Crime And Poverty

The Times catches up to Hannah Rosin of the Atlantic Monthly on the link between crime and Section 8 housing, but are much more PC about it.  The Times lead:

As Program Moves Poor to Suburbs, Tensions Follow

By SOLOMON MOORE

ANTIOCH, Calif. — From the tough streets of Oakland, where so many of Alice Payne’s relatives and friends had been shot to death, the newspaper advertisement for a federally assisted rental property in this Northern California suburb was like a bridge across the River Jordan.

Ms. Payne, a 42-year-old African-American mother of five, moved to Antioch in 2006. With the local real estate market slowing and a housing voucher covering two-thirds of the rent, she found she could afford a large, new home, with a pool, for $2,200 a month.

But old problems persisted. When her estranged husband was arrested, the local housing authority tried to cut off her subsidy, citing disturbances at her house. Then the police threatened to prosecute her landlord for any criminal activity or public nuisances caused by the family. The landlord forced the Paynes to leave when their lease was up.

Under the Section 8 federal housing voucher program, thousands of poor, urban and often African-American residents have left hardscrabble neighborhoods in the nation’s largest cities and resettled in the suburbs.

Law enforcement experts and housing researchers argue that rising crime rates follow Section 8 recipients to their new homes, while other experts discount any direct link. But there is little doubt that cultural shock waves have followed the migration. Social and racial tensions between newcomers and their neighbors have increased, forcing suburban communities like Antioch to re-evaluate their civic identities along with their methods of dealing with the new residents.

"But there is little doubt that cultural shock waves have followed the migration" - thank heavens for investigative journalists!

Ms. Rosin, whose article was cited in the Times piece, wrote about the work done by a husband-wife team that had access to both crime and housing records in Memphis, TN:

About six months ago, they decided to put a hunch to the test. Janikowski merged his computer map of crime patterns with Betts’s map of Section8 rentals. Where Janikowski saw a bunny rabbit, Betts saw a sideways horseshoe (“He has a better imagination,” she said). Otherwise, the match was near-perfect. On the merged map, dense violent-crime areas are shaded dark blue, and Section8 addresses are represented by little red dots. All of the dark-blue areas are covered in little red dots, like bursts of gunfire. The rest of the city has almost no dots.

It was more than cultural shock waves in motion.  The Times gets up close and personal with some locals:

Several white women, all professionals who attend the same church and have lived in Antioch for 12 years or more, recently sat outside a Starbucks coffee shop and discussed how their declining home equity had trapped them in a city they no longer recognize.

“My father got held up at gunpoint while he was renting a car to a young African-American man,” said Rebecca Gustafson, 35, who owns a graphics and Web design company with her husband. Ms. Gustafson said her car had also been broken into three times before being stolen from her driveway.

Laura Reynolds, 36, an emergency room nurse, said that she often came home to her Country Hills development tract after working a late-shift to find young black teenagers strolling through her neighborhood.

“I know it sounds horrible, but they’re scary. I’m sorry,” said Ms. Reynolds, who like her two friends said she was conflicted about her newfound fear of black youths. “Sometimes I question myself, and I think, Would I feel this way if they were Mexican or white?”

Hmm - apparently Ms. Reynolds is Barack Obama's grandmother.  Or maybe she was just channeling her inner Jesse Jackson.

My guess - if a group of Beverly hillbillys had moved in, crime had gone up, and friends were talking about criminal encounters with the hillbillys, well, yes, she would have a newfound fear of recently arrived rural rednecks.  Or if a group of former Enron executives had moved in and suddenly ocn artists were operating on every street corner - well, I'm sure she would make the connection.

The Times does a great job of making it all the way through a story about neighborhood crime without mentioning community policing or New York City's famous success with zero tolerance.  Somehow, in their current telling, a constant police presence cracking down on minor violations has become harassment, with no explanation of an alternative view.

Comments

[kim]

All the world is divided into two classes; there are good people and there are bad people. Now, aren't you glad someone finally explained it to you?
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[GMax]

Law enforcement experts and housing researchers argue that rising crime rates follow Section 8 recipients to their new homes, while other experts  liberals and other bleeding heart progressive types discount deny any direct link reality.

 

Fixed!

[GMax]

Lets try again

Law enforcement experts and housing researchers argue that rising crime rates follow Section 8 recipients to their new homes, while other experts  liberals and other bleeding heart progressive types discount deny any direct link reality.

[Charles Martin]

So Section 8 really is nuts?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

“I know it sounds horrible, but they’re scary. I’m sorry,” said Ms. Reynolds, who like her two friends said she was conflicted about her newfound fear of black youths.

I wish someone had asked her how she planned to vote in November.

[PeterUK]

"“I know it sounds horrible, but they’re scary,making the "O" sign and mumbling "uh", I’m sorry,”

[The Habsburg Dynasty]

Section is founded upon some very flawed assumptions, not the least of which is that citizens do not have the right to the peace, tranquility, and civility of the suburbs they have EARNED the right to live within. In other words, you have no right to private property. The government may at any point render a portion of its usefullness null and void. Secondly, the flawed plan is buttressed by the idea that the poor are just middle-class people who have been unlucky. This is untrue. Most of the poor are and remain so because they make bad decisions, and lack self-restraint. Section 8 merely transplants people who make poor decisions regarding sex partners, drug and alcohol abuse, and work performance to a location in which people who do practice self-restraint, financial discipline, and personal moderation happen to live. If you don't like the neighborhood that your lifestyle is producing, change your lifestyle. Stop having kids at 13, stop smoking weed, go to work every day, and save a portion of your income. AFTER you do all that, you won't need my tax money to move, and you will be welcome in my neighborhood.

[Mark]

The part about this, that is confusing to me, are the landlords. I used to work for a guy who had properties. The people I met from Section 8 who would approve the condition of the apartment or house, were good folks doing their job. They wanted to make sure the rental was a good place to move in to. Their clients were the problem. I got to the point where I dreaded him renting to a Section 8 person. Cleaning up after they moved out was normally awful (at least). If you factor in the extra cleaning expenses with the high maintenance and repair costs, the extra money coming in from renting to Section 8 could not possibly cover the difference. More than that, if you spend your time fighting with the tenent, dealing with Section 8 for reimbursement, and fighting with the neighbors about the things they see from your tenant, why would anyone put up with it? Our city isn't even that large. I can't even imagine what the big city would be like.

[Vaquero]

Section is founded upon some very flawed assumptions...like share the pain?

[totwtytr]

I posted an article on my blog about this earlier today. As The Habsburg Dynasty notes, Section 8 is founded on flawed premises and flawed studies.

Trying to guarantee equality of outcome is the worst, but by no means only, flawed concept in modern liberalism.

[Jimmy Lee]

A nearby apartment complex converted to section 8 and within the first few months there were over 50 breakins in our formerly quiet suburban neighborhood. The place is crawling with thugs and I for one am not sorry - I am armed and willing to defend my property from the preditors.

[David]

Mark,

It makes sense to rent to Section 8 if you're a landlord with a low mortgage payment -- as long as it's significantly lower than the 60% you've got a great deal -- a guaranteed steady income from the government, whether the renters pay up or not.

[M. Simon]

The assumption is that racism is keeping the Negro down. I heard it from Reverend Wright.

Section 8 is just a small down payment on G Damn America.

When I was growing up we had a grocery store on the edge of public housing. The best customer we had there was a lady with polio who had to lay on her back to just stay alive; she was so grateful for our delivery service. We had a lot of black help. My dad was a pretty good judge of character and the help was mostly good people. One of the boys, Teddy White, and I went to the same high school and we were quite close. Drinking buddies.

However, most of the denizens of the project were shiftless. The good guys lived outside the projects. My dad eventually helped one of our black workers buy him out.

It really wasn't the drinking or the drugs. It was ambition that made the difference.

BTW Teddy moved to Denver.

[J.R.]

Maybe when enough liberals get the stuff scared out of them by gangbaners they will see the light.(NO not the ONE)
The right to safety and survival will finally lead them to want to carry and maybe send the socialists packing. There are two Americas,politicians above the law(congress with great perks) and the prols. Wake up if you survive the mugging demand an end to idiot programs that wreck cities.

[Susan]

Before condemning all folks on section 8 know this: the government also uses section 8 to house the truly disabled (think severely mentally-retarded, brain-injuries and the like). So all those section 8 areas with a rise in crimes are also being provided with ready-made victims. *shudder* As the mother of a severely disabled child I have a lot of sleepless nights.

[M. Simon]

Let me add that Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals was from the neighborhood. My dad knew him well and one day when he was back visiting my dad introduced me. A real gentleman.

[kim]

1.12
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[John Oh]

Vaquero: Its more like crabs in a basket. None ever escape because as they near the top, another crab always drags them down. In every section 8 family there will be one bad actor that creates chaos for the neighborhood. Salsa at 3 am? Don't like it? Your culturally insensitive, and as soon as the cops leave, your car will be vandalized. And forget doing a decent job at work the next day, sleep deprivation will do that. But its your own fault so get an air conditioner, accept the bad behavior, the drop in housing equity and geez I hope you don't have teenagers. I guess you had to be there.

[Hucbald]

I used to be a contract inspector for HUD. You absolutely, positively WOULD NOT BELIEVE the things I've seen. SBA and Section 8 housing should be eliminated with extreme prejudice. I'm not kidding. The Section 8 program spreads evil into nice neighborhoods, and subsidizes its growth.

[Porkov]

Someone has decided that my neighborhood is a good place for section 8. When I moved here twenty years ago there were a few rentals but mostly owner-inhabited homes. The family who lived next door grew old and died, and their piece-of-crap son sold the house to a slumlord to spite his brother, who lived next door, two houses down from me. The brother who remained finally had enough and moved out but kept his house as a section 8 rental.
If one of my high-risk investments (lottery tickets) should bear fruit, I swear I'm going to find the two of them, buy houses next door, get them approved for section 8, and move their tenants in next door to them.

[Virginia Landlord]

My husband and I own and manage 4 rental properties in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC.

We have never accepted Section 8 tenants--not for reasons related to race or imputed lawlessness, but because when you take a Section 8 tenant you also take on a silent partner, the Government, that requires you give up many of what would otherwise be your rights, by forcing you to amend your standard lease to remove numerous procedural, and lawful, safeguards normally built in to it.

Furthermore, the bureaucrats working for your new "partner" have the right to force you to re-rent to the tenant when the original lease term is completed, and to prohibit you from raising that tenant's rent beyond a certain % even if a market analysis shows your desired new rate is reasonable.

I have advised many other small landlords to have nothing to do with the Section 8 program. After they read the terms of the required Section 8 lease addendum, they thank me for the warning.

It is better to have a property standing empty for a few months than to allow in a bad tenant who is backed up by a slow-paying, red-tape-entwined government bureaucracy staffed by people whose attitude is that property owners are crooks while all tenants are angels.

[Bob1]

How did Section 8 get started to begin with? Go back to the origin of the problem and try to turn it off. Articles like these ought to be enough evidence that it isn't working.

[Megaera]

Bob1-- The Iron Law of Bureaucracy in action (also known as Lady MacBeth's Rule): What's done cannot be undone. NEVER will be undone. We still have zombie programs from the 30's on the books in Washington because no one can get rid of them; you think anyone is actually going to dump the Section 8 housing laws? Even propose it? think about what meaningless, trivial comments in the last few days have spawned violent, vitriolic outrage in the media, reporters shrieking "RACISM" like a flock of harpy eagles ... now try to imagine a politician, of any party, actually standing up, in public, to propose an end to Section 8 housing. Bit of a career-ender, that, I suspect.

[Rick Ballard]

You guys are missing a little of the beauty of this transaction. Alameda dumped 6 welfare recipients on Contra Costa County with this one move. There is a ton of Section 8 housing in Oakland - mostly 2br 900 footers down in the avenues, built in '20's-'40's. Not so many 3 - 4brs suitable for 6 people.

Secondly, Contra Costa isn't quite as blue as a good Dem might desire. Shipping voters into Antioch rather than, say, Dublin (which happens to have much better public transportation - if getting to work were a factor) makes this a twofer. This particular tale is being repeated all over what is known as East County - Contra Costa County east of Concord/Walnut Creek. Lots of unhappy campers in East County at the moment.

[Roger Godby]

Some years ago my mom moved into an apartment complex largely filled with college students. Not long after the Section8ers began to arrive. The police began to be called (there were two or three cops living there at discounted rates anyway), college kids quit renewing leases, cars and apartments were broken into. Eventually my mom moved out, thank God, to a rental house. That area too began to slide, so she finally moved to a fairly rural area, but now the price of gas is penalizing her.

The sub-prime housing blowout has done "wonders": Plenty of complexes that were home to working people who'd paid more than they could/should are now filling with Section8. The rate of decay is visible, and I don't think it's wholly because the properties were built shabbily to begin with.

Section8 is the government is forcing you to quaff cholera-tainted water and making you pay for it.

[buzz]

....."a housing voucher covering two-thirds of the rent, she found she could afford a large, new home, with a pool, for $2,200 a month."

I have a pretty good job, have a house with a mortgage I can afford but no pool. What the hell?

[شات]

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[Porkov]

When I was a kid in rural Ohio, my county owned a farm. People who would otherwise have been homeless were sent here to live. The residents provided for virtually all their own food and clothing by gardening and canning and sewing and doing the things 'most everybody did in those times anyhow. The means of providing for their basic physical needs were available for all, in a communal setting that encouraged them to do so.
I have been gone from there for many years, but I sure would like to hear the story of how this solution was superseded by welfare and Section Eight, and what the hell they were thinking when they allowed it to happen.

[Lea]

"I have a pretty good job, have a house with a mortgage I can afford but no pool. What the hell?"

My thoughts exactly. I sure as hell can't afford 2200 a month! Geez, how much do they give these people? She has a subsidy that is higher than my mortgage payment!

[Rick Ballard]

"Geez, how much do they give these people?"

It depends upon where they live. Mrs. Payne lives in the Oakland-Fremont, CA HUD Metro FMR Area where Fair Market Value for a 3 brm is determined to be $1,680 per month. California is very,very generous in its welfare payments and the total that Mrs. Payne was receiving is impossible to determine. Food stamps alone would be $500+ and "general assistance" (welfare) would be somewhat more. I would be surprised if Mrs. Payne costs the county (and state) less than $4K per month.

That's why CA is broke.

[Barney Frank]

I would be surprised if Mrs. Payne costs the county (and state) less than $4K per month. That's why CA is broke.

Rick,

I have a frind with lymphoma (in remission) who has the apparently unimportant and definitely thankless job of principal of a correctional school trying to educate young hoodlums out of a life of crime and our dear dumbass governor is threatening to cut his pay to minimum wage unless and until our dear dumbass legislature passes a budget, the result being that my friend now cannot afford to replace his gas guzzling bomb of a car to go to his maintenence chemo sessions. Of course benefits to illegals and welfare recipients aren't (to my knowledge) being threatened.
This state will be permanently undewater long before an earthquake sends it into the sea.

[David A. Smith]

I wrote about the Atlantic's questionable logic in some detail at:
http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2008/07/lord-wellingtons-lament-part-1-needlessly-moving-about.html

[MD]

Yeah, my neighborhood is going through some related changes and it's hard. I mean, the crime rate has gone down (the local police assure us of that in the local paper and the graphs and stats sure look that way), but, recently, there was a mugging at knifepoint near a busy movie theater that is in the safest part of our inner-ring suburb.

The thing about the groups of kids wandering is not so much the group or the wandering - it's the way they act. So, if they are well-behaved you don't worry. But, if they seem rowdy or give you the 'eye', you worry. You'd be silly not to, in my neighborhood, an inner ring suburb sitting between two high-crime areas.

They (city pooh-bahs) are talking about putting in a huge section 8-like development near us, but, they haven't talked much about the type of policing changes they will have to make, etc, for this to work. I'm worried. I love, love, love my neighborhood, am so happy to live in a community dedicated to helping the less fortunate, but, seriously, the blind eye to crime thing really freaks me out. It's the one thing that would make me move, and I so don't want to move. This is my home!

The thing about bobo inner-ring suburbs like mine is that the city council can be totally mediocre because yuppies/buppies can make up the difference by their willingness to pay higher taxes for commuter convenience, bobo coffee-shops, art deco buildings, etc. It turns us into SF, though: room for the yuppies, room for some lower-middle class in subsidized housing, but no middle-middle class and no small business owners. It's not a healthy long term mix.

[MD]

*Oh, and I forgot to add that it's really the commuter convenience + good local schools that keep the yuppies/buppies in town. I'm kind of joking about the coffee shops and art deco, except, I'm kind of not, a la that Stuff White People Like blog. A competitive class, surely, as the proprieter of that blog says...look at my restored Victorian! Look at my converted loft! Look at the diversity on my local soft-ball team! We had home cooked Indian and Jamaican food at our last neighborhood pot-luck! (It's funny for that particular group to make fun of McMansions, because, they are really doing the same thing they accuse the McMansioners of doing. Marking themselves, socially, but what they have.)

[Joe - dallas]

In spite of what the best social engineers claim, (socialogists) - the enviroment cant overcome genetics.

[Porkov]

Where do the people live who impose their twisted form of social Darwinism on hapless working-class neighborhoods? Why aren't they moving section eight into their own neighborhoods?
I've been amused by the Darwin awards since they first came to my attention. If I don't get out of my neighborhood and move someplace safe, I'll be deserving one here soon.

[Gen4]

If section 8 rentals appear in your neighborhood, fight them as soon and as hard as you can. The renters are so bad that it only takes one or two houses to destroy a neighborhood.

Why does section 8 continue when it is clearly destroying neighborhoods and lives? It's big money ... $16 Billion going into the pockets of sleazy landlords and politicians.

[battery]

General Zinni stole money from enlisted men. Fuck him.