Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Wow, where do I sign up ?
the company that received the $4million had connections in government. Its not just waste, its corruption. They took advantage of the poor to make millions for themselves
They should have found them jobs instead.
Things are getting bleaker...it’s like living under communism as one feels so powerless. Stuff like this would have raised hell not that long ago, but now it’s reported and it’s no big deal, which is why those involved almost flaunt it.
Once again... Maryland.
Bethesda is a wealthy suburb just over the DC line. It is chock full of liberal democratic voters who should be proud to shoulder a share of the burden of housing the homeless. The story makes a point of the cost of housing the poor in an affluent community. As a resident of a part of the city that for decades was overloaded with housing projects, halfway homes, and other government social service operations, I have become a firm believer that every part of the metro area needs to accept some of these facilities. The burden should be spread. Bethesda should step up.
Here in DC, and I suppose in many other places, the really crummy parts of town didn't get that way by accident. They are legacies of bad policy, and the head wrecker was LBJ. The Great Society liberals blew into town and massively expanded the public housing estate, centered on big, centralized projects. They institutionalized poverty, and fixed it into place. Government housing projects cut off the normal recycling of neighborhoods through gentrification and or redevelopment, and 50 years later (how time flies when we're having fun) people elsewhere start to think "that part of town" is inherently bad. It's not; it's just that government has fixed, concentrated, and institutionalized a problem.
Many upscale areas, including many of the suburban jurisdictions, compounded the problem by zoning low and moderate income people out. "In between" middle class neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill, were put under tremendous pressure from social services empire builders who recognized the need to deconcentrate the ghetto but who were blocked out of the suburbs, which is where the low skill, service sector job growth is.
As a result, we have for many years been warehousing poor people in terrible neighborhoods far from jobs, and then wondering why they sit and rot. This is stupidity on stilts. There is a crying need for much more low and moderate income housing in non-ghetto neighborhoods. I'm open as to how this is provided, but to the extent that assisted housing projects (as opposed to housing assistance/vouchers) are tried, they need to be low density and scattered site, so that they doesn't crush the surrounding neighborhoods. And they needs to be located within reasonable proximity to jobs.
I think Bethesda should take a share. There's not enough information in the article to really evaulate this particular apartment. I suspect the costs are high primarly because land acquisition costs in Bethesda are high. So be it; the wealthy burghers of Bethesda still need to help bear the burden, and there are major retail and service sector job centers there. This sounds like an apartment building, which I dislike (a little too concentrated), but if it includes on-site supervision/management, that would help account for the cost. The "computer center" is probably a room with a couple of computers and internet access, which is pretty basic nowadays if you want people to look for jobs and/or get training. Similarly, the gym is probably pretty basic, and anyone who knows anything about rehab 101 should not be surprised to find one here.
Bottom line, these are probably very simple apartments in a very plain building in a very expensive part of town. Whether the project works will depend on whether there is good supervision and adequate screening of tenants. There are plenty of successful halfway house programs that provide a bridge for people getting back on their feet. There are also plenty of disasters. Depends on the details.
Let’s make the WH residents “Homeless” in 2012.
I can’t wait for my schadenfreude moment with this.
Damn it, these things just keep happening over and over and you feel so helpless to prevent them as long as the mass of people see them as beneficial to their own situation.
It is the predicted doom of the democratic vote system—when the majority think they can live off the work of the minority, they will vote themselves more and more benefits.