Additional thoughts on “decentralizing poverty” in Huntsville

I have been out of town the last week (stimulating the economy in Las Vegas on both business and pleasure – more on that later)  and have missed much of the, uhh, excitement surrounding the Huntsville Housing Authority story.  Fortunately Jay (aka Reactionary) and others, including my lovely wife, filled me in on this past Monday’s meeting.  Jay did a bang up job summarizing the roughly four hour meeting in a series of posts.

I was afforded a good bit of time to reflect on the situation while in Sin City.  On my way back on Sunday I was able to read an excellent article in the Huntsville Times by Challen Stevens as well as a less than stellar editorial by Kevin Wendt.

The thought I couldn’t escape is that the HHA moving a project into a middle class subdivision symbolizes the degradation of what was once a merit based society into a “shared misery” mishmash.  Hard working people who made sound choices to stay out of trouble, get an education, and work hard are finding the fruits of their considerable labors spoiled by their own government.  Tax dollars are taken from the productive and not only transferred to the welfare class, but used to compromise the very lifestyle that the prudent worked so hard to achieve.  At its core this is what has people so upset I believe.

Stevens’ article reinforces the concerns of Huntsville citizens about the wisdom of the HHA’s “decentralizing poverty” push:

Cities across the country began two decades ago to bulldoze clusters of public housing and place residents in mixed-income neighborhoods to encourage self-sufficiency. But results have been mixed, and researchers say there’s not a lot of evidence of increased self-sufficiency among the former tenants.

For some reason people like the HHA’s Michael Lundy and others cling tightly to the notion that “decentralizing poverty” is a utopian dream despite a lack of supporting evidence.

The article also included comments from a couple of public housing dependents that I found a bit interesting:

“I don’t have a car as it is now. I’ll be having to get rides,” said 25-year-old Ashely Varise, who found her way from New Orleans to Councill Courts after Katrina. “They can move me anywhere else, but not South Parkway.”

“I don’t want to go down there. I am one individual. I live alone. No transportation,” said an elderly resident of more than 30 years, who asked that her name be withheld. “That’s too far for me. My doctors are right here in my grasp.”

Now haven’t we been told that the residents moving to Stone Manor have cars?  This is an extremely important point.  If the HHA unilaterally disperses residents with no means of transportation all across the city how will they get to their far flung jobs and services?  If they don’t have cars then the city will ultimately be forced to expand bus routes.  That isn’t free.  Not only is there the direct cost in the form of higher taxes and fees, but there will also be the burden of sharing our roads – both major and minor – with more lumbering buses.  The city and HHA must coordinate further moves to avoid sudden demand for costly public transportation.  (Although I suspect the HHA folks would like to be a forcing function for more public transportation.)

I must also take issue with the comments of one HHA resident in Stephens’ piece:

At Councill Courts one older resident, who didn’t want to be identified, said it used to rain inside her heatless apartment before she found government housing.

She looked at it this way: “There are a lot of people who have good jobs. I’m just not one of them.”

“I’m just not one of them.”  A hidden excuse curiously phrased as if to indicate that those who do have good jobs just lucked into them.  No planning, no hard work, no education.  The good job just fell out of the sky and randomly hit them on the head.  Going back to an earlier theme, we live (or used to) in a merit based society.  If you find yourself with an undesirable lot in life then one person bears the bulk of the blame.  Wendt casually echoed this mindset in his editorial referring to the HHA residents as the “less fortunate” – a pet peeve of mine.  I wonder if Wendt views his own achievement – the editor at a decent size newspaper – as a mere matter of fortune?  Was he just beebopping down the road and the job fairy offered him this position?  Or, as I suspect, did he work hard to get to where he is?  On average we all end up where we deserve to be – fortune just introduces some variance around the mean.

I do find Wendt’s mocking tone toward Mo Brooks to be a bit ironic.

Sadly, County Commissioner Mo Brooks’ grandstanding was to be expected. This is the same guy who suggested south Huntsville secede.

I’m not going to argue Wendt’s point that Brooks enjoys the occasional grandstanding.  I typically agree with his positions, though.  However, while Wendt chides Brooks for once wanting to split off south Huntsville I wonder how many south Huntsville residents are currently wishing on some level that was the case.  Then we wouldn’t be facing a likely onslaught of federally subsidized residents.  Oh yeah, they’re coming.  It’s in their plan.

From Section 7.0 in the HHA’s “5 Year and Annual Plan:”

Additionally, HHA would like to guarantee affordability of housing in other areas of Southeast Huntsville so that residents may benefit from high-performing schools and other quality of life factors.

This reinforces yet another concern of Huntsville residents: that school performance will suffer.  One of the reasons the HHA wants to move into Southeast Huntsville is to take advantage of what are currently “high-performing” schools.  That implicitly means they will be leaving less than “high-performing” schools.  Here’s a rhetorical question.  Do you think the schools currently attended by the HHA students are substandard because of or despite them?

Now is a good time to tackle the oft used “affordable housing” phrase the HHA folks like to toss around.  I would like Michael Lundy or anyone else to explain to me how government intervention into the housing market through wealth transfer subsidies makes housing more affordable in a macroeconomic sense.  Anytime the government heavily subsidizes anything overall costs go up.  Take a look at college education or health care for prime examples.

While I doubt that the toothpaste can be squeezed back in the tube as far as Stone Manor is concerned I do feel that public sentiment will force a change in the long term plans of the HHA provided the interest does not wane considerably.