NEW FUNDING COMING FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES?

I REALLY HOPE SO! according to this article, there are requests being formally made to congress for big funding to be a part of the new bailout and economic recovery bills.

The article says something about the housing provisions being only a fraction of one percent of the entire bill. WOW. I think we should all call our senators and representatives and demand that it be 10 percent of the entire package, for housing families and individuals at or below poverty level. Then maybe they’ll make it an even one percent instead of just a fraction of that! This is only right and just. For God’s sake, they should be helping the people who hurt the most, in the economic depression we are facing. Not those damn fatcat bankers and their kind. Even their middle class employees should not get it easier than the poor, why should they? Welfare for the rich and middle class at the expense of the poor who truly need it ??? oh LORD! What has become of this nation?

Read all about it here:

article on new funding requests for housing the epidemic of homeless families

(from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website)

OH TO SLEEP OUT UNDER THE STARS

When I was a kid, we used to do that. We were an upper middle class family, with 4 kids. Not perfect, it was a dysfunctional blended family with a stepdad and half-siblings. But, we lived in the country, on a nice acreage, in a new house. It had a big front yard, and was on a deadend lane where few cars ever traveled. So we kids used to sleep out under the stars on those hot summer nights…. in sleeping bags, on the green lawn.

It was wonderful. Lying there looking up at the dark unadulterated sky, watching shooting stars among the millions and the Milky Way….and gazing into that endless universe. The country quiet, no lights in sight, the fresh cool air, the feeling of good and peace that we were awash in. Those were moments of truth as well— when you usually sleep alone in your own room every night, such rare moments count; as your sister and you are falling asleep, murmuring and musing about things you never would otherwise.

Well it has been decades since then. My siblings and I never talk. I haven’t spoken to my mom for 10 years. The dysfunction was just too unbearable over the years….. i married the wrong guy, we lived in poverty. I had 4 (living, oops, minus one….now 3 alive) children. We divorced. My kids grew up. I have 5 (living) grandchildren. My real other half, is somewhere else…. all of my kids and I, are living in poverty. I am on disability. I hurt. Arthritis and old injuries.

I now live in a HUD apartment complex. My neighbors have noisy fans and things that are absolutely vexatious, nervewracking, and hard to escape, in here…… the insulation is thin. The shade is not adequate. The yard is not emerald green (and hey it’s covered with dog sh*t anyway…)

Today and yesterday, we are having 101-103 degree temperature days. I am ok, because a few years ago i decided to prioritize and save enough to buy a small air conditioner for the bedroom window. The landlord’s stupid manager a few years ago, had allowed all the landscaping to dry out so badly, that several nice and needed shade trees had died on our apartment complex grounds. That meant my bedroom was completely, mercilessly left exposed to the full afternoon sun. I got very very ill from the heat, it even affected my heart. So it became a matter of life and death for me, to get an air conditioner in that specific window. Living on the ground floor, I am unable to leave my window open at night— for safety reasons. We have no locks that allow the window to be secure when open, like some windows do. So the heat doesn’t go away, unless i turn on the air conditioner.

The management has been bothering all of us,claiming that we cannot have air conditioners in the bedroom windows. And that, we have to take them out, and let the management’s people put them in for us. Usually costing a small fee. Well, I had already installed my hardware a few years ago, so i just put mine back in the window this year. For free. No reason not to. I figure, if they want to get on my case at this point, I’ll just say, “okay, I’ll have it out within a couple weeks”. Yeah. By September. The hot weather will be gone by then. Can you believe it? In this low-income housing HUD complex, they really want to bother us about this. They should be far more concerned about the possibility of someone dying or being hospitalized from ill effects of the high heat.They claimed that we couldn’t have air conitioners in teh bedroom window due to the fire code. So I asked my local fire marshall about it. He specifically told me, NO, there is nothing in the code that says that. And, to have the mgmt call him if need be. You see, the fire dept handles MANY more calls about people with emergencies related to heat effects- on the medical side . They don’t see people trapped in bedrooms with air conditioning units in the window— during a fire. You know, someone trying to get out the window. it just isn’t statistically probable, it is a very remote possibility– so it makes sense to let people have their air conditioners in the bedroom windows, as far as the fire dept is concerned. WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL THIS TO HUD AND PROPERTY MANAGERS????? actually, i did tell the manager…..but he didn’t seem to hear. It’s the upper management. He just does what they say of course…and they do not care. I haven’t said anything to HUD yet. But i guess i’ll have to become an activist on that issue.

Today, stuck inside, albeit in the air conditioned apartment….( i know, it could be so much worse) … i was thinking, and praying: how good it would be, to live in a house with a huge green fenced backyard; in a country setting….and have my other half, my kids and grandkids, all sleep over in that backyard, on these hot summer nights….under the stars. What a beautiful, lovely feeling, and vision it was, to imagine that…

Oh Lord Jesus, please, let it be!

RICH & POOR INCOME GRAPH – ANIMATED, NARRATED

HOW ABOUT SOME POVERTY STATISTICS? I THINK THIS SHORT VIDEO IS RATHER EFFECTIVE IN A NICE ANIMATED GRAPH AND SOME GOOD NARRATION.

Section 8 Housing Choice, and the Foreclosure Market

The foreclosures are piling up, investors and middle class homeowners are losing their speculative real estate investments and even primary residences. Meanwhile, section 8 renters have been unable to find anyone willing to rent to them. A couple of years ago, the statistics show that somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent of section 8 housing voucher holders, had to LOSE OUT ON THEIR SUBSIDIES. THEY HAD TO RETURN THEIR VOUCHERS, AND RELINQUISH RIGHTS TO ANY HOUSING HELP. [THAT'S THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN THIS ONE STATE ALONE. MULTIPLY BY 50 ]….Because not enough landlords wanted to rent to them, for whatever reasons. Or, maybe the deposits and rents were way too high. So what happened to these 30 percent of poor, who lost out? where are they? well, no doubt, this may account partly, for the huge increases of homeless in that same time frame. THIS STATISTIC WAS RIGHT NEAR THE TIME WHEN HOUSING PRICES IN GENERAL, HAD REACHED SKY-HIGH LEVELS IN THIS STATE AND EVERYWHERE. And they haven’t improved, they may have in fact gotten worse for renters.

So now I ask…..in view of the foreclosure crisis as well…..

Why on Earth hasn’t HUD been using this opportunity to help section 8 voucher recipients to become homeowners?

Some housing authorities allow the voucher holders to BUY, not just rent, housing with the vouchers. That makes sense! Poor people desperately need to develop equity in something. It does not cost the program any more than renting. It helps society in general. It’s a great option. BUT NOT ALL HOUSING AUTHORITIES OFFER THIS CHOICE OF BUYING VERSUS RENTING WITH THAT VOUCHER!

That’s why I say that HUD should wake up, and require all the housing authorities that can afford it, (or help them afford it) to give that buying choice to all the section 8 voucher holders. This is the moment, or coming soon, when house prices are the lowest since what, 15 or 20 years ago?

This is the opportune moment, to get those low cost housing payments into the hands of the low income renters. AS OWNERS.

SO, i AM GOING TO BE CALLING ON MY SENATORS, REPRESENTATIVES, AND MY LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITY, TO TRY AND URGE THEM TO GET THIS TYPE OF THING GOING.

IF YOU AGREE, OR GET A GOOD IDEA ALONG THESE LINES TO HELP THE POOR IN THIS HOUSING CRISIS, THEN WHY NOT CALL YOUR LEGISLATIVE PEOPLE AS WELL. AND YOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY.

WHY SHOULD ALL THE OPPORTUNITIES BE GIVEN BY HUD, TO ENTREPRENEURS AS INVESTORS, WHO WILL THEN “FLIP” THE PROPERTIES AND PROFIT OFF THEM BY DOING WHAT THEY ALREADY DID, RAISING THE PRICE TO MAKE A PROFIT? BUY LOW, SELL HIGH. THEY SHOULD NOT BE THE ONLY ONES TO BENEFIT FROM THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS.

HUD AND THE RULEMAKERS, SHOULD TURN THIS CRISIS, INTO OPPORTUNITY FOR THE POOR, THE DISABLED, THE ABANDONED WIVES, THE BATTERED WOMEN, THE STRUGGLING OVERWORKED OVERTIRED SINGLE PARENTS…. AND JUST WATCH THE BENEFIT AND THE IMPROVEMENT TO INDIVIDUALS, AND SOCIETY IN THE USA.