Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy [tax $$ build slums with rodents & leaking sewage]

Boston Globe ^ | June 27, 2008 | Binyamin Appelbaum

[grundle]

CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

Some of the residents of Grove Parc say they are angry that Obama did not notice their plight. The development straddles the boundary of Obama's state Senate district. Many of the tenants have been his constituents for more than a decade.

[grundle]

These taxpayer funded, rodent infested slums with sewage backing out of the toilets are the real world results of Obama's "community organizing."

[SENTINEL]

More proof that what is given too freely is esteemed too lighty.

[ronnie raygun]

Don’t worry, his forclosure rental investment scheme is about to be unvieled. No more housing projects! section
8 ‘ers will be put in forclosed homes, we pay the rent and they move into your nieghborhood free and clear, hows that redistribution doin? I heard about this idea 8 months ago and a freeper posted the article just the other day, “investors are looking forward to Obama’s new housing initative, renting forclosures will improve the market and pull us out of this recession” It reads like a bad horror paperback. He wants to Detroit the nation

[Baynative]

Antoin “Tony” Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama’s early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko’s company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama’s district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama’s campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama’s own accounting. (This number now exceeds $500,000).

One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.

[bkopto]

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Paging Valerie Jarrett, Paging Valerie Jarrett....

[NoGrayZone]

"I'm not against Barack Obama," said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. "What I am against is some of the people around him."

Are these people just plain stupid, or do they just see the color of barrys skin??

[Kenny500c]

When we all live in such socialist hell-holes, America will finally be “fair” and Democrats can be proud of their country.

[Vegasrugrat]

The only surprising thing about this story is that the Boston Globe wrote it???

[MrBambaLaMamba]

Sustainable shovel ready jobs.

BHO has always been thinking of the future!

[Baynative]

The only surprising thing about this story is that the Boston Globe wrote it"

It was published before the election in 2008. What's not surprising is that the rest of the media ignored it.

[TigersEye]

Obama Advisor Valerie Jarrett Linked to Real Estate Scandals - Judicial Watch

[TigersEye]

UPDATED: Obama Sued Citibank Under CRA to Force it to Make Bad Loans - MediaCircus.com

[okie01]

WHEW! That is one damning article. And it was in the Boston Globe, of all places!

Rumors abound that there is a rather large and criminal skeleton in the Obama closet -- and that it resided back in Chicago. Could this be the crypt door opening?

The reporter is obviously grinding an axe on the public-private partnerships vs purely public housing. But even that point gets lost in the rat-infested, sewage flooded financial morass that is low-income housing in general.

Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars, wasted every year -- going to reward bureaucrats, crooked developers and politicians, rather than the low-income tenants whom it is "supposed" to benefit. The ultimate in "crony capitalism" -- which isn't capitalism, at all. A more accurate term would "friendly fascism".

A helluva story. Credit to its author, Binyamin Appelbaum.

[Mr. K]

How did they get this filthy?

I am pretty sure they weren’t built that way

There are many reasons you can be poor, but there is never a good reason to be filthy and live like pigs.

So... they must like it that way.

[BfloGuy]

Grove Parc

How nice. Has a French ring to it.

[TigersEye]

Obama adviser shapes city housing policy - Chicago Tribune; July 06, 2008

Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser to Barack Obama, stands at the center of Chicago's controversial efforts to redevelop public housing.

Jarrett has pushed to integrate new developments by limiting the number of residents, mostly poor and black, who can live in the new communities.

[funfan]

Well alot of good the story did. The article is from July of 2008

[TigersEye]

Planting Seeds of Disaster ACORN, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party.
National Review Online; By Stanley Kurtz; October 7, 2008

I’ve already told the story of Obama’s close ties to ACORN leader Madeline Talbott, who personally led Chicago ACORN’s campaign to intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers. Using provisions of a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards — and to fill ACORN’s coffers to finance “counseling” operations like the one touted in that Sun-Times article.

[freekitty]

Ask Valerie Jarrett. She would know since she is a slum lord there.

[RedMDer]

What Washington needs is adult supervision.



Throw the rat out

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