The Evils of Subsidized Housing

For the past couple of weeks, I've been listening to the hysteria in New Berlin over the evils of subsidized housing and the decay, crime, school woes, and locusts sure to follow in its wake.

Here's some sampling from comments in response to Eugene Kane's recent article in The Journal-Sentinel.

The residents of New Berlin do not want any subsidized housing, be it a subsidy for the builder or a subsidy for the tenants.

Not sure how inserting a slum in the middle of New Berlin does any good.

We all know where subsidized housing leads, these facts are indisputable. So, any objection to the project is obvious except for those individuals that are without reason and responsibility.

...I love New Berlin. I would prefer to keep anything subsidized out of New Berlin....

Subsidized housing is Un-Constitutional on the Federal Level....
Milwaukee is a Socialist City. New Berlin is not! The Milwaukee Labor Press sez so!

The largest housing subsidy program in the United States is the mortgage interest deduction available to homebuyers.

The president's fiscal year 2010 budget reports that, in 2012, the MID will cost the federal Treasury an estimated $131 billion, much more than the total of all outlays by the Department of Housing and Urban Development ($48 billion). Homeowners also benefit from other federal tax preferences, including deductibility of residential property taxes on owner-occupied homes ($31 billion), and exclusion of tax on the first $250,000 ($500,000 for joint returns) of capital gains on housing ($50 billion).

I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page here. Homeowners receive a total subsidy nearly three times larger than renters does, just from the mortgage interest deduction. Throw in the other tax preferences & we're talking' real money.

According to the U.S. Census' 2006-2008 American Community Survey, New Berlin had 11,963 owner-occupied homes of which 7,986 still have mortgages on them. That's what, almost 67% of the homeowners? The median value of owner-occupied homes is $245,700. I'm not that good at math, but let's see, 7,986 mortgages X $245,700 median value = $1,962,160,200. I wonder how much the mortgage interest deductions on that are costing us taxpayers?

I know, it doesn't work out exactly that way as that's the value of homes not the value of the mortgages, but consider that the $245,700 median value includes homes that are paid off, which are probably older homes, and not worth as much. It's still going to be a lot of money.

So, yeah, New Berlin already has oodles of subsidized housing, and if you live in New Berlin (or anywhere else in America, for that matter), the odds are you live in subsidized housing. Maybe New Berlin should be rethinking its position on "subsidized housing."