The purpose of a house

By poking around in the Plum Book for 2004, I think I've found the root of the housing problem. The government. The Plum Book explains the 7,000 Federal civil service positions, so as soon as the next one is published, Democrats will be all over it like flies on honey to see what's up for grabs. So anyway, I was browsing the Assistant Secretary for Administration of HUD, and came across the Center for Faith Based Initiatives and its Director, Ryan Streeter. Found this dandy little article by him about a viable return on housing investments (by the government) that he'd done for ROMA, Results-Oriented Management and Accountability (ROMA), U. S. Department of Health and Human Services in August 2001. He says there are two purposes for housing programs, but that they came about with no overarching plan (surprise!):

(1) There is the conventional view that says housing programs are a good in themselves, and
(2) There is the (more recent) perspective that says housing programs should promote the economic self-sufficiency of the people they serve.

Most federal housing is #1--designed to be shelter, with little plan or thought about the client's long term need. Block grants for shelter or for rehab or construction. But in the last 20 years (can we all say CRA?) HUD began to think more about self-sufficiency combining supportive services with housing services to get people off welfare (can we all say Republicans?). "These have become much more common in recent years. Approximately 1,200 local housing authorities sponsor a Family Self-Sufficiency program."

Of course, Mr. Streeter, continues, #2 is waaaaay more complex (and expensive) than #1. What he says the client gets is very vague--something about not living in an unstable environment and possibly increasing wealth if he becomes a homeowner. The other parties to this transaction are definitely not poor--they are developers, investors, contractors, the real estate market, surrounding homeowners and finally, we taxpayers. In other words, the government housing programs are a lot like the food assistance programs--they do a lot more for the producers than they do for the poor.

Ask yourselves how this has worked out in your own life. Unless you purchased investment/rental property, or were a home flipper in the last housing boom, owning a home didn't do diddly squat for your wealth. You think it did because of the home sale prices, but because of inflation and everything you poured into the house that you wouldn't if you had been a tenent, you are lucky to break even let alone accumulate wealth. What owning a home did for my family was provide shelter, a good school district for the kids, nice neighbors, a life style that suit my tastes and education, and a lot of job opportunities for other people in the housing field--real estate agents, plumbers, electricians, animal and pest control, house painters, pavers, lawn services, tree trimmers, and window salesmen.

We live in a lovely condo complex now with beautiful vistas, trees, ravine and creek, because in 1962 we purchased a dump--a 1912 duplex in a mixed zoning neighborhood in Champaign, Illinois. The student renters paid the mortgage, allowing us to eventually move out, rent both units and get a nicer place, plus have enough left to make a car payment. All other wealth we have accumulated in 48 years has come from salaries, savings, inheritance, and investments (one really strange one where we bought a building lot on a lake in Indiana for $10,000 and sold it the next year for $25,000 not putting a penny into it, except the guy who mowed the weeds, and never spending one night there.) We paid $28,500 for our Abington Rd. home in 1968, sold it in 2002 for $325,000 and paid $275,000 for this one. But we lived on Abington 34 years, put about $170,000 into various additions and remodeling, to say nothing of the general maintenance and decorating (taking out trees, putting up fences, taking down fences, putting in drive-way, replacing garage doors, fixing gas line leaks, rewiring the mess the previous owners had made, building closets everywhere (no basement or attic), treating carpenter ants, treating termites, mopping up after flooded toilets or washing machines, replacing things in the 90s that we'd replaced in the 60s, etc. We paid fees to sell it, and then had to put money into the condo to redecorate brown walls and red ceilings, bring it up to code with insulation, and got hit with a $7,000 roof assessment the first year. Just last week we had someone here to replace some rotting wood on the deck.

No, whether you do it for yourselves, for your children, for your parents, or the government does it for a low income mom with children from several boyfriends, you don't change lives through housing subsidies or grants. Take a tour through any prison, hospital, school or nursing home, and you'll see that it is not the building that changes lives or educates or makes people well. It's the same with us.

Now, will someone tell the government. Someone might need help with safe, comfortable shelter, but they probably don't need the nanny state trying to babysit and redirect their lives.