But it doesn’t. The problem is that the people working at ground zero, those in HRA, private/public charities, shelters, prison-to-work programs - those in social justice positions - butt heads with the people with the pursestrings. There’s plenty of debate. When push comes to shove, though, those programs that help keep people housed get cut. A statement with which I utterly agree, but to put it as plainly as possible some people are dumb and they need a place to live, too.
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It’s hard to relate to other cities because my town seems to keep up on the housing situation for the homeless. There always seems to be a percentage who refuse to use the facilities, preferring to live along the river or under bridges. I never see the children that are part of the statistics so I’m left wondering where they are.
I don’t know about the almost homeless but I did run into an interesting dilemma with subsidized housing. I was trying to help a friend relocate to a new city and we had problems finding NON-subsidized apartments for rent. It was a small town and almost everything available required a low income to get in. It was the strangest thing. What was even stranger was that we found an apartment that was CHEAPER than the subsidized rates.
As others have written, housing in most American cities is scarce and expensive. yet, in many cities (Boston,Hartford), the public housing is allowed to decay! Of course, this has other causes (city employees unions, lack of budgets), but I can’t undewrstand why we spend so much on housing, yet allow such valuable properties to become run-down/trashed!
Erm, without knowing the details of what happened there I might be able to shed some light, maybe.
See, there’s “market rate”. That means that in real life an apartment will rent for, say, $560. If that apartment is set aside for low income people, though, they’ll pay 30% of their income, which is re-certified annually. The remainder of the rent will be made up with local, state, or federal subsidies. Some apartments or apartment buildings will be specifically set aside; some management companies may set aside a portion of their total apartments. Some of this is mandated by local regulations; some of this is because management companies have decided it’s easier to deal with regular checks from agencies than wondering if tenants will actually pay rent on time, or at all.
It’s extraordinarily complicated and I don’t think I’m explaining it well, but think of it like that sign posted on the back of the hotel door: The sign may SAY the room rents for $109 a night but you only paid $60.