City's shame: No room to live - Lack of housing puts grim squeeze on immigrants

New York Daily News ^ | December 1, 2003 | FERNANDA SANTOS

[glorgau]

Hmmm, the article talks about "illegal units", but doesn't seem to emphasize "illegal immigrants".

[sarcasm]

Didn't you get the memo? They're now called migrants.

[raybbr]

In extreme cases, as many as 10 people are packing one-bedroom apartments, denying them basic human dignities of privacy, fresh air and cleanliness.

They do this on purpose so they can pay the rent and still be able to send money back home. I have no sympathy for them.

[BluH2o]

Our local paper did a touchy feely liberal induced article on how local landlords discriminated against Hispanics. What they meant by Hispanics were in fact illegal aliens from Central America and Mexico. Landlords are reluctant to rent to them because they lack documentation, have no references, and when they do rent to them, so many crowd into one apartment, other renters complain and move out.

[yankeedame]

The city's skyrocketing immigrant population and tight housing supply are forcing tens of thousands of New Yorkers to cram into illegal apartments....

Thank you, NYC "rent control" which insures both scarce, and run down, housing.
(By the by, what on earth is an "illegal" apartment? One that's cause in the city w/o a visa?"

[sarcasm]

Actually, rent control mainly subsidizes the middle and upper middle class. Rents outside Manhattan are generally at market.

[OldEagle]

Let's see, they leave whatever NAFTA jobs they had in Mexico, illegaly enter the USA, travel to Manhattan to work three jobs so they can live worse than they were in Mexico.

Where is the percentage in that?

[Patangeles]

Mayor Bloomberg announced last December a $3 billion program to create 65,000 affordable homes in New York by 2008, the biggest city commitment to new housing in 15 years.

You would think that it would cost no more than $65 million to create 65,000 affordable homes, and even that's a stretch. I wonder if the $3 billion is a typo.

[sarcasm]

Mexico doesn't have food stamps, the WIC program .....

[hellinahandcart]

$826 per month for a two-bedroom is a steal.

"But if they simply decide to crack down on illegal units now, where will all the people who are living in these apartments go?"

Back to #$%&ing Mexico, if I had my way, and the city were concerned more with the law than with revenue enhancement...

[hellinahandcart]

I wonder if the $3 billion is a typo.

Unfortunately it is not.

The city will probaby have to hire 65,000 bureacrats in order to make sure that the program to build 65,000 affordable homes runs as inefficiently as possible.

[pageonetoo]

" You would think that it would cost no more than $65 million to create 65,000 affordable homes, and even that's a stretch. I wonder if the $3 billion is a typo."

You're kidding, right? In NY, they have UNIONS and MOBSTERS... and the DNC vets all the dole, taking their cut!

[hellinahandcart]

Besides, you're overlooking the obvious. As long as they have a large money-sucking PROGRAM in place, they can spent years playing with themselves deciding how to best provide housing, and doing surveys, and issuing press releases about the problem, and not one single unit ever has to actually be built.

[Patangeles]

Even taking the mobsters, beaurocrats and unions into account, $3 billion for 65,000 apartments seems way excessive!

[WayneM]

They do the same thing here in Athens AL, where the rent on a cheap house is $250/month. They do it so they can send more money home. Also, 5 or 6 people will collectively purchase a new car.

I don't feel too bad about any of this. If it wasn't better than where they came from, they wouldn't have come here (probably illegally).

[hellinahandcart]

Even taking the mobsters, beaurocrats and unions into account, $3 billion for 65,000 apartments seems way excessive!

You're still not getting it. The program will exist, and will certainly swallow up a minimum of 3 billion dollars, but 65,000 units will never be built. Ever.

If they manage to build 650 units over the next decade, I will eat my hat!

[verity]

Everybody loves New York!

[pageonetoo]

Even taking the mobsters, beaurocrats and unions into account, $3 billion for 65,000 apartments seems way excessive!

Of course, it is excessive. This is a g'umt project, and there first have to be studies. then, after studying the situation, they need to form a group to oversee the project. then, there are the costs involved in land acquisition, and development. After that, there are bids that have to be rigged,oops, I meant bid.
Then, the operations begin construction. After that, the inspectors have to be paid off, oops, i mean paid.
Finally, there must be a new beaurocracy formed to oversee the leasing and maintainance, which is always high in g'umt housing.
Finally, there needs to be enough skimming to re-elect the swine that started it.
Yay, Bloomberg, a fine republicrat, in the name of 'compassion'.
I wonder if all the unemployed in NY, can smoke, at home? After closing so many businesses (reult ofbloomies' smoking ban), and causing massive losses to others, he isn't through raping the sheeple!

[hellinahandcart]

You're forgetting that public hearings will have to be held about where to place apartment buildings that illegal immigrants can easily afford to live in. And that environmental and social-justice activists will file lawsuits every month complaining about the "impact" of all the construction that isn't happening, and the lack of free services for the residents in buildings that don't exist. This project will move like a glacier.

There was a fund for new school construction, too. How many *new* schools have been built? I can't recall any.