Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

U.S. judge is asked to order housing for poor in suburbs
Baltimore Sun ^ | March 21, 2006 | Eric Siegel

Posted on 03/21/2006 3:38:23 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

Lawyers for Baltimore public housing residents are asking a federal judge to order the creation of 3,000 new low-income housing units and an additional 3,750 housing vouchers, mostly in well-off suburban neighborhoods with good schools and access to jobs.

The request comes 14 months after the judge found that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development violated fair housing laws by failing to take a regional approach to the desegregation of city public housing.

It asks the federal agency to provide tenants with 675 new "housing opportunities a year over the next decade to reduce the effects of decades of discriminatory actions."

Whether the judge accepts the proposal or crafts his own solution to the discrimination he has found, the case highlights one of the Baltimore region's most vexing and contentious issues - how to dilute the concentration of poverty in the city.

The proposed order is drawing opposition and skepticism from Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and some suburban leaders, and it is being vigorously contested by lawyers for HUD, who say it is "entirely uncalled for" and "simply not practical."

............"Baltimore's African-American public housing residents have virtually no opportunity to live in white, suburban neighborhoods with better opportunities for themselves and their children for education, employment, safety and recreation," they wrote. "Only through such a remedy can African-American public housing residents in Baltimore overcome the harms suffered through decades of government-sanctioned discrimination."

But lawyers for HUD counter that the "prospect of implementing those recommendations and having them work is, at best, dubious."

"Testimony from HUD program officials will demonstrate how difficult, disruptive and counter-productive the sort of remedy that plaintiffs will likely seek would be," they wrote.

(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: desegregation; discrimination; housing; hud; innercity; poverty; publichousing; welfare
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-5051-71 next last

1 posted on 03/21/2006 3:38:30 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Can you say 'activist Judge'????


2 posted on 03/21/2006 3:39:28 AM PST by IrishMike (Dry Powder is a plus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

thats right make more middle class people move from the red states by your social engineering.

Socialist Judge D*uchebag alert.


3 posted on 03/21/2006 3:41:56 AM PST by Vaquero (time again for the Crusades.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vaquero

error....that is move TO the Red states, not from them.


4 posted on 03/21/2006 3:43:17 AM PST by Vaquero (time again for the Crusades.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: IrishMike
Yes!

Hey, if a person wants to live in my neighborhood let them get a job and earn the money to buy a house. Thats what I did.

Maybe to "desegregate" the inner city we should give every black family on welfare a single wide parked on the side of a hill in the Appalachian Mountains :-).
5 posted on 03/21/2006 3:43:21 AM PST by PeteB570 (Guns, what real men want for Christmas)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

The song "There Goes The Neighborhood" by The BusBoys comes to mind...


6 posted on 03/21/2006 3:44:49 AM PST by dakine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Blame everybody, including Congress, Judges, and agencies, for creating these laws and interpreting them in such ways. It's not that giving some poor people housing is a bad thing. It's that having the federal government involved in this type of complex social engineering is meddlesome and crazily inefficient.


7 posted on 03/21/2006 3:45:36 AM PST by Williams
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

The welfare mentality is going to ruin this country.


8 posted on 03/21/2006 3:45:37 AM PST by Millicent_Hornswaggle (Retired US Marine wife)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Baltimore's African-American public housing residents have virtually no opportunity to live in white, suburban neighborhoods with better opportunities for themselves and their children for education, employment, safety and recreation,"

What do they think will happen when a housing project is mandated to be placed in the "white, suburban neighborhoods"?

The way the person who said that paragraph thinks, you'd think there were "opportunity trees" growing in the white neighborhood that all you have to do is pick.

You will see flight from whatever suburb such a housing project is placed - count on it.

9 posted on 03/21/2006 3:46:09 AM PST by Fury
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Millicent_Hornswaggle

What do you mean "going to" ?


10 posted on 03/21/2006 3:46:19 AM PST by Williams
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Plaintiffs contend that discrimination is responsible for the fact that more than 90 percent of the region's family public housing units in the mid-1990s were concentrated in areas of the city with disproportionately high numbers of African-Americans and that most holders of housing vouchers also lived in areas that were overwhelmingly black and poor.

Read that a couple of times and try to digest the meaning of it. All I can get out of it is that they are claiming that poor black people live where poor black people live.

11 posted on 03/21/2006 3:49:31 AM PST by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for Sgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vaquero
error....that is move TO the Red states, not from them.

That's OK. You were color-coding them the way they SHOULD be color coded, rather than the way the MSM did it in order to obstruct the true nature of what are called the blue states.

12 posted on 03/21/2006 3:49:35 AM PST by Hardastarboard (HEY - Billy Joe! You ARE an American Idiot!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Wow, so people are entitled to housing because of decades of discrimination. But why only 675. It seems we need several million new homes for all these people. I hope we can provide food and clothing and cars and big screen TVs to these poor people. And why not some extra spending money.


13 posted on 03/21/2006 3:49:48 AM PST by Always Right
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Baltimore trying to run them out, New Orleans trying to keep them in.


14 posted on 03/21/2006 3:49:49 AM PST by SR 50 (Larry)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
New Orleans could use them to help maintain their chocolate status.
15 posted on 03/21/2006 3:52:18 AM PST by Mark was here (How can they be called "Homeless" if their home is a field?.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Graybeard58
Read that a couple of times and try to digest the meaning of it. All I can get out of it is that they are claiming that poor black people live where poor black people live.

And I think the judge is saying that living around black people is undesirable.

16 posted on 03/21/2006 3:52:49 AM PST by Always Right
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: SR 50

1. Will government attempting to build "affordable housing" in areas where an average half acre lot may have a market value of $100,000+?

2. Will they attempt to purchase said property at fair market values or enact eminent domain?

3. Will private developers now be asked or regulated into providing a percentage of any proposed development to HUD to ensure a trouble free approval and development period?

This is just flat out wrong. If you don't think Kelo is going to start applying to public housing debates within the next 2 years? Well, your home could be next.


17 posted on 03/21/2006 3:55:33 AM PST by PittsburghAfterDark
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

You cant dilute black neighborhoods by sending them out into white neighborhoods. What you do is create new black neighborhoods as whites move out. Its been going on for 50 years and they still cant see it. Tell you what--- Move Baltimore blacks to Montgomery County. Germanton and Gaithersburg and Potomac have lots of jobs growing on trees out there..


18 posted on 03/21/2006 3:56:06 AM PST by sgtbono2002
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fury; All
People who make a living off the poor (poverty-pimps) by telling them it's someone else's fault they're impoverished, are the real crooks.

They'll be the first to criticise Bill Cosby or the many other voices telling the poor to raise themselves up through strong families and education.

LINKS to these voices

19 posted on 03/21/2006 3:57:35 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Well, if it isn't anti-smoking, then it will be housing that will be pushed on us. Next, it will be an automobile, complete with DVD player (to calm the unruly children or satisfy the X-rated mind of some degenerates) in every driveway. Activist judges have got to be removed or at the very least, handcuffed.


20 posted on 03/21/2006 4:05:08 AM PST by Bushbacker1 (Kill 'em til they're dead! Then, kill 'em again!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Sure makes me want to move to Md. buy a house, open a business and pay for this kind of crap.
As ususal, good post Cincinatus' wife.


21 posted on 03/21/2006 4:05:11 AM PST by Joe Boucher (an enemy of islam)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Always Right

Why do you think Moslems have multple wives? It's a way to milk the "system". Multiple wives (with only one being "legally" recognized) means multiple AFDC checks, multiple Social Security checks and health care paid by Medicaid. Of course, the Gubmint looks the other way, since everybody knows it's a "Religion of Peace". We're paying them to breed like rabbits.
Disgusting.
Read Debbie Schussel for more on this type of activity in Detroit.


22 posted on 03/21/2006 4:05:59 AM PST by mikeybaby (long time lurker)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: IrishMike

O'malley knows his meal ticket is on both sides of the track,he will lose so many of the(not in my backyard) liberals in the surrounding communities, even with 90% of the black votes, will it not help him win the state.


23 posted on 03/21/2006 4:08:14 AM PST by dubyawhoiluv
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Mark was here; Always Right
I had a discussion with a black woman who runs a used bookstore in Silver Spring. They've been revitalizing that downtown area.

Anyway, she started to draw me into a political debate about the war on terror after I'd remarked that we had been attacked while she was bad mouthing Bush to some other shoppers in the aisle I was browsing.

She felt it was awful that people in this neighborhood couldn't find work - some had been looking for a year or longer. To which I replied, then they should move and go to where they can find work - as we had just moved to the Balt-Wash area for that very reason.

She looked at me like I was insane. She said these people couldn't do that and that the government (largest employer in this area) could give these people jobs.

So you see, the government needs to provide in one fashion or another in some people's thinking.
24 posted on 03/21/2006 4:08:14 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Steele can campaign on this issue. If he gets on the right side of this, it will help him a lot in the suburbs.


25 posted on 03/21/2006 4:08:29 AM PST by bondjamesbond (RICE '08)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

"Baltimore's African-American public housing residents have virtually no opportunity to live in white, suburban neighborhoods with better opportunities for themselves and their children for education, employment, safety and recreation,"

Yes they do have the opportunity, it's called a pre-approval from a mortgage lender and purchase agreement for a home.

I don't ask someones race when I pre-approve them(until the end when we answer the govt mandated ?'s); they can call me and we will start the process.

I can do lending in Baltimore.


26 posted on 03/21/2006 4:14:09 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Never bring a knife to a gun fight, or a Democrat to do serious work...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PeteB570
Hey, if a person wants to live in my neighborhood let them get a job and earn the money to buy a house. Thats what I did.

That's the story in my neighborhood. We are pretty much a cross section now, some of everything. In talking about this with one Black neighbor, the saying emerged, "There is ONE color in this country: GREEN."

If someone earns enough "Green", they can live anywhere they want. He works hard, and brought up three really good kids. He moved out from the city decades ago, and refers to his former neighbors, who still huddle there and collect, as (The Collective Noun We Cannot Use.).

27 posted on 03/21/2006 4:15:39 AM PST by Gorzaloon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: bondjamesbond; Joe Boucher
It screams of the soft bigotry of low expectations - what the Left is so famous and reviled for. At least they should be.

LIBERAL groups milk the remnants of the welfare state because their future political viability depends on nurturing "victims."
28 posted on 03/21/2006 4:20:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
And I thought that the legislature was tasked with making laws and spending money. Silly me.

5.56mm

29 posted on 03/21/2006 4:20:49 AM PST by M Kehoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
This has already been done. See what happened to Houston when, 150,000 Katrina refugees were put into middle-class neighborhoods. Total Chaos?
30 posted on 03/21/2006 4:23:36 AM PST by wolfcreek
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

I can't afford to move into the DC suburb of Mitchellville, a mostly black enclave of much nicer homes than I have now. Should I sue?


31 posted on 03/21/2006 4:26:23 AM PST by jimfree (Freep and ye shall find.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fury
The way the person who said that paragraph thinks, you'd think there were "opportunity trees" growing in the white neighborhood that all you have to do is pick.

Yes, and $50 bills come out of the faucets from time to time.

32 posted on 03/21/2006 4:28:07 AM PST by jimfree (Freep and ye shall find.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

The left can't stand the fact that many sensible people have fled the inner cities to live in peace with their neighbors without the fear of being raped, robbed or killed and their children harassed because of their skin color.
The left wants to move the people who rape rob and kill into the peaceful neighborhoods.
The left wants everyone to live at the same miserable level - if you have, they want to take from you, if you don't have, they give you what they took from the haves.


33 posted on 03/21/2006 4:29:34 AM PST by BooksForTheRight.com (what have you done today to fight terrorism/leftism (same thing!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

ME! ME! ME!

I want to be a poverty pimp! I want the cash for being stooopid enough to be poor in a country that gives you every opportunity to be rich!


34 posted on 03/21/2006 4:32:18 AM PST by truemiester (If the U.S. should fail, a veil of darkness will come over the Earth for a thousand years)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Of course when the market value drops in those neighborhoods, so will the tax revenues to the city.


35 posted on 03/21/2006 4:33:40 AM PST by mtbopfuyn (Legality does not dictate morality... Lavin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BooksForTheRight.com
The left wants everyone to live at the same miserable level - if you have, they want to take from you, if you don't have, they give you what they took from the haves.

That's communism and it's failed everywhere it's been tried. Under communism, self-enrichment is a crime - accept of course if you're the one keeping the masses in line.

36 posted on 03/21/2006 4:36:21 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: mtbopfuyn
Of course when the market value drops in those neighborhoods, so will the tax revenues to the city.

I imagine someone has their eye on the inner city property ripe for redevelopment, at the right government subsidized price of course.

37 posted on 03/21/2006 4:38:33 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

If only I could live next door to someone rich and white, all my pathologies would go away.


38 posted on 03/21/2006 4:45:12 AM PST by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dakine
I hadn't thought about the Busboys in a while. Good group.
39 posted on 03/21/2006 4:50:00 AM PST by TankerKC (Pull your head out.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife


Eventually they will have to accept that the problems in the Black community come from the Black community. No matter where you put them the same problems will arise.


40 posted on 03/21/2006 4:53:50 AM PST by SouthernFreebird
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
I imagine someone has their eye on the inner city property ripe for redevelopment, at the right government subsidized price of course.
If you take Amtrak through Baltimore you will see very large areas of boarded up row houses very close to downtown. The buildings are still standing, but they and the yards are trashed. Many years ago the city was trying to sell them for $1 each on the promise that the purchaser would fix it up. Looks like they still have a few square miles to go.
41 posted on 03/21/2006 5:04:09 AM PST by posterchild (Living a capitalist dream in a socialist 'paradise.')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Social Engineering at its worst. Many Blacks in the inner cities become successful and move to the suburbs to get out of the inner city. Prince Georges County Maryland, and Dekalb County, Georgia are good examples of this. State intervention creates anomalies. This is what happened when school busing was forced on communities. The result, people that did not want their kids to go to school with inner city kids just left. This is true for white and black parents.
42 posted on 03/21/2006 5:09:11 AM PST by GeorgefromGeorgia
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PittsburghAfterDark

Last year I was doing some work on a very nice apartment complex in a suburb of Minneapolis. I asked the project manager why there were some junky looking cars in the parking lot of such an expensive place. He told me they had to allow a certain amount of low income people to live there to get the project approved. The people that paid full price were not too thrilled that some were living there for nothing.


43 posted on 03/21/2006 5:12:14 AM PST by shelterguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Fury

Pity the poor homeowners in any place like that. Watch their property values fall right through the floor.


44 posted on 03/21/2006 5:12:35 AM PST by Ronin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
" So you see, the government needs to provide in one fashion or another in some people's thinking. "

This is precisely the attitude that was on display down in NOLA during Katrina.

It was painfully obvious that 'people' were gonna sit there and wait for the 'gov'ment' to come and take care of them. It was their 'right' and the gov'ment's 'job' to come to their rescue.

Nevermind that the water keeps rising, we'll just sit here and wait.

45 posted on 03/21/2006 5:13:17 AM PST by doberville
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: shelterguy

I used to live in a condo complex like that.

Most of the units were owner-occupied, but there were lots of rentals too (I was one of those). A handful of others were set-asides for low-income or mentally incompetent people living on the state. Just enough riff-raff about to keep the place interesting.

One of the kooks once screamed through his window that he was going to kill me.

Good times.


46 posted on 03/21/2006 5:18:09 AM PST by Gefreiter ("Are you drinking 1% because you think you're fat?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: PittsburghAfterDark

3 is the most likely scenario.

I lived in an apartment in Baltimore County in an otherwise desirable location. The couple who lived below me were receiving some sort of subsidized senior housing. The boyfriend was on a medical disability and the girlfriend was a cashier at Michaels. There is no way they could have afforded the rent otherwise unless they were receiving subsidies. They were absolute lunatics and made life worse for the rest of the residents.

My guess is that developers who wish to build a subdivision with more than 300 town homes will have to build an apartment complex in the development if they want a permit.


47 posted on 03/21/2006 5:20:05 AM PST by az_illini (Don't cuff the invisible hand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Fury

Build the housing right next to the house of that judge.


48 posted on 03/21/2006 5:21:10 AM PST by Squat (Deport the illegals now! Turn Home Depot's into the prisons to hold the illegals!.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: PeteB570

As a resident of Appalachia, I don't think so!


49 posted on 03/21/2006 5:24:19 AM PST by Roccus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

I'm up here in Baltimore, babysitting the grandbabies for my son/daughter-in-law. They are AD military (she is) and they can only afford a house in the inner city of Baltimore. They live on a fairly nice street, but the whole place just scares me and two younger sons.
So many people on the streets, just hanging around all day, no hope. This street, the young black men just hang out right out in front. They are polite and so helpful, but what are they doing out there???? My heart aches for them, they've never been taught to grab your chance, never learned much. ONe helped with the TV the other night and I was asking him about going in the military. He took the ASVAB for the Navy and failed it by 2 points. The Navy cut off it 35!!!!! I told him to try the Army (their cut off is 31 i think) I suggested tutoring. If i was going to be here, I'd tutor him. He's 24, 2 kids, no mama in the house, grandma raises them. He could turn his life around, or he could keep on and one day be 44 and still on the corner, drinking beer. He has a nowhere job, i think he could go for it.
Better we help each other than the gov't nanny state be expected to do it.
He's a really nice young man.


50 posted on 03/21/2006 5:32:34 AM PST by Shimmer128
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-5051-71 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson