JSalt wrote:
I'm amazed at how people automatically assume that most of the people moving into these townhouses are going to be the lowlifes that hang out on the street drinking all day or muggers. Haven't you ever heard of struggling single mothers? Haven't you ever heard of the working poor? It's just really downright disgusting honestly.

JSalt wrote:
1) Bergen Lafayette is not really an "upscale neighborhood." In fact 10 years ago 80% of the people wouldn't have considered living anywhere near it. It's a little disingenuous to gentrify someone's neighborhood and then say "why don't you take some responsibility and move out."

2) I'm amazed at how people automatically assume that most of the people moving into these townhouses are going to be the lowlifes that hang out on the street drinking all day or muggers. Haven't you ever heard of struggling single mothers? Haven't you ever heard of the working poor? It's just really downright disgusting honestly. You're a bunch of smug, ignorant, self-important idiots. I'd like to see any of you survive one month in the ghetto.

I would say that one of the problems with housing projects in urban areas is that they lend themselves to creating criminal behavior.

Does this sound racist? It's not meant to be. As a matter of fact, I would argue that it has nothing to do with the color of anyone's skin. I would guess that if you put anyone of any skin color under the same conditions, with the same background, with the same prospects as those who currently live in urban projects, you would get essentially the same results.

Let me elaborate on that a bit.

I am a white male originally from the Midwest who grew up in a lower middle class family that has a history of dysfunction and addiction. My family history on both sides reads like a bad soap opera - everything from raging drunks, to bigamy, to abandonment, to affairs, to sexual abuse. Most of this (that I am aware of) happened in my Grandparents generation. As a matter of fact, from the outside looking in, everything in the following generation (that including my parents and aunts and uncles) seemed fairly stable. Yet those of us in my generation (these being cousins and such), as well as the children of my generation, are riddled with many of the same issues that plagued our Grandparents. In many ways, it's all back to being a drama filled mess.

How could this be? My parents, and their siblings, tried very hard to not perpetuate the cycle, yet it continued anyway.

Well the answer might be that no one ever dealt with the problem and simply concentrated on the symptoms thus making things appear better than they really were. The circumstances looked good, but the tools that they learned growing up in utter chaos are the ones they used to raise us. No, they weren't drunks, they didn't beat us to a pulp, everyone stayed married and no one was sexually abused (to the best of my knowledge), but the way they approached life was based on the very cycle they were trying to break. They, in turn, simply passed on those same tools and attitudes to us.

The problem was that they knew what they knew and thus they had little choice but to pass this knowledge on to us. And on top of that, you just didn't go outside of the family structure with things like this. You couldn't really. I wasn't conducive for being accepted by your community to let anyone know what was really going on. You faced ridicule and being ostracized, at least that's what you thought.

Of course you could argue that there were other people around my family who didn't live like this and that we could have simply learned from those people. The fatal flaw with that philosophy is that it ignores the fact that each of our respective realities and the way each of us approaches our lives is based upon the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. That story is put into place by those we are closest to. Yes, there are outside influences, but mostly our parents and our family set the tone of our lives. And even though we might we see others who seemingly don't have the same problems as we do, that's their reality, not ours.

It works both ways and it is a vicious cycle. Those who have what appear to be better lives than us must, we deduce, have something we don't. And those who have seemingly worse lives than us; well we must have something they don't.

Honestly, if it were simply as easy as learning from other people's experiences, then we probably wouldn't be divided in the ways that we are to such an extent. We wouldn't be so caught up in our differences, because ultimately we aren't that different from each other. But most of us can't see past all of this because the majority of people are caught in cycles of our personal (and family) histories and don't have the slightest idea of how to get out. And, admittedly, many people don't want to get out. Doing so means a person has to redefine themselves and that is often simply too scary for most.

So what does all that have to do with public housing and criminal activity?

It is my own personal belief that the very fact that we concentrate poor people in small areas simply feeds the ongoing dysfunction. When whole portions of society are simply surrounded by those who live exactly like them and think exactly like them, then how does anyone expect those attitudes to change? And unless attitudes about how to live life change, then the pattern will simply continue - over and over.

There has been a movement for some time now to break up the "projects". There are forward thinkers who have realized that if we want to change things and to make a better life for all of those who are struggling at the bottom of the economic food chain, we need to stop concentrating them together. That's essentially the entire purpose of the projects that are the topic of this thread. The whole purpose of creating mixed use housing is so that those of lesser means are exposed to a life that is very different than their own and they are forced (at least on some level) to deal with others who do not approach life in the same way as they do.

The problem is often the resistance of the more fortunate in an area as well as developers of large market rate projects. People fear that their property values or their quality of life are going to be negatively affected. Make no mistake, it might come out as anger, but underneath, it's really just fear.

I have to say, however, having worked for a fairly large real estate developer in Manhattan who had several 80/20 buildings, the fears of the neighbors and the developers are largely unfounded. We had far more problems with our market rate tenants then we ever had with the low or moderate income ones. As a matter of fact, unless someone disclosed their own status, the neighbors often had no idea who these "low income" people were.

I guess I also want to address the attitude of 'why the hell should we be building housing for the poor anyway?' Shouldn't they have to work for it like everyone else?

Well even if we did stop building housing for the poor, they aren't just going to go away. We'd likely end up with things like shanty towns where the poor are again concentrated. And the reality is that the more desperate people are, the less they have to lose - meaning those of us who have "better" lives would have to live in more fear than we often do now. If you think crime is bad now, what do you think it would be like if a very large portion of our society didn't even have a roof over its head? And besides that, what does it about a society that thinks it is okay to simply disregard the basic well being of certain portions of itself?

I just want to end what I realize is a really long post by say that I know that what I am suggesting works at least on some level.

You see, I don't have the same drama or problems that many in my family contend with back in the Midwest. I attribute that to the fact that I was lucky enough to have something within me that said get out. Had I not moved here and began to see life from a different perspective; I could very well be in the same boat as many of them.

Was I smart, was I brave, or was I just lucky? I don't know for sure. I do know from experience both in my family and from people I've come to know here who are more like me (in my current state) than my family, those who actually break the cycle are among the minority. Far more people do not have the strength it takes to buck their own reality and conventional wisdom. Most people are stuck in cycles that they?re not even aware of; let alone able to break.

I strongly believe that there are ways of giving everyone the chance to break those cycles however. It just requires some creative thinking and some gentle nudges from those of us who are lucky enough to be in the process of already doing so.

If we want to solve the many of the problems that stem from poverty, then we have to stop simply trying to bail the water out of the bottom of the boat and start dealing with the leak. If not, we are destined for more of the same. Remember, doing what you've always done, simply get's you what you've always got.

Maybe we should start with some empathy.

jennymayla wrote:
....This city was built by poor immigrants most of whom were white, by the way. And a lot of them were mobbed up -- my family included (I type with a sick sense of Irish and Ukranian pride).

CRV2 wrote:
I wonder how many people will sign up for the market rate apartments knowing how little others will be paying for something as new and similar in size?

JSquare wrote:
Yup, they are earning so much more than $5.15 and hour that they can hire an au pair and she/he can live in the second bedroom with the child.

Because PILOTs are not subsidised - everyone's paying their fair share, it's just the destination of that share is changed. Comparing that to someone who's getting a house basically for free is ludicrous.

Roaring20s wrote:
Non PILOT property owners are struggling to make up not just their share of the school tax but also the share not being paid by folks who have PILOT properties.

Roaring20s wrote:
Explain to me if you can why you would be against subsidised housing for the working poor when these PILOT properties are subsidised.

Roaring20s wrote:
Could there be an underlying class issue here?

glx wrote:

Quote:

Roaring20s wrote:
Then I'll explain for the 50th time since you still haven't gotten it that PILOTs do NOT pay equally into the county and not a dime to the schools. Unsubsidised property owners pay YOUR share...they are subsidising you.

PILOTs put just as much money if not more into the city coffers. The question was why is the city not getting the tax revenue. It is, in a different form. The county gets short changed, yes, but that wasn't the question posed. Would you rather see *all* of that money go into Jersey City in the form of a PILOT, or would your rather see it get split up 10 different ways and go to Weehawken, Hoboken, Secaucus and Bayonne, etc. as a tax?

soshin wrote:
Please feel free to explain it to me for the 51st time because if not paying property taxes allows me to put just as much money into the city coffers as you do then I will gladly opt out!

And please don't tell me the developer is paying the city a wad of cash up front, woohoo, my credit card company offers me 15,000 buck credit lines, doesn't mean that 15 years down the line my bill is not going to be due.

If PILOTS are so wonderful why can't we all have them?

Roaring20s wrote:
Then I'll explain for the 50th time since you still haven't gotten it that PILOTs do NOT pay equally into the county and not a dime to the schools. Unsubsidised property owners pay YOUR share...they are subsidising you.

Quote:

Jsquare wrote:
It costs over 30% of a minimum wage monthly income.


Quote:
Woodsy wrote:

Actually, assuming the $300 a month rent cited in the article, it costs about 28.14% of gross salary (NJ's minimum wage is currently $6.15/hr) and as of October 1, 2006 (when the rate rises to $7.15/hr) it will cost about 24.2%. Of course that's ONE person with a minimum wage job and for the TWO bedroom.

glx wrote:
How many times does it have to be stated? Properties with tax abatements still pay just as much if not more money into city coffers. PILOTs. I don't think I need to define them for the 50th time.

That is all.

glx wrote:
Quote:

Roaring20s wrote:
Quote:

soshin wrote:

I am sick of hearing about 20-year tax abatements given to Downtown buildings when my house in JSQ is paying for YOU!!!

SLAM!!!!

Now it looks like the shoe's on the other foot. Non-abated property owners look at abated owners just the same way as you're looking at these people in these subsidized apartments. Don't throw stone if you live in glass houses people!

Slam? You're both clueless.

How many times does it have to be stated? Properties with tax abatements still pay just as much if not more money into city coffers. PILOTs. I don't think I need to define them for the 50th time.

That is all.

Roaring20s wrote:
Quote:

soshin wrote:

I am sick of hearing about 20-year tax abatements given to Downtown buildings when my house in JSQ is paying for YOU!!!

SLAM!!!!

Now it looks like the shoe's on the other foot. Non-abated property owners look at abated owners just the same way as you're looking at these people in these subsidized apartments. Don't throw stone if you live in glass houses people!

soshin wrote:

I am sick of hearing about 20-year tax abatements given to Downtown buildings when my house in JSQ is paying for YOU!!!

soshin wrote:
To the people who think their tax money should not be spent on public housing, what would you spend it on?

I agree, Mercer...but "classism" is perhaps the more appropriate term. Some of these same posters would be the first to advocate for much-higher-cost subsidized housing via the criminal justice system. Why not afford lower-income citizens an opportunity to achieve financial stability and live socially productive lives? Do they somehow believe that those with less skills and education only deserve to live in dangerous, run-down slums?

Jsquare wrote:
It costs over 30% of a minimum wage monthly income.