There was an episode on Law and Order the other day (the version with Jeff Goldblume as a detective) that inadvertently explained the mental set of some situations.

Investigating a murder in a Ghetto neighborhood that was changing as other races and religions moved in (Jews, Middle Easterners, Blacks and Hispanics) one of the detectives observed that the disgruntled original inhabitants saw the changes as an invasion of their turf.

Basically, even a shiathole can be someone's castle.

The Yuppies did something to change urban blight years ago (one of the few good things they did) by buying up old warehouses and long closed business buildings and turning them into 'rustic' apartments, 'quaint' high end coffee shops and stores. While they bought up the trashy buildings, they restored them to their previous glory, preserving the rustic look, even if they had to gut the insides.

However, the bad part of this was that as they bought up all of this property, they managed to raise the surrounding property values and landlords promptly raised rents, basically forcing the poor folks out, who then sought cheaper places to live in other Ghetto areas.

That simply concentrated the problem in even tighter quarters.

As a courier I delivered through a Ghetto but the contrast there was pretty obvious. On one block were ratty homes and buildings while on the next were nice homes where people worked hard to make a change while not leaving the neighborhood. Nice lawns, well kept houses, much less garbage on the streets but these folks had to face the resentment of the Ghetto Rats. They basically had to make sure every opening to their homes was covered with burglar bars and cars were NOT left out of the garage over night.

Some folks would start to repair their buildings and have building supplies stolen even while they were working. Usually the thieves, if caught, felt justified in stealing the materials because they were poor and the builder, having scraped together enough money for repairs, was 'rich.'

Copper wiring had to be locked up.

Over many years, I realized that some folks in these living conditions would NOT thank you for trying to help them out. They'd resent it.

It becomes, over time, a mind set.

Kind of like how half of the South is STILL fighting the Civil War.

downstairs: Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich: IgG4, I think you raise valid concerns, but there is another side to it too:

If Section 8 is the only way to make the property affordable, you're at least getting *someone* in the property which means you'll keep a good roof on it and so forth. Otherwise, the property might become abandoned housing, turn into an eyesore, and drag down property values.

Moreover, a lot of lower-income people don't care for their housing stock because of rational-choice economics: either they didn't own the house and it wasn't profitable to do so or because if they did own their housing, neighbors didn't care for their property so they didn't get a return on their investment the same way that a family in a middle-class neighborhood gets a return on their investment. This, in turn, creates a culture of not taking care of property.

Living in a nice neighborhood might help to socialize the people, or at least their children, into breaking the cycle. If you're a kid, and you grow up in a place where everyone takes care of their lawn, you're going to grow up to take care of your lawn *even if you don't get a return on it* but merely as a point of pride.

Yeah, blight is almost certainly worse than a bad tenant. I live near some abandoned properties, and there's no way that even the worst tenant would have them looking like they do.

My uncle rents out houses in Detroit.

He's had the same experience with Section 8 tenants. Keep things tidy and are up on their portion of the rent always, except a few times when things were tight and they had the courtesy to give him a heads up and ask in advance for a bit of leniency. Which he's happy to give since a) he's still getting the Section 8 cut and b) considering I've never filed eviction paperwork, I assume they all kept true to their word.

It's hard as hell to get Section 8 vouchers around here right now, though. Year long waiting lists.

bmwericus: I've only had one experience with Section 8 and it was bad. The neighbor two doors down who turned his place into a S8 rental before he lost it.

The tenants were pretty low class. The S8 was for the mother who was seemingly pretty disabled, but her two sons lived with her - the elder of whom was a real piece of work - tatoos, walked around with no shirt on to show off his body, etc. Loud, stupid, and he finally wore out his welcome the night he was arrested for wailing on his girlfriend in the middle of the street at about 2AM in a rage fueled by something...sadly, he did not go away for a long time.

We are pretty sure that a number of UPS/FedEx deliveries were mislaid as a result of him, but no one ever proved it.

His younger brother might have had a chance had the older brother not been around to make SURE no one said anything to his kid brother, who by the time they moved was probably days away from Juvi himself.

The entire neighborhood was pretty much relieved when they moved, the house was sold and a family moved in.

And I know that not EVER S8 tenant is like that but this one was pretty bad.

Did your neighbor have *any* experience in renting out a place, or was he desperate for money and just threw someone in there?

Section 8 tenants, like ANY tenants, you need to screen and if you're in the rental business you drop $50 a year ($20 per search) on a background/credit check company.

Like I just mentioned, my uncle's had fine experience with those folks, and credit issues/minor stuff on a record won't stop him from renting to someone... but that + interview + his intuition from renting for a few decades = he can weed out the bad folks and keep the folks who just need some help and a stable place to live. And if he has to, he can wait for a few months until he finds a good tenant.

I've had the privilege of living next to the underclass. Virtually everyone else in the neighborhood had different values from them. Even the very blue collar types had neatly manicured lawns and kept their kids under control.

Except for the clowns next to me. Vandalism, theft, trash, beer cans, dog sh-t in the road and in the house, truculence. They were white, but the bad branch of the family. They owned the house, but the money was from their family, not from them.

They were unlike everyone else in the neighborhood. They're still there. Two 15 year old granddaughters have given birth. One son is a felon, out of jail now.

They really didn't belong in that neighborhood. Surrounded by hard working people, they still aggressively farked up. Not good for their immediate neighbors. Not good for them I suppose, since they perhaps knew they were lowlifes there.

Not many black families in the neighborhood. But all of them were quiet, gainfully employed, good citizens.

I think it's values plus IQ that are the natural fault lines of society.