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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.



Well said.

"Poor people aren't necessarily killers." - King George

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:40
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.


Ditto

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:39
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:33
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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I wrote the following in another thread, but I'm posting it here again because it applies to the subject at hand.

First of all I know it's long. sometimes, though, things cannot be reduced so that they are easy, quick and sound bite ready. If every problem was as simple as some people make them out to be, then we likely would have solved them long before now.

Secondly, I've tweaked the old post so it makes more sense in the context of this thread. I just wanted to be upfront about that.

Quote:

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.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:28
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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I understand needeing a little bit of help sometimes, but people need to take responsibility for themselves. I don't live in nyc because I can't afford it, should I be able to live in subsidised housing there? I don't have kids because i can't afford it. Should I make others pay for my kids so I can stay home and drink 40s on the stoop?
If you can't afford to have three kids don't have them, if you can't afford to live in an upscale neighborhood move out.
Sorry, but I make sacrifices for myself and I'm not woking so others can have a free ride.
It really hurts when I'm on my way to work and I walk past the projects to see people still drinking from the night before as the sit in their own chicken bones and broken bottles. When I come home they are sitting on my steps leaving their crap for me to clean up.
F that. I don't care where they go as long as its far from my house.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:27
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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Yeah, I guess it was sarcasm, but a lot of the others clearly weren't ("Great, now they have all this money left over for college tuition!")

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:26
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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I thought the au pair comment was a form of sarcasm?

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:22
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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I would love to read a thread from long time Jersey City people about growing up "Mobbed up"

Oh and nice post JennyMayla!

Quote:

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).

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:22
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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30% of one's income means something VERY different to a person taking home $1000 a month than it does to someone taking home $4000 or $8000 or $12000, and I don't think the usual ratios apply.

If you're talking about a mom with two kids, grocery bills alone could easily eat up another $300-400 a month (though they might get some other public assistance as well). You're not exactly talking about "money left over for an au-pair."

Man, some people are just really out of touch with reality.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 13:09
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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?


One problem with rent control is that tenants in ordinary, private-market rent-controlled buildings can end up paying wildly different rates for similar units. So, to me, that's not the problem.

The question would be why someone would pay that much rent to live in Bergen Lafayette.

Another question would be what the units are really like. It's famous that developments like these tend to suffer from a lot of construction defects. I remember reading some horror stories about another new batch of Jersey City affordable housing units a few years ago.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 12:54
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.


Banks, when computing your ability to qualify for a mortgage, look to the ratio of your gross income to your estimated mortgage payments. 28% is considered conservative where as 33% is considered aggressive. And this is for a couple's (assuming there is a couple) combined income.

The ratios of 28% and 24% (after October 1) were calculated assuming only one person working full time at a minimum wage job in NJ and living in the two bedroom $300 a month apartment.

I never suggested that we do away with public housing. Van Vorst Park is already at capacity. My computations were merely to show that the amount of rent paid was low in proportion to what even one person would make working full time at a minimum wage job. If you have two people working full time minimum wage jobs (which you should, assuming that you have that two bedroom apartment, otherwise get a one bedroom) then the ratio is very low. That means you have more money for other things; how about taking classes for yourself or maybe saving for your kid's education. That's the only way you are going to get out of poverty.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 12:52
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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glx wrote:
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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.


If you really believe this is not some form of subsidy, then why are all the developers asking for them in the first place? Why would they want something that didn't benefit them in some way?

The fact is that people with PILOTs do not pay the same rate of taxes that those without them do. I'm fairly sure the amount an owner with a PILOT pays is roughly 20% less than an owner without a PILOT pays.

Yes, you are correct that the city gets more money. This is simply due to the fact that they don't have to share income from PILOTs with the other entities. But our property tax bills (those of us who don't have PILOTs) aren't just a city thing. We have to pay those other portions. And, we have to make up for the portion that those with PILOTs don't pay. That alone is a subsidy.

Don't think for a minute that those who live in buildings with PILOTs aren't affected by the school systems or what happens in county government. That's a fallacy. Even if you don't have children or send your children to private schools, we are all affected by the state of our public school system.

My God...as a society, we have become such narcisists.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 12:50
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.


Struggling in theory, I suppose, but in general PILOTs have actually cost builders/rehabbers more than the actual property taxes would have cost. In reality everyone's paying near the same proportional amount, and it would seem as property taxes go up the base on which PILOTs are calculated go up as well.


Quote:

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.


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.

Quote:

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


Only if you're making it one.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 12:26
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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?


No one is disputing that PILOTs pay more to the city however there are other entities that depend on these tax dollars (county and schools). These properties that have received PILOTs pay into the city but they're not paying into the schools (which is one of the main reasons why education in JC is such that it is and helps to perpetuate a cycle of poverty). 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.

I'm simply mystified that your only concern is how much is paid to the city coffers. Explain to me if you can why you would be against subsidised housing for the working poor when these PILOT properties are subsidised. Could there be an underlying class issue here?

Posted on: 2006/7/28 11:53
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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?


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.


WTF does your credit card have to do with it? PILOT's aren't lines of credit. They're payments, due, just like taxes.

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?

Posted on: 2006/7/28 11:39
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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Sorry about the math, I didn't look up the NJ minimum wage. 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.

Has anyone read Life and Death of Great American Cities?
I love Jane Jacobs. This apartment complex seems to be born of her ideas for mixed use/mixed income neighborhoods.

Quote:

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.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 2:53
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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Wow, the hostility some people have toward recipients of government assistance is frightening!

Look, we can debate the efficacy of social welfare programs and the like, there is no reason to start demeaning the people who get the assistance.

Overall Hope VI is a pretty successful program. It gers rid of the monstrosity type projects that were little more than prisons, and creates well built housing that is better integrated into the community.

My only quibble with this project is that it is somewhat isolated. Not much of a neighborhood center that is visible.

I also will say that, as far as the various projects go, Lafayette Gardens didn't seem to be designed that badly in terms of density. It was one of the first housing projects built in the country, and was done before urban planners made the isolated towers of hell. Having said that, I also understand that there were some structural and other problems which would have eventually required demolition. So we might as well take advantage of HOPE VI reconstruction funds.

There's quite a bit of history behind the original project, but that's another story for another post. The Conservancy has asked that when they demolish the final building, they preserve the cornerstone. We also suspect that there is also a time capsule in or behind the stone. So it would be really cool to find that and see what was put in there from the Hague era!

Joshua Parkhurst
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Posted on: 2006/7/28 2:28
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.


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.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 2:13
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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Quote:

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.


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?

Posted on: 2006/7/28 1:25
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 1:17
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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!

Posted on: 2006/7/28 0:50
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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I'm jumping in late to this convo but it reminds me of what my mother used to say while I was going through my grunge phase: "It takes as much time to dress nicely as it does to dress unnicely."

In other words, if low income housing is going to be built to look like "private homes," is that really so awful? Is making a building look like a prison any cheaper?

Whether we agree on the subsidy or not is another matter entirely, but if we are going to build these homes, we may as well make them relatively attractive. Since when does being poor mean that you need to live in an ugly environment? Why should DeQuan have to grow up in a shithole?

As for the race thing, it's irrelevant and the jokes about baby daddy's and names are just kind of silly. 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).

Last but not least, for those of you have decided that every low-income person in this city is a mugger and out to get you, watch your backs. Karma is a bitch.

Sleep tight in your smug little beds tonight, folks.

(PS: clearly one of the pissiest posts I've ever written but some of you just KILL me.)

Posted on: 2006/7/28 0:25
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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"For him (DaQuan), it beats living over a liquor store or a Laundromat," Thomas added. "It's less violent."

I hope Mr. Thomas has a job, so that DaQuan can go to college.

Many parents in this country (particularly new immigrants) are killing themselves holding multiple jobs so that their kids can get an education.

At $300/month for housing, you better save a tidy sum for DaQuan's education, yo.

Posted on: 2006/7/28 0:14
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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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?

What would happen if Daquan's dad married Daquan's mother? Would they still get the $300 2 bedroom apt? They know how to work the system and it is completely disgusting. They keep making illegimate children and the system covers their a$$.

Posted on: 2006/7/27 23:55
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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Quote:

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


The weird thing about the hostile reaction here is that most of the units are clearly aimed at people who are working and earning pretty good money. The organizers clearly were trying to figure out a way to help people trapped in the welfare system into the workforce. That's the sort of thing Republicans used to favor.

Anyhow, another way to look at this is that a lot of the residents will probably be service workers with steady but low-paying jobs in Jersey City. This project may be at least as much of a hidden subsidy for Goldman Sachs, the Newport Mall, the school board, etc. who employ some of the residents as it is for the people with the subsidized units.

Posted on: 2006/7/27 23:50
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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To the people who think their tax money should not be spent on public housing, what would you spend it on? More bombs to keep us safe? Maybe some nice levees to shore up the Beaver Crack retirement community you are planning to move to in Bumhole, FL when you are older.

I am of course assuming that you pay taxes! Yes, I know you pay federal and state, we all do! But do you pay property? I am sick of hearing about 20-year tax abatements given to Downtown buildings when my house in JSQ is paying for YOU!!!

And I wonder why there are no cops on the beat! No more property tax subsidised lattes!!!!!!

Posted on: 2006/7/27 23:07
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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karindiann wrote:Quote:
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?


yeah, classism is the better term. and i agree with your point here. maybe i'll feel different when one of the thugs living there muggs me. love when people complain about this crap, but don't take any steps to help fix it.

Posted on: 2006/7/27 22:09
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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I think the right work is Classism. I don't see one mention of the word welfare on the whole article. Anyways back in the day in Jersey City they used to describe Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants in the same terms that you guys used to decribe the residents of this complex.

The reason why public housing is messed up is years of federal government interference with local and state housing. After WW2, the feds passed a law saying that all public housing that recieved federal funds had to be built in such a way that made it unattractive to middle class tenants, and then they switched to the fraud-enabling system of housing vouchers instead of directly building housing.

You also have a system with ridicoulously low income cutoff points. So if you have someone who makes above minimum wage, they lose their public housing apartment, but they are not making enough money to get a private apartment.
Also, many people would like to buy the apartment in the projects where they grew up, but they are not allowed too.

Also, the current system doesn't allow people to move from one project to another to be closer to their job, cementing poverty permanently.

You have a system that discourages middle class people from staying in the projects they grew up in, which totally destabilizes neighborhoods.

These policies where put into place very delibratly, it was not some misguided bleeding heart liberal sceme, it was openly racist and classist elements - both left and right wing - of the US government, who saw a way to control and opress people.

Let's not forget that Blacks and Latinos and all Women in Jersey City are blatantly underpaid for doing the same jobs as white people and men.

Posted on: 2006/7/27 22:08
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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You're all paid way more than you're worth in America anyway.

Assholes.

Posted on: 2006/7/27 21:58
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Re: New face of public housing - 72 homes in the Lafayette section of Jersey City
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Quote:
Jsquare wrote:
It costs over 30% of a minimum wage monthly income.


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.

Posted on: 2006/7/27 21:57
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