My husband and I walked along Broadway tonight from Denny to John, a stretch of one and a half blocks. No less than 11 people asked us for money, even rudely interrupting our conversation and physically stepping in our way. I haven’t seen my husband since Friday morning and we were catching up, so I was a bit irritated. I usually avoid Broadway so maybe I haven’t noticed the increase in beggars but it seems to be getting out of control. Has there recently been a push to shift the homeless out of Downtown, perhaps to hide them from the summer tourists?
I feel bad for the homeless and I do what I can to help by volunteering in the community at a local homeless women shelter, previously volunteered at CAMP (which helps with energy assistance and provides a food bank for those in need), and participating in food drives. I do not have money lying around to hand out to everyone. It’s frustrating and we will go back to avoiding Broadway in the future. Is this what we want for our community? Is there something we can do to help solve the problem other than just shifting the beggers elsewhere?
That is definitely not normal. I walk Broadway pretty much every day and I’d say I get asked for money 1 to 3 times per week. I’ve only been living here for about 7 months, but I’ve never had one be pushy or aggressive either.
Some of those folks may not be homeless.
We generally avoid Broadway because it’s simply unpleasant — especially in that area. Too many lowlifes. I think 11 people asking for money on 1.5 blocks is probably a statistical anomaly, but the fact remains that Broadway sucks.
Basically when you get a critical mass of lowlifes, they kind of take over and regular people are afraid to try to say anything for fear of getting assaulted.
You could email someone on the city council. May not do anything but helps to make noise.
I think the fact that Dick’s is now the only place with a lot of traffic, with everything else for a block in either direction now shut down, the only convenient place to panhandle is right there. I’ve never had people physically obstruct me or get in my face, though, and I walk by there fairly often. There is a pack of drunks that regularly hangs out in front of the post office, but there’s rarely more than 4-5 of them, and they’ve never asked me for money.
I have heard that there’s a crackdown going on downtown and the homeless people are flowing up to Capitol Hill, the ID, Belltown, etc., but I only have conjecture to back that up.
For the most part, people who are sparing for change will understand and appreciate a simple, ‘Not today.’ Considering the regularity with which they are spat at, yelled at, made fun of, or simply ignored, I find that even if you have nothing to give (or don’t wish to) at least acknowledging you heard them and responding politely is beneficial.
Seattle has a ‘Ten year Plan to End Homelessness’ which cannot even pretend to be effective. There is a lack of affordable housing, especially downtown, and many who are homeless need to be close to various offices and hospitals to continue getting assistance: moving to the ‘burbs just won’t cut it. We can’t build the housing necessary to house everyone all in one year, and many neighborhoods follow the ‘NIMBY’ (not in my back yard) philosophy and fight against low-income housing developments nearby. In the meantime, tent cities are an amazing, safe, compassionate alternative. Also, many folks simply do not have a support system available to them. Even if they have a case manager at a local agency, that CM has a huge load of clients and can’t give all the emotional support people need to get stable.
I live right up the street from that stretch of Broadway, and haven’t experienced aggressive panhandling there yet. That’s not to say I don’t think it exists or that I haven’t experienced it. Asking questions like you did is the start to facilitating community that cares and actively wants to see others taken care of. It’s great, but I hope that you don’t give up on Broadway because of your experience. Everyone is a member of our community, and by avoidance we only serve to further the divide that is felt.
Oh, and Pffft: They aren’t lowlifes, they’re humans. I’ve worked very closely with the homeless as an advocate and shelter worker for two years and have never been assaulted. The homeless men and women I’ve met are the most unique, loving, interesting people I know and deserve basic human respect. Just like the housed population, there are good and bad, and you’ve got to make friends to ever know the difference. Don’t exclude them because of a stereotype you’ve most likely never bothered to challenge. Thanks.
I moved to the Broadway part of Capital Hill in 1983, stayed there for 20 years. Now I live in the Central District. Permit me a comment. These bums on Broadway are drug addicts. I was once one of them. They need to be swept up and put in de-tox. Don’t weep for them as the “homeless”. The problem is more serious and immediate than that. Get over your liberal guilt about people less fortunate than you. Tough love, baby. I’ve been there.
On many occasions on the Hill, I’ve been asked for money and I replied with “Sorry.” My dad, a native South Bronxite, told me that’s the thing to say to be polite. THREE times, the bum has taken “Sorry” as an insult. This includes one guy who walked right into the restaurant where I was dining. I told him “sorry,” and he just blew up at me, yelling “NO, YOU’RE NOT SORRY, MAN!”
Obviously not all homeless people are so aggressive, or even homeless, but I’ve never seen such a harsh sense of entitlement among beggars as I have on the Hill.
I really am surprised at how many people subscribe to the NIMBY way. The 10 Year Plan To End Homelessness at least has good intentions…wanting to help work on those main problems that cause homelessness and not just pushing the homeless from neighborhood to neighborhood. The next step is the acceptance of the residents in the communities where homelessness is prevalent.
I’ve found that when I am not wearing my top-hat, monocle, and cummerbund, the “lowlife” peasant becomes much less inclined to beg for pound or pence.
Dollar Q Cashington III, Esq.
I would agree that some, maybe most, are addicts. Not all are. I cannot make myself generalize/stereotype all of them into one lump sum. I also know that just pushing them to another neighborhood won’t solve it…thus asking if there is something we can do to start helping the basic issues that these men and women have. Detox is a good first step for many of them and there are facilities available in many cases.
I watched two kids outside of the north end Broadway QFC a while back talk between each other while I unlocked my bike and got ready to ride…they were discussing the very same thing: “No one is really sorry, they have money so they should just share it!” Turns out, they wanted cigarettes. They yelled at a woman who bought them a bag of dog food for their puppy.
I have a bit of a guilt issue in that I feel guilty for everything so when I say “sorry”, I really am sorry. I can’t afford to give money away.
LOL what about jeans and tshirts?
At the beginning of the summer, I joked that I “didn’t like to walk down Broadway on Sunday evenings” because that is when the aggro begging seems to reach its peak. I’ve noticed the same things as Wesa and now I don’t like to walk down Broadway (south of John) at all. Instead, I take the half-block detour and go through Cal Anderson instead.
You need a cane to go with that top hat. Why get the white gloves dirty when you have to knock peasant heads in once in a while.
I’ve had more than one homeless person yell at me for trying to give them some dog food. I used to be a veterinary technician, and was always getting free samples which I didnt need. I thought it was a good idea to keep the dog food in my car for when I saw a homeless person with a dog. Apparently, I was wrong. Only one very nice homeless man was ever so grateful when I handed him a 5 lb bag of food for his Basset Hound. After the third person yelled at me for giving their dog food, I gave up and brought the stuff to the shelter…
Point is, I’m not going to risk giving a homeless person some cash so they can buy a 40 of Pabst. I don’t mean to generalize but I’ve seen it happen too many times. I would rather buy a homeless person a meal or clothes, but each time I’ve tried it, I get yelled at.
From the title of this post, I thought it was going to be about you running into a panhandler riding a Segway. That would have been a funny story.
I never said they weren’t human, Glasses. And you presume that I am referring to ALL of the people on Broadway when I say “lowlifes”. You presume wrong. I don’t have a problem with the unique, loving, interesting people on Broadway. Just the lowlife drunks, drug-users and thugs that make walking around the area very unpleasant — especially when I’ve got my little son in tow.
The AIA went into effect November, 2006, and subsequently throughout 2007 there were almost NO drunks panhandling along Broadway….the AIA had a dramatic positive effect. However, about 6 months ago, the beer industry introduced new, high-alcohol/cheap products in order to subvert the AIA, and the result is the predictable return of sleazy drunks to our neighborhood. Certainly the stretch of vacant storefronts between SCC and John has contributed to the problem, but I think the main reason is because the AIA is now totally ineffective.
I urge anyone who cares about this situation to contact the Dept. of Neighborhoods (kimberlee.archie@seattle.gov) to exert some pressure on them to get the Liquor Control Board to add the new products to the banned list ASAP, and also to get going on a “formulary” approach whereby alcohol content and price would be used as criteria for what cannot be sold. Otherwise, the beer industry will just continue to come up with new products that are targeted to street drunks.
Not that I support the shithead companies producing this crap that continue to innovate and poison in the name of profit, but it’s a stretch to pin summer’s panhandlers on Keystone Ice, no?
A lot of homeless-by-choice gutter punks (mostly youths) migrate like birds. They travel to southern California, Texas, Florida, etc during the winter, and then up north during the summer. Seattle is especially popular in the summer because of its reputation.
It’s kind of like the punk rock version of a trust fund kid backpacking through Europe. These kids see the country (and often take odd jobs) and live a lifestyle that most people never experience. I really like it and I give these kids money sometimes, even if they’re going to use some of it to buy beer or weed. If you’ve read or seen “Into The Wild,” Alexander lived a more isolated and rural version of this.
Unfortunately, like trust fund kids in Prague or Paris, a lot of these kids act like entitled assholes. Many (most?) of them have had genuinely hard lives, too, which makes it hard to always be pleasant.
That is brilliant.
I find the best way to teach those young ragamuffins some manners is with the business end of my diamond tip cane! And that of my footman, Ives.
Hortisqueue T. W. Pentwhistle II
usually 3-4 times. always at least once.
and i have to say i have not noticed an increase of people panhandling. but i have noticed a shift in the population. in the past 3 months or so, it seems that the people are getting younger and younger. i’m also not seeing some regulars anymore (though girl with dog in front of QFC and “money for sandwiches” guy along the mercer – harrison stretch are still there).
it’s hard for me because i look like a person who cares. i AM a person who cares. i spend probably 5 extra minutes a day explaining to people down on their luck that i may not look it, but i don’t have lots of money. that said, i also probably spend $5 – $10 a week on giving money to people who ask me on broadway. i fully know that some of the people who ask are going to use this money to buy alcohol/drugs. i fully know that “if you teach a man to fish” crap. i used to work 60 hours a week at a homeless nonprofit in LA, a city that has a REAL, UNIMAGINABLE homeless problem seattle does not compare to. but i also feel like the economy is hurting everyone right now, and the people who ask for help are doing so because they feel the squeeze. i also make an effort to buy real change whenever possible, as opposed to just giving money away but really…it’s hard not to.
i never feel like i’m at risk of being assaulted or that someone is being overwhelmingly rude/entitled. i think it is the people who have money walking down broadway who feel entitled. they feel entitled not to share because “they’ve earned this money.” well, guess what? being spit on, called names, assaulted, raped, and treated like a “lowlife” is a way to earn money, too. i don’t think panhandling is a profession or permanent solution, nor do i think kids like the ave rats in the u-district or all those career homeless hippie types in berkeley are helping anything by pahandling when they really have other options and could get viable jobs. i don’t think panhandling is okay just because you want to rebel against your privileged middle class upbringing. but i do think it is sometimes necessary if you really are poor and have no other options.
the services for homelessness in this city are a joke, and anyone who thinks they are adequate is deluding themselves. if you want to fix homelessness, you need to fight gentrification and the removal of lowincome housing. you need to fight for more money to be spent on schools than on prisons. you need to fight to make poverty, drug addiction, and mental issues SOCIAL SERVICES priorities, not arrestable offenses. you need to advocate for rehabilitation, not criminalization. calling the police because you can’t handle people begging on the street is being part of the problem
Actually, the “Ten year Plan to End Homelessness” is proving VERY effective. It makes me sad when people say otherwise. There are a lot of people working very long and hard hours in difficult social work jobs making this happen.
There are HUNDREDS of permanent or semi-permanent housing facilities for chronic homeless people. There are hundreds more in the planning stages or being constructed. There are many large nonprofit agencies working with the City of Seattle or King County to house the homeless. It’s working.
We can’t literally “end homelessness” but we can end “chronic homelessness.” We’re focusing right now on people who have been homeless a year or more. There is way more demand than supply right now, but it has greatly improved in recent years and will continue to improve. It’s saving us money, too.
Just in case the comment “i think it is the people who have money walking down broadway who feel entitled. they feel entitled not to share because “they’ve earned this money.” was directed at me: I am a full-time college student without a job. The money I have to spend comes to me through my husband and we budget carefully to afford what we do have. It’s hard enough living in-city with one job, let alone supporting two people with one salary.
“it is sometimes necessary if you really are poor and have no other options.” This I agree with, but there are options. Have you looked at 211? There are resources available for short and long-term assistance, yet many homeless either choose alcohol/drugs or are too proud to ask for government help. While some of the more known resources are overwhelmed and under-funded, Seattle has a pretty big network of services.
Well, no. The timeline does seem to fit. There’s a shop that sells 40s right on that block. When the cheap, high-alcohol-content stuff went away, the drunks went elsewhere. Then it came back in another form, and they flooded back.
But you get the same problems here: they create an AIA in Pioneer Square, they move to Belltown. Add Belltown, they come to the Hill. Add the Hill, they go to the ID. Make it city-wide, and they go to Shoreline and Tukwila. And on and on.
There’s no socially-redeeming value to offering large amounts of liquor cheaply. It attracts drug-seekers. And that’s what you see on that block. When you give them money, it only makes the problem worse.
Hey, maybe instead of giving the street people the money, we should just walk into the store, hand them some cash, and ask them to stop carrying 40s! Seems at least a little more reasonable than being our own worst enemy.
Now that I think about it some, it occurs to me that the makeup of the beggars around here has changed since I first hung out around here 8 or 9 years ago. It used to be Ave rats looking for food. My wife remembers this because she used to be friends with them. They were 16 or so years old, usually kicked out of their homes (usually for being gay), and were couch surfing or sleeping in alcoves.
It takes a long time to go from that to being a pro, if you don’t have a substance abuse problem or serious mental illness. Usually, the Ave rats would come around, get a job, and find a place to live. The pros almost _never_ do. And the more ingrained that behavior becomes, the less anything, including rehab, will help. They learn that they can live like that indefinitely, and nothing’s going to get them out of it. The people around here today are pros. The longer they feel comfortable around here, the longer they’re going to hunker down, and that’s no good for anyone around here but them and the corner store.
The empty storefronts on Broadway from the coming light rail construction are not helping the situation. Just posted about a small piece of solving this problem
Just FYI, “sandwiches guy”, also “spare change for a hungry man” has been working that corner for at least 15 years. He lives in the section 8 housing down the street and has nothing better to do with his time. He’s similar to the “got any chaaaaange” lady (who was a grandma type) who used to hang out in front of dicks. She ate at Charlies every night.
It’s a very nice gesture, but you have to remember homeless people don’t have a, um, home. Carrying a 5lb bag for days and days straight isn’t realistic, especially since dog food is not at all scarce in the city. Food in general isn’t very scarce, since supermarkets and restaurants throw away or donate LOTS of “old” but still edible food. Everyone would prefer a nice hot meal, but not if it means carrying around packaged products for days. The same goes for clothes — everyone would prefer to pick out there own clothes. Random clothes are not scarce in the city.
The best way to donate directly to the homeless is money. Even if they do buy alcohol or drugs, it’s their life and they’re adults who can make choices for themselves. I buy alcohol right now, and I don’t have to deal with living on the streets or in filthy shelters. I think it’s insulting to not trust the homeless with money, especially since most have medical (physical or mental) disorders that prevent them from making money on their own.
Are you kidding??? Fear of assault???
Look, dense neighborhoods have homeless people. That’s why Broadway has homeless residents and Redmond doesn’t. 15th Ave and 19th Ave are going to have more and more homeless people as development occurs. Unless you want to fear leaving your home, you should either accept that poor people exist or move back to the suburbs. Remember why “white flight” happened in the first place?
Girlgerms, I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I’d like some. There are plenty of homeless in Redmond, even when I lived there 8 years ago.
Definitely something that should help with part of the source of the problem.
Where?? I’ve never seen any. Freeway offramps don’t count.
The source of the problem??? Do people see an empty bank building and decide to live on the streets?
To solve the problem, look here: http://desc.org/how.html
That’s temporary tho. I am actually hopeful, maybe naively so, Broadway is going to be transformed over the next few years. Those fancy condos should bring higher end retail clients on the ground floors. I also think when you get a restaurant like Poppy coming in, its a step in the right direction.
Downtown and over near the end of 520 close to Redmond Town Center (or is that part of Downtown Redmond)? I never could find my way around that damn town, which is partially why I moved as soon as I could.
Well… I was exaggerating. There are homeless people pretty much everywhere, but the denser a neighborhood, the more homeless. It boggles my mind that people (not you) move to capitol hill and expect it to be like the suburbs!
dawggy you are kidding yourself! Have you been to New York, Chicago, LA? The urban neighborhoods with the highest property values have the most homeless people (due to high density). Every condo building in Manhattan has doormen to keep the poor and homeless out, even if the condos start at $3 million and have a world-class restaurant on the ground floor. Even go down to Pioneer Square and you’ll see a dozen homeless people across the street from a shop selling $15,000 rugs.
Fancy condos and high end retail bring MORE homeless due to increased density, not less. The only way to reduce the number of homeless people in a neighborhood is to reduce the number of homeless people overall.
girlgerms, I agree that dense city neighborhoods will always have homeless and spare change kids. I also think it’s ok to want to do something about it (and not, doing something does not equal zero homeless,etc.). Not aiming to make this place Redmond, just livable. Personally, Broadway is livable for me and my family right now. Am I concerned that things are getting worse? People are always freaking out that things are “worse than ever” so I try not to think that way. But there are some legit concerns about what is happening in the area — maybe some effort to change the environment a little bit would be positive. But, yeah, I’d like everybody to remember the cold hard facts of city living, too.
yeah, the empty buildings aren’t the source but they definitely don’t create a healthy environment. They’re part of the problem and might help turn a livable situation into an unlivable one.
this reminds me of watching my mom chase down a guy she gave $5 to in SF only to watch him wander into the liquor store immediately after receiving the cash. She actually chewed him out and he gave the money back. Ah, mom…
girlgerms I’m actually from Brooklyn and this what happened all over New York. Homeless people are pretty scarce these days compared to how things were when I was growing up there. Times Square is family friendly now, pretty funny.
but rest assured, that comment was not directed at you. it’s just something that frustrates me when i see the responses people give homeless people who ask them for money. that “how dare you?” sense of entitlement.
it’s especially annoying when, as mentioned in comments above mine, simply taking the time and stopping to explain that you are tight on money yourself is (usually, in MOST cases) appreciated more than either making snide comments or ignoring the person completely. i’m a fulltime grad student and i don’t have a lot of money either, but i still make a point to look people in the eye and tell them that.
i get more angry at the city for allowing the things that result in homelessness to keep happening all the while claiming that homeless people are dangerous and brought this all on themselves. the fact that greg nickels wants cops to shut down food not bombs, the only realistic answer to the “i want to give them food but not money to buy drugs” out there because it is regular, and have the nerve to tell people that it’s because it’s not “safe.”
It’s a quirk in the system that I believe will be changed shortly (I hope!). Glad we clarified and I do see what you are saying. I’ve heard from people who lived in different regions (say the East Coast) that they ignore beggars completely, which isn’t exactly the norm here. It might be a regional thing.
I don’t see how empty buildings have anything to do with homelessness, except maybe providing shelter from the rain (doubtful, since SPD keeps an eye on them). There were more poor people hanging around Jack in the Box than there are now.
Is this just some kind of weird mental association? Empty buildings = ugly, poor people = ugly?
That’s what I said, we need to reduce the number of homeless people. I don’t understand — do you think gentrification eliminated homeless people? Do you think the homeless bought $1mil condos? The homeless have access to housing and social services now. There was NONE of that in the 1980’s and prior.
Thanks j… sorry for coming across so angry & rude sometimes. :) I agree, I think it’s sad that the entire block will be empty on broadway for years and homelessness is definitely a problem. I just get offended when people (not you) suggest we push the homeless somewhere else and/or think they are dangerous and evil.
I usually do not give money on the streets because I think that if they don’t make money then it will not be useful for them to stay on the streets begging and they may seek out assistance somewhere that may actually help them with the roots of their homelessness (drug addiction, mental illness, etc).
As far as the young kids who are traveling around and don’t want to be a part of the system; I totally get that but, since I choose to work and live in “the system” I don’t think it’s fair to ask me for the money which that system pays me. If they really want to be true anarchists and not support the system then they should grow their own food or live communally. I’m sick of them spouting anarchist platitudes while they are more than willing to take my money earned from The Man. I think they are just lazy (please know that I do have compassion for the ones with mental illness, just less for the able ones who prefer to beg for my money than to clean up and get a job).
There are a million people or more in this country who have no place to live!–That is the real problem, not that some people are inconvenienced by being asked for spare change. Even experiencing occasional rudeness does not compare to having to sleep on the street, lack regular food, medical care etc. If you don’t want to see people begging on the street—organize to solve the causes of begging and homelessness. Low income housing funds have been slashed since the 80’s. Mental health systems were cut back and people were dumped on the street. Low income single occupancy rooms in downtown Seattle were wiped out as new condos and hotels were built. The increase in homelessness is a sign of the class war waged by the rich against workers and the poor. When money concentrates at the top as it has over the last 30 years, you will have more poor at the bottom.—and some of them will have the gall to disturb your pleasant stroll down Broadway. There is no complete and immediate solution to homelessness. We can reduce it by organizing to demand more low income housing, better social services, universal single payer health care, an end to the war on Iraq ( which yields homeless vets and takes money from social programs) etc. In the long run, to eliminate homelessness , we need to restructure the whole society. As Martin Luther King said ” ..an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring…the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation and the problem of war are tied together…. America , you must be born again!”
No profit in housing the homeless
The mortgage crisis has caused a “glut” of vacant homes in the U.S. But as Petrino DiLeo explains, under the free-market system, those homes are more likely to be destroyed than provided to the homeless.
July 22, 2008
IT’S NO secret that one of the key problems in the U.S. housing market is that there are more houses for sale than buyers for them. Because of the mortgage crisis that caused home values to plummet and banks to tighten up their requirements for making new mortgage loans, the pace of sales has slowed way down.
Currently, there are 4.5 million existing homes for sale, or a nearly 11-month supply at the current pace of sales. There are also 453,000 new homes on the market, also an 11-month supply.
In short, there are way too many homes than can be sold for a profit (not to mention growing supplies of vacant condominiums and apartments). Until a real dent is made in this supply of vacant housing, prices will continue to fall.
As it stands, even though construction of new homes has dropped precipitously, the vacant supply is rising, not falling, as homeowners who can’t afford mortgages put their homes up for sale–plus houses that were foreclosed upon also go on the market.
What’s the extent of the problem? New data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that the combination of people losing their homes and continued construction of unaffordable new homes means that 18.5 million out of the estimated 129 million housing units in the U.S. now sit vacant–a whopping 14.3 percent.
According to the Census Bureau, U.S. households on average have 2.57 people. So the vacant housing stock could provide homes to at least 47.5 million people–or about 15 percent of the U.S. population. And that’s a conservative estimate when you consider that many vacant houses could comfortably house many more people than the household average.
To put this number in perspective, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that 3.5 million people in the U.S. experience homelessness in a given year, and about 842,000 people are homeless in any given week. So there are enough vacant homes to house the homeless in any given week 56 times over.
Further, in 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights estimated the global homeless population at 100 million. So, roughly speaking, there is enough vacant housing to provide shelter for nearly half the world’s homeless population in the U.S. And when you factor in the growing amount of vacant commercial real estate, such as office buildings and shopping centers, an even further dent could be made.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
UNDER A sane system, this would be fantastic news–homelessness could be wiped out entirely in the United States, and large parts of the globe. But under capitalism, it’s bad news.
Consider the situation in New Orleans. Nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina, up to 200 of the 1,000 “chronically homeless” in the city camp out nightly underneath a filthy highway underpass. The camp sits literally a few hundreds yards away from a massive public housing project that the city emptied, surrounded with razor wire and has been trying to demolish ever since the storm.
Meanwhile, in the Southwest, tent cities are arising, occupied by people who lost their homes to foreclosure. The city of Santa Barbara, Calif., for example, has set aside 12 parking lots to allow people who lost their homes to live out of their cars. In many cases, the people living in the lots still have jobs, but simply can’t find affordable housing.
CNN interviewed Barbara Harvey, a 67-year-old mother of three children currently living out of her SUV with two golden retrievers. Harvey was laid off a year ago from a job that nevertheless paid so little she was still paying three-quarters of her income toward housing. Two months ago, she was forced out of her condo. “It went to hell in a hand basket,” she told CNN. “I didn’t think this would happen to me. It’s just something that I don’t think people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too.”
Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet, but that’s not enough to afford apartments in a community where the median house price is more than $1 million.
What other solutions are being offered? Rather than trying to occupy vacant houses, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke suggested that cities and states should destroy vacant homes to help bring supply and demand back into balance.
In a speech in March, Bernanke praised the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Mich.–a “highly depressed” market, in his words–for acquiring vacant units through tax liens and demolishing them. Bernanke sniffed that such programs could “mitigate safety hazards and reduce supply.”
Meanwhile, Lawrence Lindsey, a former assistant to the president on economic policy in the Bush administration and a leading proponent of Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax cut for the rich, wants to tap immigrants to buy the houses.
Sounds great, right? Only it turns out that Lindsey isn’t thinking of undocumented workers. Instead, he has proposed a plan to grant “provisional green cards” to any foreign investors willing to spend at least $10 million to buy groups of residential properties and hold them for five years. His logic? By luring up to 100,000 investors to buy properties, $1 trillion would be pumped into the housing industry.
How does that makes it any easier for people to actually live in these houses? That’s not something Lindsey has an answer for.
All these examples illustrate in stark terms that the interests of capitalism lie only in making a profit and not meeting human need. Another kind of society is not only desirable, but necessary.
I’ve lived on Cap Hill for over six months now and have never given a penny out.
To those that do, you’re only making the problem worse.
i meant, six years….