Pros and cons of section 8 housing

[novasteve]

Section 8 housing: Destroying home values and driving up rental prices?

Winners: Section 8 renters

The design of Section 8 is to provide extremely low-income families with decent, safe and sanitary housing in the private market.

But a handful of Section 8 renters are getting all that and then some.

Cash investors are buying up luxury bank-owned properties and flipping them into Section 8 rentals for the guaranteed, at- or above-market rent checks issued by the government.

It’s a boon to Section 8 renters who find themselves with amenities many working, middle-class Americans can’t afford, such as granite countertops, pools and community racquetball courts and fitness centers.



Losers: Regular renters

According to Korte, Section 8 rentals play a role in driving up prices in the rental market. Section 8 vouchers are not below market value. They pay market rates, and sometimes offer even more than rental asking prices. This puts upward pressure on rents.

“If you look at a two-bedroom, two-bath Section 8 rental reimbursement, it’s about $1,700 in Palm Beach County,” says Korte. “That’s more than the advertised price for some luxury apartment complexes in the area.”
Regular renters who pay out of pocket for their place are getting priced out of the rental market, and Section 8 works to their disadvantage.

“The program’s desire to be at the equal playing field of all rentals creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of what rent is,” says Korte. “It’s going to continuously move up.”



Losers: Neighbors of Section 8 tenants

Section 8 rentals have a direct impact on their surrounding communities.

“You’re seeing destruction of the underlying neighborhood because you’ve got rental communities in areas where they shouldn’t be,” says Korte.

In general, the average homeowner has an emotional and financial stake in their home. But the typical investor who buys and rents

 

[Jarlaxle]

Pros? I'm not coming up with any...

 

[Nika2013]

What people seldom think about (before a knee-jerk reaction to the topic) is that having Section 8 housing in the neighborhood increases both the property tax base and city revenue in the form of sales taxes. Each occupant is paying rent, buying food at local markets, purchasing clothing, paying utility bills, going to doctors and hospitals in the community, and using the banking system which increases available capital for loans for businesses. As the original post implied, this is not a small amount of money in a city like Palm Beach. Two hundred apartments with rent @$1700 per month =$340,000 per month and over $4 million per year. Add the possible $800 per month for 2 kids in TANF for 200 families =$160,000 per month or about $2 million per year. Add the food stamps average low $400x200=$80,000 per month or x12 months almost $1 million= $7 million dollars extra per month to be taxed for city revenue and state taxes, not to mention extra capital for bank loans. This does not include Medicaid payments for health care and the provision of new jobs.
These figures may represent the low end of the spectrum, but you get the point, right?
It is redistribution of wealth from the government to local business…

 

[DiamondDave]

Cons.. nobody is owed government subsidized housing.. how and where you live is a personal responsibility.. there are no 'PROS' to section 8

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

What people seldom think about (before a knee-jerk reaction to the topic) is that having Section 8 housing in the neighborhood increases both the property tax base and city revenue in the form of sales taxes.

And the overall property values in the neighborhood drop due to the increase in crime and undesirables introduced as a result. Net loss

Each occupant is paying rent, buying food at local markets, purchasing clothing, paying utility bills, going to doctors and hospitals in the community, and using the banking system which increases available capital for loans for businesses. As the original post implied, this is not a small amount of money in a city like Palm Beach. Two hundred apartments with rent @$1700 per month =$340,000 per month and over $4 million per year. Add the possible $800 per month for 2 kids in TANF for 200 families =$160,000 per month or about $2 million per year. Add the food stamps average low $400x200=$80,000 per month or x12 months almost $1 million= $7 million dollars extra per month to be taxed for city revenue and state taxes, not to mention extra capital for bank loans. This does not include Medicaid payments for health care and the provision of new jobs.
These figures may represent the low end of the spectrum, but you get the point, right?
It is redistribution of wealth from the government to local business…

What you seldom think about is there is no aggregate benefit realized by the redistribution of wealth because the transfer of wealth to the receiver is at the expense of the provider. No new wealth is being created, just shifted.

 

[Nika2013]

Shifted to communities all over the US...was the point....and there is new wealth within the community..It is my belief that Obama is doing everything backward in trying to stimulate the economy...If he would actually raise the money being distributed to the poor, the effect would ripple throughout the economy state-by-state as poor people will spend what they receive while the middle class will conserve in fear of a greater recession....More money flowing into each community will provide more jobs and assist businesses...Maybe building more Section 8 housing would be the answer to the current problem...Before people start screaming about this...think...What are we trying to do? We are trying to spread investment in many communities so that we can jump-start the economy at the local levels. It may not help larger cities as much as it would help many smaller cities and since small-businesses provide the bulk of the jobs, it might work...

 

[editec]

Section 8 housing: Destroying home values and driving up rental prices?

Winners: Section 8 renters

The design of Section 8 is to provide extremely low-income families with decent, safe and sanitary housing in the private market.

But a handful of Section 8 renters are getting all that and then some.

Cash investors are buying up luxury bank-owned properties and flipping them into Section 8 rentals for the guaranteed, at- or above-market rent checks issued by the government.

It’s a boon to Section 8 renters who find themselves with amenities many working, middle-class Americans can’t afford, such as granite countertops, pools and community racquetball courts and fitness centers.



Losers: Regular renters

According to Korte, Section 8 rentals play a role in driving up prices in the rental market. Section 8 vouchers are not below market value. They pay market rates, and sometimes offer even more than rental asking prices. This puts upward pressure on rents.

“If you look at a two-bedroom, two-bath Section 8 rental reimbursement, it’s about $1,700 in Palm Beach County,” says Korte. “That’s more than the advertised price for some luxury apartment complexes in the area.”
Regular renters who pay out of pocket for their place are getting priced out of the rental market, and Section 8 works to their disadvantage.

“The program’s desire to be at the equal playing field of all rentals creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of what rent is,” says Korte. “It’s going to continuously move up.”



Losers: Neighbors of Section 8 tenants

Section 8 rentals have a direct impact on their surrounding communities.

“You’re seeing destruction of the underlying neighborhood because you’ve got rental communities in areas where they shouldn’t be,” says Korte.

In general, the average homeowner has an emotional and financial stake in their home. But the typical investor who buys and rents

Fascinating.

Section 8 housing is a greater boon to the people who own and manage it, than it is to the people who live there OR the public generally.

Sweetheat rents payments is a big part of the problem.

As usual, the people getting rich from social welfare programs aren't the poor, its the businesses that service them.

 

[Antares]

Although they’re never labeled as such, the San Francisco Chronicle typically has two to three articles each week demonstrating the inherent dysfunctions of liberalism. One recent example was a front page story “No Quick Fix for Life in Projects.” The article chronicles the disheartening experiences of the thousands of residents in the city’s 6,476 units in its 45 public housing projects. “Residents who live in public housing told the Chronicle they constantly deal with violence, units infested with roaches and mice, heating that doesn’t work and major mold and mildew problems.” Residents told the paper that they often have to go “for weeks or months without basic repairs to their units being completed.”

The American Spectator : Chronicle of Liberal Disasters

They are a disaster whereever they build them....

 

[AmyNation]

Section 8 housing it not the same thing as "the projects". Section 8 allows people to take government money and rent from anyone who is willing to work with the government, "the projects" are a concentration of government housing. Everyone in project housing is there because of government assistance.

The projects creates government ghettos, section 8 disperses the good and the bad among the community as a whole.

 

[Big Black Dog]

I know someone who owned a rental property and allowed it to become a Section 8 rental. It was a pretty nice place. Within 18 months, it was a dump and the yard looked like shit.

 

[FA_Q2]

I know someone who owned a rental property and allowed it to become a Section 8 rental. It was a pretty nice place. Within 18 months, it was a dump and the yard looked like shit.

And this is the problem. Anyone that is willing to take their nice rental and make it a section 8 is absolutely nuts. The one thing that you are guaranteed is that the renter has not worked for the rent.

You generally (I say generally because it might not be the case 100 percent of the time but it is MOST of the time) do not care about that which you have not worked for. Section 8 housing is notorious for not being cared for properly and being destroyed by tenants that simply do not care.