Posted on 12/30/2008 4:44:36 PM PST by WayneLusvardi
A website MyWay.com is reporting of tensions mounting in the Northern California City of Antioch, California over an influx of low income tenants moving into the area. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081230/D95D896O0.html.
These problems were predicted by this writer in the Antioch Press in August 17, 2007(see below):
What the article fails to report is that Antioch was subject to an unfair allocation of low income housing imposed on it by the Association of Bay Area Governments. This writer reported on the unfairness of Antioch's low income housing allocation in an article published in the Antioch Press on August 17, 2007. Below is the text of that article by this writer which foresaw the problems now unfolding:
What is a Fair Share of Low Income Housing? Antioch Press, August 17, 2007:
The City of Antioch has contended for some time that it has been stuck by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) with more than its fair share of low-income housing. Especially confusing is why Antioch has had to provide 400 more low-income homes or apartments than San Ramon.
Mayor Don Freitas is quoted as saying (“Council fights low income housing,” Brentwood Press, Sept. 15, 2006): “So when communities like Antioch or eastern Contra Costa County begin to get the lion’s share of low-to-moderate-income housing, that’s why we get our backs up and start pounding our chest and saying, ‘Wait a minute, this is not fair and this is not equitable,’ and it seems to be that the policies that we have are ‘have’ and ‘have-not’ policies.”
But what is a fair share of affordable housing?
The national homeownership rate was 55.0 percent in 1950. Contrary to popular notions, since 1960 the homeownership rate in the United States has increased 6.8 percent from 62.1 percent to 68.9 percent. The homeownership rate in the United States in 2005 was similar to that in other modern nations – at 68.9 percent. It is not that the homeownership rate in California has fallen but that it has lagged behind the relative rise outside of California and in the inland areas of the state.
In Northern California, one’s chance of home ownership increases greatest, from 57.1 percent to 61.9 percent, if one moves from the Bay Area to Sacramento. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the homeownership rate in the Bay Area actually increased from 1994 to 2005 from 53.8 percent to 57.1 percent, a 3.9 percent increase. Why should Antioch have disproportionate quotas of low- and moderate-income housing imposed on it, leaving unaffordable cities and counties in the Bay Area with relatively light quotas?
The U.S. Census reports that California homeownership actually increased 1.6 percent, from 55.4 percent to 57.0 percent, between 1995 and 2005. Contrary to another popular misconception, homeownership rates in California have always hovered in the 50 percent range, growing from 54.3 percent in 1950 to 57.1 percent in 2000. So why do we consider that we have a housing affordability crisis in California now if we didn’t consider it so in 1950?
As for apartment housing, there is not even reliable data from which to ascertain if there is an actual rather than just a perceived affordability crisis.
Survey after survey is trotted out by local government agencies using the apartment rents in brand-new luxury apartments or Class A apartment buildings, which typically have amenities such as pools and gyms and are located near convenient shopping centers or light rail stations.
True affordable housing is old, small, unrenovated, of undistinctive design, not near shopping, freeways or public transit, and usually owned by a mom-and-pop landlord. But these aren’t counted in low-income housing surveys. Only “new rooftops” meet the state housing mandate criteria.
According to the U.S. Census, about 23.1 percent of individuals in Antioch are considered in poverty compared to 13.3 percent for the state and 23.3 percent in the county. By this criterion, there is no basis for imposing affordable housing quotas on Antioch because it already has its fair share of such housing.
Affordable housing mandates in California are a bottomless pit and have no measure by which to judge success because the number of newly arriving immigrants in poverty grows daily, the proportion of renters who desire to be homeowners is endless, and the affordability of apartment rents is unknown.
How do we know if Antioch already has met its fair share of affordable housing? We don’t and we can’t because there is no such fair-share standard in the first place. The quotas are well-disguised political contrivances apparently meant to achieve more of a political balance of low-income residents in selected counties and cities. It is difficult to see housing quotas as anything but Stalin-like attempts at politicized population engineering.
Wayne Lusvardi, a Pasadena resident, is a former low-income housing analyst for Los Angeles County.
For related article read: "Inclusionary Housing is Sociological Suicide" here http://www.californiarepublic.org/CROhld/archives/Columns/Lusvardi/20070815LusvardiSuicide
Drudge has a link to this story. The people moving in with the blaring car radios, pit bulls and prostitution rings are pure scum, plain and simple. We have these assholes with their loud car radios driving all over the city with absolutely no regard for those who view their homes as sanctuaries. So much for the sanctity of the hearth. These scumbags can spend a couple of hundred dollars for some loud speakers and aurally assault people within their domiciles with their filth. One of these days someone will get enough of this shit I guarantee you.
Good article Wayne..
Betcha 99% of the freepers could have predicted the same thing...
A north Concord resident myself i have noticed the changes in the last few years..
More simply put, this appears to be further confirmation of the economic devastation perpetuated by irresponsible central committee mandated lending practices.
Predicting the obvious. But low income people should not be unjustly disparaged; the policy makers should.
Roberta Achtenberg of Clinton's HUD launched investigations of the citizens who had opposed HUD proposals with letter-writing, pamphleteering or other forms of peaceful protest.
Achtenberg ordered the protesters to turn over diaries, phone messages and other personal papers.
Berkeley? Street-rabble? No. Homeowners who opposed a HUD proposal of housing for the poor smack-dab in the middle of their neighborhood.
She threatened to fine the protesters $50,000 but relented citing their First Amendment right to free speech.
Who told Achtenberg about our pesky Constitution?
If memory serves a federal judge did -- and the judge cleared the way for Ms Achtenberg herself, personally, to be held accountable and open to legal action. Again if memory serves Ms Achtenberg hightailed it back to San Francisco leaving her "brilliant" federal career behind.
You want to know why Blacks don’t vote Republican? Because they are called all sort of insulting names which don’t apply to all of them. Put the pressure on the policy makers, not on all of the families who are, as they say in their own words, “trying just to survive” often without a father in the home.
Why yes. The Baby Boomer Bolsheviks need built in voters. They can't attract the votes of higher wage earners who have worked hard to end up in the more attractive areas of the state. So they import them with schemes such as this.
As an example, can anyone tell me why people are subsidized to live on the beach?
Predicting the obvious. But low income people should not be unjustly disparaged; the policy makers should stay out of social engineering...
Now is’nt that better Wayne?
This "low housing" quota system has grown. It's been in place for quite some time. In fact, for a few years, Antioch was able to shuffle a great many of its more "troubled" families to Bay Point. Bay Point became the locus of problems.
Having said all that, if you were to dig into the Antioch K-12 pub ed curriculum, you'd have your mind blown like nothing else. It is a premier example of PC propaganda and watering education down to the lowest common denominator. You'd be stunned. I'm talking 1990s when some parents asked me to dig into the money flows for "education" in Antioch, and yes, I was horrified by what the students were being not taught; but then taught.
In my final analysis, as to why the increased mandates for "low income housing".... Decades back when SF was offering the highest welfare benefits in the nation, people came from all over the U.S. San Francisco became a pit. San Francisco elite and special interest groups were beating their chests before any and all microphones "See, how we care! We love and appreciate diversity".
And very quietly, leadership in San Francisco began giving one-way BART and transportation tickets to the "homeless" to places like Concord and Antioch.
It's the NIMBY mentality: "Yes, yes we CARE about the low-income, the homeless, the broken family... but not in our backyards! Let's send them to Antioch".
The higher income cities have fulfilled their "quotas" on "low-income" housing, and Antioch loses the battle and gets stuck with "low-incomers" from all over the area.
And I won't even try to bore you with the types of sex ed which are taught in Antioch schools. In Lafayette or Orinda, the curriculum is clean, well-written.. for Antioch? Graphic, low-brow, guaranteed to encourage promiscuity. I doubt things have changed much since the 90s. And from what I hear, the problems have spilled out and spread to nearby towns like Oakley.
It is indeed the fault of “policy makers”. I was involved with low-income families in Oakland trying get Prop 147 (Vouchers) passed. These families want BETTER for their children. We were faught every step of the way by Unions and their “policymakers”.
A large part of the problem is gerrymandering of political districts in California. The politicians in California know they are untouchable and merely sneer at the middle class.
The consequences of affordable housing in Antioch, California would be a potentially potent topic to raise at Vice-President elect Joe Biden’s “Middle Class” forum after the inauguration. Government is good at shifting a problem around; not in solving it.
The policy of the Democratic Party apparently is to give everyone the trappings and symbols of the middle class (housing, cars, social promotion in schools, etc.) pain free without ever having to earn it. Needless to say, this has disastrous consequences on the “beneficiaries” of such policies as well as on communities, neighborhoods, as well as declining church attendance in the low income areas these families move out of. The downtown and suburban areas these families are given incentives to move into do not have the social institutions (churches, extended families, clubs, etc.) that can mediate these kinds of problems. This is sociological suicide.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.