“Term Limits” Eyed For West Rock Projects

I'm wondering about this escrow thing. Is this a way to hide from potential landlords that the source of rent for a tenant is public assistance?

If a person is gainfully employed their subsidies should be decreased. The current plan, as set forth in the above article, seems to allow subsidies to remain for people who are employed. This does not make much sense. Each adult should be given no more than 3 years in public housing or Section 8, after 3 years they should be compelled to pay market rates or find alternative housing.

It is shocking that "generations" of families have lived on the dole for so long. And because of this pattern, it is going to take a lot more than a "stimulus" to reconfigure the underlying ethos of dependancy.

Change the "generation lifestyle" by taking away the incentives to stay there. Make these residents work for what they do get and log hours aiding their community in any way possible--like picking up garbage in the streets, patrolling neighborhoods for trouble, and helping at community centers for youth. Maybe a little pride in the community, along with forcing residents to work for what they receive might actually change the overall mindset, rather than continuing to fund the same old same old.

WTF? Why nice and new housing. Isn't the point that we provide housing with our tax dollars so people are not homeless? However, housing should be provided on a minimum level, there need to be an incentive to move out. Who in their right mind will want to live there and rent or buy? This is madness on an epic scale. Another sweet way to spend our tax dollars on people who have decided not to work and happily collect all kinds of subsidies. All public housing has basically failed and this new "concept" will fail as well. If people have a decent life and they would basically have the same life if they would work fulltime, any rational person will not work. However, having a crappy life and getting a job will actually improve life, this will provide an incentive. We are paying the money, so I think we should be allowed to make the rules. All this no-snitching could be countered easily with incentive. You get shot and decide not to talk to the cop – say goodbye to section 8 or whatever other money you collect.

Townie,
I respectfully disagree that the subsidies should be decreased. This program's whole point is to decrease dependency!!

It makes perfect sense to keep the subsidies up until certain points even while someone is employed, or moving out of the housing projects because these act as powerful incentives to continue being gainfully employed, and to keep on the right path. These are cost-effective carrots, which along with the "stick" of term limits should hopefully increase these dismal numbers.

The key is to accelerate the person's economic growth so that they can get over the speed bumps that keep them from returning to welfare and public housing.

If it were the other way around, then people would make the cold hard calculus that they would have more money in their pocket for not working.

This is one of the big problems regarding marriage and public subsidies. Since two married persons' income will reduce section-8 vouchers, frequently people simply don't marry, which is a huge problem.

I'm actually of the probably radical notion that public housing as it is currently structured is in some ways a huge detriment to raising people of poverty. Think of what $173 million could have done had it been used to fund an agency whose sole function would be to take public housing tenants and transition them to stable private market rentals, while at the same time having dedicated staff trained to help stabilize broken families, help treat drug dependency and try to bring as many people out of poverty as possible. THAT is amount of money that cold make a dent. Instead due to federal housing policy, it goes to construction.

I commend HANH and Ms. Dubois-Walton for her forward thinking plan to actively help public housing tenants out of poverty by pulling them up and being a wind at their back, rather than turning a blind eye to the weight of the problems they face. I hope that more money and more people will be dedicated to this in the coming years.

When thinking about the context of "subsidies" here, keep in mind that wealthy families receive far more in subsidies than low income families. These come in the form of mortgage interest deductions on enormous mansions, second homes, etc.

In fact, we need to create much more rigorous, much more heavily "subsidized" job training and education programs to help give people the skills they need to find jobs, as well as much better transportation system so that they can get there without having to rely on an expensive private automobile, plus decent child care options. This all can be easily developed by increasing tax rates on the 1% of American families who currently own about 90% of the nation's wealth. Other nations do these things and they are much better off as a result.

I agree with MoreorLess. These type of housing programs should definitely have some community service with them. There is nothing like work, even part-time, to give you self-confidence and a sense of self-reliance. It would help build up a resume, and references. Cleaning the city and streets makes a lot of sense, it's a good suggestion and an obvious solution.

It is going to take a lot to change the mind set of people who live in the welfare culture. Simply pulling the rug out from under them is not going to speed up the process, and many of these people have children who whould be negatively affected. However, something has to be done to provoke change and to stimulate the destruction of inner-city poverty. The citizens need to concentrate less on bolstering public housing programs and other welfare initiatives and more on funding programs that stimulate the re-emergence of industry and commerce, thus creating jobs.
The program mentioned in the article just seems to re-shape the public housing paradigm without addressing the core issues that have made public housing such a problem. To allow anyone to live on the dole for more than 3 years is insanity. The minute a person enters the public housing system they should be aided in finding gainful employment so that they can transition into private housing. If a person doesn't want to work than they can live on the street. It sounds cruel, but working-people cannot be expected to support those who do not want to support themselves. Also, people in public housing should be penalized for having children, because it is the height of irresponsibility to have children while not even being able to support yourself.
Penalties and deadlines should move people to pull themselves up and begin helping themselves and their families.

Also, this nonsense about subsidies for the rich is a complete fallacy. Although those in higher income brackets may have a greater variety of subsidies at their disposal, what they "take" is more than made up for with what they contribute. People one welfare contribute very little (if at all) and receive a lot. The point is that upper middle class and wealthy people, for the most part, are contributing members of society. They work, earn and produce.

"anon" makes zero sense. Rich people PAY taxes, a lot of them, while these folks are getting a NET GAIN from the government. And the "rich" guy paying 10k a year in property tax and 40k a year in income tax gets the same snow removal, police dept, schools, ect. as the person paying no taxes and collecting free $$$ through section 8, food stamps, welfare, and medicaid.

"Rich" people earned their money, or their forefathers did. Many parents went without and worked 2 jobs so their kids would have a better shot. That is the American way. The more socialist we become, the more doomed we are to become just another crappy country. You, Paul Bass, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Hanks can feel free to give your money away to total strangers who have no desire to do anything but collect handouts....but don't demand that others do.

Posted by: Townie on December 28, 2010 8:00am

The point is that upper middle class and wealthy people, for the most part, are contributing members of society. They work, earn and produce.

Like this guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

And by Here is the new breed that is going on the dole.What do we do for them.Did you know that most of them have never been on the dole.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwpdGyIY2fQ

ANON and ALL,

Here is an illustrative history of the mortgage tax deduction...essentially a slow-motion accident judged by many to be damaging to our economy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/magazine/305deduction.1.html?pagewanted=print

To an economist, when someone invests for profit, that's good. When they invest to take advantage of a tax break, that's bad. "It's a standard canon of economics,"... It means that capital is being diverted from its best use, and the economy suffers as a result.

"Right now, our tax code says, 'Don't build a factory, build a mansion...The deduction is the perfect break for bobos in paradise."

Sounds like an interesting idea. Has the Housing Authority spoken or consulted with people who have experience working to move people to self-sufficiency? I remember a couple of years ago there was some buzz about a center for working families that the Casey foundation and others were promoting until the Mayor shot that down? What ever happened to that? If HANH is serious about this, they should be talking to people who can help them make it happen -- and get rid of that lazy staff that runs a lot of their programs. They are worse than some of the tenants!

Here's a description of a similar effort in Atlanta, GA:

"Atlanta's Public Housing Revolution" City Journal
http://city-journal.org/2010/20_4_atlanta-public-housing.html

Anybody interested in seeing what the West Rock development will look like can check out the renderings on the architect's website:

http://www.kbarch.com/on-the-boards/west-rock/

There is a small housing complex on the corner of Olive Street and St. John Street in Wooster Square that was initially developed as public housing, but at some point became privately owned and operated as market rate housing.
Based on the renderings shown for West Rock, I think it too will have the capability of being privately owned sometime in the future. I could easily see some of the building blocks being converted into ground floor retail and office space, especially located around the two public green spaces being created for the development. Perhaps a goal for the Housing Authority can eventually be to have some of the successful tenants actually own one of the buildings and rent out the other units as affordable housing. New Haven has one of the highest per capita rates of public housing in the nation and it'd be great if we could get some of it into the private market with the owners actually being former section 8 recipients or public housing project tenants.
One of the largest problems with the recent mortgage bubble was that people were living in homes they couldn't afford. Owner-occupied multifamily housing is an excellent way to create both affordable rental apartments and affordable ownership opportunities. The rent from the tenants helps cover the cost of the principle mortgage - that is why New Haven's housing stock of 2+ family houses is one of the most resilient and adaptive in the world.

Tax breaks for the top 2% of income earners overwhelmingly is invested overseas. The Bush tax cuts shipped over a trillion dollars in investment overseas over the 8 years he was in office. People who receive public assistance spend 90% of those funds immediately and in very local, small geographic footprints. Food stamps, for example, have a higher multiplier effect than tax breaks. Meaning that food stamps generate more additional spending by the grocery store owner, the store employees, etc because it puts money directly into their hands immediately, whereas a tax break that just goes to expanding a factory in China has a microscopic effect on an employee in an American Walmart and that doesn't occur for months or years after the tax break is initiated.

However, I would like to see public assistant used more equitably to benefit the general population through low-skill employment opportunities, local entrepreneurial support systems, local agricultural movements, etc.

Of course one of the key problems with the West Rock development is that it has depressed property values in a radius around the area. And if you drive through it now, you'll see that not only is the development teeming with garbage that's been tossed into the street and sidewalks, but that this spreads to the surrounding area. The road alongside West Rock Park looks like a dump.

There is garbage everywhere.

It's not fair to tax working families in this city to pay for people who haven't tried looking for work in a decade.

Can I get $200 a month for being responsible?

Can I get $200,000 to renovate my house, even if I destroy it the first time around?

Townie,

I understand the point you're making when you say that subsidies should actually be reduced for those who are gainfully employed, but I think you're a bit off base. Yes, on its face, it doesn't seem to make much sense to say, "well, you have a job, here's more money." However, people respond pretty powerfully to incentives, and if you say you're going to take a subsidy away from people once they find gainful employment, guess what people are less likely to do--that's right, find gainful employment.

Moreover, "gainful employment" is a very broad term, and many endeavors that would qualify as "gainful employment" don't exactly pay a living wage. One need only look at the extreme measures that companies like WalMart have taken to deny their employees fair compensation and benefits to see that this is the case. WalMart, for example, is notorious for finding "creative" ways to avoid paying their employees overtime, and scheduling employee hours in such a way as to prevent them from working enough hours to qualify as "full time" employees and thereby qualify for the benefits that come with their jobs.

The point is that a) continuing the subsidy once people find employment creates an incentive to find employment or job training and b) makes up for some of the wage shortfalls in the public market.

I think you're to an extent correct when you say there's a "culture of dependency," as there's a good amount of academic research from both left and right supporting this notion. And I think you're right when you say that simply pulling the rug out from under people won't fix this. I just think that if you were to look more closely at this plan, you'd see that its aim is, in fact, to combat this "culture."

Mr. Martin,

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that if you look around, you'll see that there are a variety of programs that will give you more than $200 a month for being "responsible"--think about how much of a tax break you get for doing the "responsible" thing and opening up an IRA, for example. Or how much money students get for doing the "responsible" thing and going to college. Indeed, one of the major critiques of the tax system in the United States is that it's too complex because of all of the writeoffs and loopholes that are available. But the basic reason that a lot of those writeoffs and loopholes are there is to incentivize and subsidize "responsible" behavior!

Moreorless,

I agree with the general idea that you have as far as making residents work for what they get, and I actually think it would be great to see this implemented on a national level. I think it would be great, for instance, if we actually paid a good wage and put people to work repairing the crumbling infrastructure in this country. And to the City's credit, there have been efforts to do that on a small scale--for example, I believe there was a pretty serious push to ensure that a good portion of the jobs working on the new Q bridge would go to New Haven residents (although admittedly I'm not sure how that turned out).

And more generally, I think those who complain about the assistance that those who live in socioeconomically depressed conditions get and argue that it comes at the expense of people who have worked hard and "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps." Threefifths pulled a nice move by linking to Bernie Madoff's wikipedia entry. And I can't let the argument that the wealthy are entitled to keep every penny of their money because they or their forefathers earned it go without asking whether we really think that taxing Paris Hilton's money represents some fundamental threat to our American way of life.

More generally though, I think we need to dispel the notion of the "self-made man" who's getting illegitimately expropriated by the state. It would be foolish to say that individual motivation and effort doesn't play a role in economic outcomes--it most certainly does. But there are a lot of other factors that play an important role, and a lot of those factors come as direct or indirect results of government policy. How many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies at some point in their lives attended a public school? How many corporations receive direct or indirect subsidies from the government? Look at those who work in agribusiness, and especially those whose money comes from corn. A major reason their industry is profitable is--you guessed it--because of government subsidies. How can we say, with a straight face, that the CEO of ConAgra has worked hard for his money and therefore shouldn't be taxed for it when a huge chunk of his company's revenue comes as a result of direct subsidies from the government and another big chunk comes as a result of policies, that, for example, push ethanol on us? The only socialism there is corporate welfare.

The thing is, this extends all the way down. If I open up a factory in New Haven, I'm taking advantage of the protection of the New Haven police. I'm indirectly taking advantage of state funding of education if I employ any workers whose educations have been subsidized. I'm taking advantage of a government created electrical grid. When the time comes to ship my wares, I'm taking advantage of government investments in transit infrastructure. My success is basically the result of my ability to take advantage of conditions that have been created by the government. Granted, that ability is to a good extent dependent on my individual drive and motivation. But that drive and motivation only get me anywhere if other conditions are in place. And I think that it's fair to ask people to give back to the society that has facilitated their success. What similar benefits have people who have been born into poverty and educated in failing schools derived from society?

I'm not saying that we should blindly redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. What I am saying is that it makes sense to have policies that give the worst-off among us a better chance to develop their talents and succeed as a result of their outstanding efforts. Bill Gates's success has been great, but how many Bill Gates has our society missed out on because they didn't have the same opportunities to succeed?

The five styles of homes that were shown in the link, Five vernacular styles (Arts & Crafts, Victorian, Italianate, Colonial, National) are excessively ornate for public housing. I hope the City and HANH Board of Commissioners are watching the architect and his history of expensive, out of budget designs.

I looked at the architects plans. It's nice to know that those living on the dole will be living in places that are nicer than other citizens' apartments. This is why those that work and earn and do not receive welfare get so upset. It seems that all of their/our hard work is for not. We struggle to pay rent, bills, taxes, etc. And yet each year costs go up and our quality of life goes down. We read stories like this and see massive public housing projects being constructed (or put into a luxury tower) at the tax payers' expense. Despite what many liberals might say, this is a legitimate reason to be upset. One cannot compare this project to funding roads, public schools, police services, etc. It is nothing like that. Those services are funded and maintained for the public good. Public housing serves a small percentage of the population. And the population it does serve seems unwilling to change and become more independent, per this article. It is unfair to expect those that work and struggle for a modest independence to support others' apathy and laziness.
Working people are tired of footing the bill, for rich and poor alike. Just as we are upset about corporate bailouts we are upset about welfare. We simply want to maintain a modest, but independent existence, but the agendas of the government (city, state & nation) are opposed to this idea and work to polarize the people into two camps; rich and poor, with the poor being dependent on the government and the rich controlling the government. Liberals are just as bad as "conservatives in this regard".

This housing project should be opposed, all new housing projects should. Unless they are stopped this city will soon be devoid of a middle-class and the majority of it's citizens will be welfare dependent.

newhaven55,
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/he_might_ok_walls_removal_--_in_2013/

That article talks about the backlash from Hamden residents towards the West Rock Development. Part of the issue with the old Rockview and Brookside projects were that they were ugly, and another problem was that they only held low-income residents. The new development is designed to look "normal", to fit in with New England architectural styles and to be appealing to future residents as well as the Hamden neighbors. Additionally, the new development will be mixed income, meaning that there will be subsidized apartments as well as market rate apartments. That also determined the design of the buildings because people tend not to want to be able to tell the difference between the low-income and the market rate housing on the exterior. It should all meld together and look reasonably coherent.
The buildings aren't "expensive", they are designed purposefully to look expensive but there are many budget-saving design techniques implored here, like concrete instead of masonry, no basements, standardized units instead of individually designed dwellings, low cost materials, etc.