[RegulatorCountry]

The vast majority will not maintain the property, it will fall into disrepair and ruin, and they will encumber the property with as much debt as they possibly can before defaulting and ending up in public housing once more. It’s happened again and again in many parts of the country. Sounds good in theory but in practice it falls apart.

[crz]

Yup. Ask any landlord south of the 8 mile road in Deeetroit and they’ll tell you.

About 1 out of 100 are actually good.

[Jagermonster]

So far, so good . . .

McElvee patrols the area at night and helps out his elderly neighbor, watering her grass and taking up her garbage bin. When the residents’ washing machines had a glitch, another resident went around to each house offering to fix it.

“That was the whole point,” says McElvee, “so that everybody knows each other and looks out for each other.”

There was also a pretty stiff application process. I think that it can work when you can pick the people who get to join up.

[gnarledmaw]

A couple of us were having this conversation a couple of weeks ago. The government already tried this back in the 70s. They built whole neighborhoods of homes (alternating the same split level, ranch, and cape cod houses down the street) and moved in low income people. Their house payment was set at $75 dollars or whatever it was the agency determined they should be able to pay. They made the same claims that people would become more productive and have better lives if they owned a home.

Just as RC said, all the dopers and drunks just let the homes collapse and didnt make their payments. The houses were often badly vandalized by the residents. The program was a total failure and by the 80s many of those neighborhoods had none of the original inhabitants left and the homes were sold to middle class families looking for a cheap fixer upper. I spent a couple of years helping my dad remodel one at the same time every other family of new owners in that neighborhood was doing the same.

It might sound good but it doesnt work. A major part of the problem is the culture that these people bring with them. Substance abuse plagues these residents and anyone short on cash tends to fall back into old habits. This guy "used to" have a problem. He likely will in the near future too. Even worse are some of the ones that actually do kick the substances themselves, now theyre sober enough to run their own drug/theft/prostitution rings.

[MSF BU]

You might be right. Build the tiny concrete block units on slabs, not too much of an issue.

[madison10]

Isn’t rent-to-own much more likely to create a different mindset than that of people being in rental housing? Or are you saying the neighborhood would destroy the homes?