Free Republic

A wrecking ball is marking the end of an era this morning at 1230 N. Burling St., otherwise known as Cabrini-Green. The tower there is the last of the housing project's high-rise buildings to be demolished. A Target store may be built on the site, according to published reports. And even though some row houses remain, many consider this the end of Cabrini Green, judged by history as one of the most notorious housing projects in the country. Cabrini-Green survived almost 60 years. Cabrini-Green gained a well-earned reputation for gang crime and almost daily violence. Police officers were gunned down...

HOUSTON - From the exterior of Kennedy Place, it looks like any other upscale apartment complex. Inside you'll find faux granite top counters, a matching refrigerator, stove, dishwasher and an alarm system. Move over to the amenities room and there are flat screens in the lounge area, computer and workout rooms. The only thing different about this apartment complex: it’s public housing . Sheila Johnson has lived at Kennedy Place for that last seven years. She remembers when it used to be a 30-year-old building with lots of crime. But after $11 million in renovations, there are three-story units with...

Notice the bush growing inside the rusty playground equipment, the skeleton of the former slide and all the trash around it. Hundreds of people look at it from their window everyday and keep complaining that they pay taxes and the city is not cleaning. Actually the city is hiring folks to clean the neighborhoods. Meet the tax-dollars at work (or more like the tax-dollars at rest). The city government is always trying to put people to work this is why they hire some uneducated folks to do public service (kind of workfare). The city bought them safety jackets and...

Philadelphia tore down 21. Chicago leveled 79. Baltimore took down 21 as well, and when six of them came down in one day in 1995, it threw a parade. Since the 1990s, public housing high-rise buildings have come tumbling down by the dozens across the country as cities replaced them with smaller suburban-style homes that did not carry the stigma of looming urban despair and poverty.

(English-language translation) Residents of the island's public-housing projects will be able to benefit from a fixed fee for electricity and water services thanks to a new Special Utility-Fee Justice for Public-Housing Projects Law. Governor Luis Fortuño announced that the new statute intends to prevent families who are behind in their [utility] payments from losing their housing according to a federal law that requires eviction for those who are not up to date with payments. The fixed-fee program is voluntary, and it is expected that a one-bedroom housing unit will pay $30 per month [for electricity]. In the meantime, units with...

Sen. Tim Johnson is expected to take the reins of the Senate Banking Committee next year following Chairman Chris Dodd’s decision not to run for re-election, according to sources. A spokeswoman for Johnson confirmed that the South Dakota Democrat is "next in line for the position." "Now that Chairman Dodd has made his future plans known, Sen. Johnson is ready to assume the role," she said. "He is more than up to the task and has the confidence of the Majority Leader and his colleagues on the committee." Johnson is currently the No. 2 Democrat on the Banking Committee, but...

Good video talks about the government being the landlord on those Freddie/Fannie houses.

Based on legislation and case law, the U.S. government's attitude toward increased rights for gun owners has been more favorable in recent years than ever before.In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for private use. It was the first Supreme Court case in U.S. history to directly address whether the right to keep and bear arms is a right of individuals in addition to a collective right that applies to state-regulated militias.As a result, additional pleas to increase...

President shifts focus to renting, not owning Using $4.25b to build affordable housing WASHINGTON - The Obama administration, in a major shift on housing policy, is abandoning George W. Bush’s vision of creating an “ownership society’’ and instead plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units in American cities. The idea is to pay for the construction of low-rise rental apartment buildings and town houses, as well as the purchase of foreclosed homes that can be refurbished and rented to low- and moderate-income families at affordable rates. Analysts say...

HIGH POINT -- Residents of a local public housing facility recently had to cease holding religious services there after officials told them the activities ran afoul of federal regulations. Worship services by residents of Elm Towers were in violation of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rules, which forbid "inherently religious activities" for organizations that receive HUD funds, according to the High Point Housing Authority. Elm Towers residents had been gathering for years on Sunday mornings and sometimes Wednesday evenings for Christian worship services led by a local minister in a common room on the first floor of the...

ATLANTA The nation's bulldozer attack on crime and poverty soon will make Atlanta - home of the first public housing development - the first major city to eliminate all of its large housing projects. Cities from Boston to Los Angeles are following its lead. For more than 15 years, housing officials across the country have been razing the projects where about 1.2 million families live and replacing them with a mix of higher-rent and subsidized apartments and homes. Alexandria, La., has taken down at least 247 units. Buffalo, N.Y., has demolished about 1,000 aging homes. Atlanta expects to finish tearing...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   California: NRA Victory in San Francisco Lawsuit!   Thursday, January 29, 2009   PUBLIC HOUSING OFFICIALS DROP ILLEGAL BAN ON FIREARMS POSSESSION IN PUBLIC HOUSING An NRA-led coalition of self-defense civil rights groups including the Second Amendment Foundation and the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) has prevailed in a Second Amendment lawsuit challenging a ban on firearm possession in San Francisco public housing residences. “This success is further vindication of the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller ruling upholding the Second Amendment as protecting a fundamental, individual civil right for all law-abiding...

An NRA-led coalition of self-defense civil rights groups including the Second Amendment Foundation and the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA) has prevailed in a Second Amendment lawsuit challenging a ban on firearm possession in San Francisco public housing residences. “This success is further vindication of the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller ruling upholding the Second Amendment as protecting a fundamental, individual civil right for all law-abiding Americans,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. The San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) and the property management company that oversees San Francisco’s public housing projects have agreed to completely remove a lease provision...

On the far south side of Chicago, separated by more than 20 miles and a vast chasm in wealth from the city's soaring skyline, is a collection of squat brick buildings where Barack Obama says he found his calling. The President-elect has said that he learnt more from the locals when working in the Chicago projects than they learnt from him. Those who remember him say that he made little impact The Altgeld Gardens public housing project reeks of decay, fear and despair. At the only shop serving its 2,000 homes, water pours in from the roof on to sodden...

FReep this Digg! Post as many links exposing ObamaNation on Digg as possible between now and election! FLOOD THE PLACE WITH ARTICLES AND VIDEOS EXPOSING OBAMANATION! It’s all about VOLUME!!! To find Digg links on FR, simply typing "Digg" into FR's keyword search box. To make sure they can be found, type Digg into keyword section of any "FReep this Digg" post. Also remember, if you have time, saturate Digg with conservative articles/videos exposing the ObamaNation! --------- CONFUSED? What do I mean by "Digg to the top"? Click on the article link that leads to Digg. Once there, hit the...

For all the talk of weaving public housing residents into the fabric of the city, the Chicago Housing Authority's ambitious Plan for Transformation includes this inconvenient fact: When the plan is complete, nearly 1 of every 10 of those families will live more than 100 blocks south of the Loop, tucked amid landfills, industrial parks and a sewage treatment plant. Mayor Richard Daley declared eight years ago that Chicago would end "the failed policies of the past." Yet a Tribune investigation found that the city has pumped hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars into housing complexes that preserve the...

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporte

CABRINI-GREEN | Mom watches as gate crushes 3-year-old son At 3 years old, Curtis Cooper thought himself invincible. He'd fashion a towel into a cape, and called himself Super Curtis. But mom Pamela Cooper knew he wasn't invincible. So despite her family ribbing her about being overprotective, she never let the boy play outside without her. Until Friday, when she let her son ride his tricycle outside his Cabrini-Green row home alone, she said. As the 22-year-old mother watched from a window, a gate weighing hundreds of pounds broke from its hinge, fell atop the boy and killed him, Cooper's...

I don’t begrudge Barack Obama the modesty of his accomplishments as a community organizer. Stemming the tide of urban decay in Chicago’s worst neighborhoods in the late 1980s was beyond even the most tireless efforts of one man. “Sisyphean” is the term that keeps coming to mind, but I would note that what Obama actually accomplished – “a successful effort to convince the city of Chicago to locate a jobs placement office on the far South Side and his part in a drive to push the city to clean asbestos out of a housing project in the same area [Altgeld...

<p>The National Rifle Association today filed a lawsuit challenging San Francisco's ban on handguns in public housing, trying to capitalize on the U.S. Supreme Court's historic ruling finding a constitutional right to own guns for self-defense in the home.</p> <p>In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, lawyers for gun rights advocates are asking a federal judge to invalidate San Francisco's handgun law based on the Supreme Court's decision striking down a broader Washington, D.C. law forbidding residents to own handguns.</p>