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How You Can Perpetuate Poverty for Generations and Make Big $$$
April 19th, 2007
Ever since those dudes won that prize, micro-finance has been all the rage. The point of this new trend toward micro-finance is sustainability at a micro level.
Nothing is more sustainable than something that turns a profit, even if it is a small profit.
Poverty, in New Orleans turns a big profit, as it is structured. Section 8 housing is an obvious example. There are others that are more subtle. Predatory lending, payday loans, deep fried everything, products that work against their consumers.
Bart Everson writes about Section 8 housing in Puzzle.
She shared some of the particulars of her financial situation. The Housing Authority of New Orleans is paying Debra’s rent under Section 8. The check, which goes directly to the landlord, is for the amount of $1,300 every month.
That’s more than our monthly mortgage payment. Our house is almost as large as the entire fourplex in which Debra’s apartment is located. Right, that’s $1,300 for a somewhat crappy, small, unfurnished apartment in a fourplex. Appliances not included — fridge and stove must be provided by the tenant.
Bart collected some links to crack this nut, National Housing Law Project’s Section 8 pages, the Homeowner Assitance Programs: Louisiana page of HUD, and the Homeownership Vouchers pages of HUD.
Recently, the President of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization got a call from someone in California. Someone had gotten her number off the Internet. The caller wanted to know about Section 8 Housing, had heard that there was money to be made in New Orleans renting houses to the government.
Incredulous, she said no, it was not true, and hung up.
One Response |
Thanks Alan. Your blog and those of others could do a great service by teasing out some more of these connections. If one focuses only on instant solutions to crime, poverty, racism: more guns, more cops, more stops, more jails, more prosecutors, etc. you never get to root causes. And you create the consequences you did not intend. Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline calls this ” shifting the burden.”. One might explore not just housing, but the dysfunctions inherent in a tourist economy where hotels do not allow living wages, thus attracting functional illiterates which the RSD seems willing to supply in great numbers, either to the tourist industry or to the jails, or sometimes to both. Under the guise of “saving public education” rich and yes even not so rich whites and blacks collude in a conspiracy to create islands of safety while emotionally numbing themselves to the plight of vast numbers of poor children. San Francisco hotel rates are comparable to New Orleans; yet workers-unionized workers—can make a living there. So it goes. Mike