec-economy-welfare-caseloads-total-recipients
http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/stats.html
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfareblack.htm
www.wikipedia.org
Here is some information that is copied from the Delaware Department of Human Services for a college paper my wife just did on her Master’s degree. She and I have also taught in inner city schools and seen the products of these developments over the years. I dealt with some of the products of these places when I was a deputy sheriff. This information is mostly about how the process works and reasons why a landlord may choose not to rent to someone on Section 8.
“Housing authorities selected eligible families from their waiting list, placed them in housing from a master list of available units, and determined the rent that tenants would have to pay. The housing authority would then sign a lease with the private landlord and pay the difference between the tenant’s rent and the market rate for the same size unit. In the agreement with the private landlord, housing authorities agreed to perform regular building maintenance and leasing functions for Section 23 tenants, and annually reviewed the tenant’s income for program eligibility and rent calculations. Typcially 30% of income for rent
Three sub programs new construction, rehabilitation and existing housing certificates
Tenant or project based. A state can set aside 20% for projects
In addition, landlords, though required to meet fair housing laws, are not required to participate in the Section 8 program. As a result, some landlords will not accept a Section 8 tenant. This can be attributed to such factors as:
- not wanting the government involved in their business, such as having a full inspection of their premises for HUD’s Housing Quality Standards (HQS) and the possible remediations required[15]
- fear that a Section 8 tenant or their children will not properly maintain the premises
- a desire to charge a rent for the unit above FMR
- unwillingness to initiate judicial action for eviction of a tenant (HUD requires that Section 8 tenants can only be evicted by judicial action, even where state law allows other procedures)
- racial profiling (a large percentage of Section 8 tenants are minorities)
- a desire to not inflict the social pathologies associated with section 8 tenants, such as crime, vandalism, drug use, drug dealing and littering on the surrounding community
Depending on state laws, refusing to rent to a tenant solely for the reason that they have Section 8 may be illegal. Landlords can use only general means of disqualifying a tenant (credit, criminal history, past evictions, etc.).
However, other landlords willingly accept Section 8 tenants, due to:
- a large available pool of potential renters (the waiting list for new Section 8 tenants is usually very long, see below)
- generally prompt regular payments from the PHA for its share of the rent
- a perceived higher quality of tenants, since tenants can be permanently removed from the Section 8 program if they damage the rental unit or fail to pay their share of the rent
Atlanta’s Techwood Homes, built in 1936, was the nation’s first public housing project
Public housing in the US has been overhauled in recent years after criticism that neglect and concentrated poverty have contributed to increased crime. HUD’s 1993 HOPE VI program addresses these issues by funding renewal of public housing to decrease its density and allow for tenants with mixed income levels. Projects continue to have a reputation for violence, drug use, and prostitution, especially in New Orleans, New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C. as well as others leading to the passage of a 1996 federal “one strike you’re out” law, enabling the eviction of tenants convicted of crimes, especially drug-related, or merely as a result of being tried for some crimes. Other attempts to solve these problems include the 1978 Section 8 Housing Program, which encourages the private sector to construct affordable homes, and subsidises public housing. This assistance can be “project based,” subsidising properties, or “tenant based,” which provides tenants with a voucher, accepted by some landlords.
The federal government no longer pays to build housing projects. Since the early 1990s, it has given money under HOPE VI to tear down distressed projects, to be replaced by mixed communities built with private partners.[1]”
