Wow.

The New York Times has an article on California's Lancaster and its deplorable response to an influx of Section 8 Voucher holders seeking cheap housing in the community after the market crash.  Lancaster, a L.A. suburb, is a city with a population of 157,000, and the market crash doubled its number of the Section 8 (from the county housing authority) voucher holders to 3,700 which by my math is .02% of the population.  Palmdale, another city in the Antelope Valley, had a similar influx, and a similar response.  But because they apparently had the good sense to keep their mouth shut with media, the article focuses mostly on Lancaster.
Lancaster had such an extreme response that they were actually doing frequent check-ups on the households using Section 8 in an effort to catch them at a rule violation.  And that's not all.

She said that in the last few years, her Palmdale home had been the target of intense investigations, with dozens of sheriff’s deputies showing up at her door repeatedly and intimidating her four children. After neighbors learned that the family received a housing voucher, a group of boys threw urine at her youngest son and yelled racial epithets when he was walking to school one morning.

“It turned into a nightmare where we were just afraid to leave our house,” said the woman, who is black. “The reason we came out here some years ago was so we didn’t have to be afraid.”

There is a widespread resentment against the influx of Section 8 participants in the area. The local newspaper, The Antelope Valley Press, prominently features stories about people with any kind of Section 8 violation. “I hate Section 8” became almost a rallying cry — a Facebook page by that name featured pictures of some rental homes. In January, the garage of one such home was spray painted with a racial epithet and the “I hate Section 8” message.       

And why does Lancaster hate Section 8?  Apparently they're destroying neighborhoods (again, .02% of population) and Lancaster contends that Lancaster and Palmdale have a disproportionate number of vouchers from the county in their community.  They contend that there is a lack of social services and there is no real safety net for the voucher holders in the Valley.

He said that by not providing the city with more money to provide social services or warning potential residents that there is little public transportation, the county was “just sending people here to die.”   He has repeatedly said that the program simply “moves the urban poor to the hard-working suburbs.... People come here with no support network, no family at home to help them, nothing but just a house to live in,” Mr. Parris said. “It makes no sense to encourage them to come.”           

Now, because this blog is all about better policies, let's examine this from a policy perspective.

Would the correct response be to limit the number of Section 8 vouchers permitted in the community?  No, because the Section 8 voucher allows people to live wherever they can find an affordable home in the housing authority's service area (county in this case).  Section 8 also allows people to move to other communities-it's called porting. 

Aggressive enforcement like this is, in the larger picture, a useless action because one of the goals of the program is to move people closer to job opportunities, better schools, etc. so that the households can improve their lives to the extent they are no longer poor.  Kicking people out of the program needlessly simply ensures that they remain poor.

So instead of allocating funding toward enforcement, they should've hired people to work with the households, to help them integrate better into the community.  Ensure that they have access to the resources in the community-for example, one of the items in the article mentioned a rising crime rate until the aggressive enforcement began (and I'd want to see real statistics before I believe that).  Perhaps ensuring kids get involved in after-school programs, connecting other household adults with jobs programs, community college, etc. would've helped.

This is hardly the first time that an influx of voucher holders have moved from urban areas into the suburbs, so a search for best practices would've been a step.  Did that happen?  A quick search led me, within seconds, to Baltimore's Housing Mobility Program which does exactly what the Mayor talked about-it provides a support system.

Applicants who pass back-ground checks and meet other eligibility criteria enroll in MBQ’s counseling program, where they are prepared to succeed as tenants in more competitive housing markets.  Participants are taken through budgeting and financial education and are guided by counselors who serve as motivational coaches.  Bus tours introduce participants to the myriad of employment, education, and health-related amenities in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Participants save for a security deposit and, when  they are ready to move, work with their counselor to find a house or apartment that suits their needs.

I really wish that people would look for better policy responses to perceived problems rather than simply trying to make it go away one way or another.

Rental Housing Policy Articles

I think something many people don't realize is just how much work there is being done to find the best approach, the best policy, the best way, etc. in various programs and services.  Housing is no different.  HUD's current Cityscape issue has a focus on rental housing policies.  I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but if you're interested in rental housing policies, this is a good issue for you.

Regulatory Effectiveness and the Environment

Two Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel articles, unintentionally, started me mulling on my thoughts for this post.

The first, an article by Dan Egan, "The Lake left me.  It's gone." looks at the decline and death of commercial fishing in Lake Michigan, focusing on the departure of Milwaukee's last commercial fishing boat to Alaska.  The article notes that although the fishing stock began to decline due to the overfishing, the death blow was the arrival of the quagga mussels that pretty much took over the lake bottom, estimated in numbers at 900 trillion (yes, that's the number in the article, with a 't'!).  The invasive mussels arrived in ballast tanks that were discharged into the lake waters.

What could've saved commercial fishing?  As noted in the article, there were two factors; the overfishing and the mussels.  Both are situations where stronger regulatory efforts could've preserved those jobs.

1. Better controls (or other solutions) on catchs allowed by commercial fishers could've preserved the fishing stock.  Overfishing is an ongoing problem all around the world.  Unfortunately, fishing interests and sympathetic lawmakers have stymied efforts worldwide.
2. Better regulations on ships entering the Great Lakes from other parts of the world could've prevented the entry of mussels into the eco system.  Part of the problem is shipping interests that dislike regulations (just like any other industry), and part of the problem is resistance on the part of some ("Republicans" ) to any regulatory efforts.

The second article that caught my eye was Sand mines create jobs, concern by Lee Bergquist.  It covers the growth of mines extracting sand in western Wisconsin.  Those mines have a special type of sand used to extract oil and natural gases. 

But there are concerns:

Opponents have raised concerns about air and groundwater pollution, and residents living near sites have objected to truck traffic and concerns over falling home values....

Questions are also being raised over whether the industry needs more regulation. A chief concern is crystalline silica, an air particulate of sand mining that has prompted public health concerns.

A decision on whether Wisconsin should limit silica emissions has not been made, and there has been little progress since it was first considered seven years ago, a DNR report acknowledges.

"It's an emerging situation with plenty of questions that deserve to be answered," said John W. Welter, an Eau Claire attorney who recently ended a six-year term on the state Natural Resources Board and now serves as conservation coordinator in the western Great Lakes region of Trout Unlimited.

"There isn't a lot of regulatory oversight and now is the time for research and vigilance to find out what level of protection is necessary."

As someone who looks at housing issues frequently, I am very familiar with the issue of Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) and doubtless that may be motivating some of the opponents, but when you have a large scale operation like a mine with potential environmental problems (one might even say proven instead of potential), there are valid concerns.

But because those mines are moving into rural areas with little zoning oversight, it's unlikely that there will be much resistance.  After all, what county board is going to fight this:

"Anytime you can inject $100 million in capital in a 50-mile area, that's huge," (president and chief executive officer of the Chippewa County Economic Development Corp)Walker said.

It seems that jobs always truimph.

A spokesman for a company, Unimin, said "I don't think that people are focused on the fact that silica is one of the most prevalent substances on Earth - it's sand."  Guess what?  Water is also one of the most prevalent substances on the earth, but if you try to breath water, you're going to have problems, too!

Who Does Not Pay Taxes?

I've been enjoying the "Who Does Not Pay Taxes?" series of newsletters from the Institute for Wisconsin's Future.  Their August poster child is a well-known multinational corporation based in Racine that does not pay any state taxes-not a single cent between 2000 and 2008.  But I bet it used plenety of state infrastructures, services, and had plentiful access to politicos. 

The newsletter also takes a slam at the non-profit tax exemption given to large health care systems.