Posted on 01/12/2013 4:03:25 PM PST by Iron Munro
An event designed to help assist Michigan families with housing expenses turned into a chaotic scene after there was a mad rush to collect Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers.
The incident happened Saturday morning at the Wayne County Family Health Services Center on Eureka Road, between Beech Daly and Inkster roads in Taylor — where thousands of people were waiting to get housing vouchers, many who had been waiting outside in the cold since the night before.
Reports say the amount of people who showed up looking for assistance heavily outweighed the number of vouchers to be distributed. As the night was fading away and the sun started to shine, the crowd continued to grow as more and more people arrived. According to reports, only 1,000 vouchers were available for distribution. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people were in attendance.
When it came time for the vouchers to be distributed, police said there was a mad rush for the door, with people jockeying for position to be the first inside the building. Officers tried to control the crowd, but couldn’t. Fearing the situation was more than they could handle, event organizers shut the entire thing down and turned off the lights inside the building. Witnesses say that’s when things really got ugly.
Star Lee, of Romulus, described the scene as complete chaos.
“People just don’t have order to themselves, you know what I mean? People were fighting and throwing chairs, and that’s just not necessary. We were asked to just come and line up and, you know, make things simple. They shut it down before it even got started and it’s just sad because some people really needed this help, this assistance,” she said.
Candice Wacasey, of Taylor, said she was frightened. Garbage litters the ground at a human services building in Taylor where thousands of people rioted when a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher distribution event was cancelled. (WWJ Photo/Beth Fisher)
Garbage litters the ground at a human services building in Taylor where thousands of people rioted when a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher distribution event was cancelled. (WWJ Photo/Beth Fisher)
“When the lights went out, it went horrible. People started trampling over people, there was a disabled lady that was in a wheelchair and they was trying to knock her over to get in front of her. I mean, just crazy,” she said.
Lenny Syer, of Melvindale, said some people lost all inhibitions, even muscling small children out-of-the-way.
“There was people who was physically putting their hands on people’s childs (sic) and moving them. It was unbelievable,” he said.
Additional help was called in from Michigan State Police, who helped Taylor police control the melee and disperse the crowd. Four people were arrested, but police say no one was injured.
Police say the event will be rescheduled, although specific details still need to be worked out.
“Due to the high demand of the Section 8 vouchers, we will meet with HUD Representatives to discuss the series of events, re-evaluate the distribution method and implement a process that ensures a greater level of efficiency and safety,” Mary Radamacher, Director of the Taylor Housing Commission, said in a statement.
Some of those in attendance Saturday said they hope organizers will be extra cautious and bring in additional security to insure things go differently next time.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program is the federal government’s major program for assisting very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled to afford decent, safe and sanitary housing in the private market. A housing subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the government on behalf of the participating family, which then pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program.
The maximum housing assistance is generally the lesser of the payment standard minus 30 percent of the family’s monthly adjusted income, or the gross rent for the unit minus 30 percent of monthly adjusted income, according to HUD.
No. The animals won't go rural, believe me.
I had heard that Detroit was full of abandoned housing and many homes sold for less than $10,000. Geez, you’d think the city could put these folks up in these.
the urban black community just cannot control themselves. consider they behave this way with their own folk. no wonder they have no regard when they treat non-blacks like garbage.
“People just don’t have order to themselves, you know what I mean? People were fighting and throwing chairs, and that’s just not necessary. We were asked to just come and line up and, you know, make things simple. They shut it down before it even got started and it’s just sad because some people really needed this help, this assistance,” she said. ------
Dude...even the Romulans cain't herd these 'cats!!! It is chaos!!!
After shredding the laws of the land and making a mockery out of legislative process we have people crying out for order? Really?
You want fries with that?
The problem is the bureaucrats at HUD don't look at a situation like this and ask, "What the hell is the matter with these people?"
Rather, they say to themselves, "The Soviet Union had even longer long lines and they never had these kind of problems. How did they keep things so orderly? What were they doing that we're not?"
You are so correct.
heard = herd
“where are the photos of people?”
_________________________________________
Defective film, I guess....The photos turned out all black.
Wasn’t it also i Chicago? the one on Drudge? Or was it this one, in Detriotistan?
The same way locusts are good for a crop field.
All the commission had to do was print up another 3 or 4 thousand vouchers, like our government does when it runs short on cash, and pass them out to all in attendance.
All the welfare recipients with their Obama phones would have been happy and the 2016 democrat voting bloc would have been guaranteed. Instead, these people were callously turned away, thinking that this government had let them down.
Is there no justice for the poor in this country anymore?
Nice summary of the #1 cultural problem in the nation.
The root cause of the problem will never be addressed because it is not politically correct to admit it even exists.
The modern urban afro-american culture has devolved to such an extent that there seems to be no hope and change...just a people circling the bowl.
Okay...Just for informations sake...they don’t hand these thing out willy-nilly in Washington state. You have to wait on a waiting list this is...at this point...three YEARS long. Or, if you have gone through special programs they will, after you graduate, grant you a Section 8 voucher without the waiting.
Not ALL people who have Section 8 are property-destroying slobs who ruin neighborhoods. I live in a neighborhood that I know has at least three Section 8 houses. Not a ONE of them are dirty, filled with trash, or have unkempt lawns. And one of the families has a working (full time) father and a stay-at-home mom, married to each other for 15 years and not to anyone else, with four kids, one of whom is disabled. And...they are WHITE.
Stereotypes suck, they aren’t always accurate, and we conservatives should be better then that.
This is normal for Detroit, isn;t it?
As I understand it, what they do here in Jackson county is to put them on a waiting list when they sign up for assistance. When the money becomes available they just work from the top of the list. That way they don’t have a stampede.
This is what happens when they don’t have enough free stuff to go around.The obvious answer is to raise taxes so that this tragedy never happens again.
That was exactly my first thought - whose brilliant idea was it to turn this into a feeding frenzy in the first place? Oh wait, Detroit, say no more.
FWIW....While riding on the city bus some years ago two older black women were having a conversation and one to the other kept mentioning ‘our socialist’.
So I turn down my headphone music and listen to their conversation for a bit. She was talking about the ‘social worker’ assigned to her.
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