Non-sequitur.
Who is arguing some "moral superiority" of homeowners over renters?
Just curious, and not saying I totally disagree or agree with the basic premise...
..but from where does this "right to housing" emmanate in your opinion?
I don't follow. I am constantly reading in the forums one or another version of
"I own my house. Why doesn't this woman make a down payment instead of buy this TV with my tax money?"
A large percentage of the time, the persons making these statements find it necessary inform us that they own something. Why is this relevant?
I saw a sign that said "Housing is a basic human right". Is it? It's a basic human need, I'll grant you that, and a basic human responsibility to house yourself. At some point, you have to put out a little effort to take care of yourself, some responsibility and stop being so dependent on others to supply your basic human needs. Every healthy human, I am quite sure, is capable of that.
Sorry, but I really don't hear anybody saying that.
Pud,
I believe that housing is a basic human right regardless of a person's circumstance. I believe this is why we at least attempt to provide some sort of public aid in this direction.
I have read over and over on blogs and in the T-P forum the argument that housing is not a right but a "responsibility." Here we have the "homeowners" ... as they style themselves... claiming their mortgage as some badge of responsibility which permits them to make such judgments.
Entering into a large managed debt agreement does not make you a more "responsible" person than anyone else. It just makes you a person with a large managed debt agreement.
I don't follow this argument. I rent. I didn't have any right to expect that I'd have the same apartment to return to when I came home after the storm. I got lucky, but I know lots of renters who weren't as lucky. They either found other places, or they left town. I pay more rent than I did before the storm, and again, most renters I know are in the same position. Immediately after the storm, I saw comments on local forums from homeowners that reflected that "moral superiority" you refer to, as in "too bad for renters; you ought to buy a house" but it didn't change the market. They're just words.
We need affordable rental housing for working class people. But that doesn't have to amount to restoring the housing projects to their same condition as before the storm.
Meanwhile, with HUD providing Section 8 vouchers at higher than market rate, working-class people who aren't on the dole find it harder to find an affordable apartment. There's a lot more going on in the housing situation than some dastardly plot by racist whites to drive out the black working, and non-working, class. This isn't a clear-cut fight between good and evil, with good being the housing demonstrators and evil being anyone who thinks there can be a better model than the housing projects.
Forget Mrs. Jasper's television. It doesn't help the housing advocates' case for her to be sitting in a perfectly lovely apartment provided to her by taxpayers, while complaining about "what people give you." The TP might have set her up, but she played right into their hands.
Again the question raised in this post is why do a majority of the people commenting on this debate feel it necessary to rely on their status as "homeowners" to buttress their statements which are loaded with hostility towards people with less than what they have?
Jeffrey,
From what I understand you don't own your home, but you rent. You have taken responsibility for your basic human need of housing. I'm 39, I bought my first house last year, that's at least 21 years of being able to find housing for myself through a wide variety of financial realities, be it renting, buying, however.
I was unaware that I ever had a right to it. You just go out and do what you have to do. Just like you. If home owners are pissing you off, fuck em, but that's not really the point.
I think it is the point. Or at least the point is that this entire conversation is tinged with a naked resentment on the part of middle class people toward folks who are obviously less well off than they are. It is possibly the ugliest thing I've seen in a while.
The only people who benefit from your rent are, guess who, homeowners. If you're renting, you're just making deposits into someone else's bank account rather than building up your own equity.
The path to economic well-being really does hinge on wealth creation -- and homeownership is the best way to get there, because most of a person's income goes into housing, but also because it's a vehicle for, and foundation for, stability.
Who in their right mind, if they could afford to get out of it, would want the instability of a government bureaucracy to be their landlord.
A television for a down payment? Maybe not on a commercial loan, but there are certainly opportunities out there for subsidized loans which provide homeownership for as little as a single month's rent as the down payment. It's really a question of how much that television is worth. At the end of the mortgage, the reward is a home, a significant base of economic power.
Are you suggesting that the poor would be better off not to be economically empowered? If so, isn't that a bit paternalistic to think you know what's best for them?
Why can't we have a conversation about finding a way to create better opportunities, instead of reproducing poverty?
Unpack that ideological baggage.
I'll unpack the "ideological baggage" when people stop paternalistically preaching to me about how I should be "building equity" and creating other such artificial obligations for myself while that "equity" is then resold and traded and bundled into all kinds of bullcrap for someone to scheme more money off of.
Yes my rent money goes toward the same purpose and yes that is just as bad. But I don't see how the "equity" should make me feel any better about it.
And I certainly don't think that someone who buys into this system has any more right to pass judgment upon the minutiae of the lives and possessions of the poor than I do.
Actually, I know some folks who live in a nice, rent-controlled place in Queens. There is NO WAY they would take on a mortgage now. Their utilities charges have changed, but their rent is the same as it was thrity-plus years ago. Depending on the situation, renting can be a kind of freedom. Otherwise, renting is indeed another form of being beholden to someone financially as long as your lease gets renewed.
"And I certainly don't think that someone who buys into this system has any more right to pass judgment upon the minutiae of the lives and possessions of the poor than I do."
Whether they own a house or not, anybody who pays taxes has a right to pass judgment on how welfare recipients like Sharon Jasper spend their money, especially when they bitch about how the taxpayers aren't keeping them comfortable enough. Sharon Jasper is dead weight. She's lived on the government dole her entire life. I'm not saying she should be allowed to starve to death or be thrown out on the street, but if she's going to make the rest of us support her, she damn sure better not be living comfortably.
God forbid we ever allow anyone to live comfortably.
Homeownership *does* make you more responsible, because it is a serious commitment to control yourself and your finances, to scrape up the money for the down payment. Then, once you close, you bear final responsibility for your home's upkeep, and owe that responsibility to the community of people on your street, to keep it up, to contribute to well-being of the community. Landlords are notorious for not providing such upkeep, becuase their money comes from the rents, not the property itself so much -- any repairs they have to make cuts into their profits, whereas for a homeowner, repairs improve their property and their equity. Homeownership *is* a responsibility, and meeting *does* require one to be more responsible. I'm sorry if you don't like it Jeff, but that's the way it is.
The class hatred on nola.com is coming not from the TV itself, but its evidence of a lack of deferred gratification. The middle class is all about deferred gratification -- saving for a house, saving for your kid's college, going to college itself. Struggling and saving to improve oneself. Not wasting what little money you have on fripperies. Thousands of hardworking people all throughout NOLA struggle and sweatt to do that -- why can't people n the dole do that even a little? Is the thinking.
Kirsten you seem to be confirming what I'm saying here. That there is a strong prejudice in favor of a certain set of lifestyle choices which gives those choosing that lifestyle the right to press their thumbs down upon the rest of us.
Some people value "fripperies" over the "deferred gratification" of those things which you seem to be expecting them to value simply because you do.
"I believe that housing is a basic human right regardless of a person's circumstance. I believe this is why we at least attempt to provide some sort of public aid in this direction,"
I disagree. I'm no constitutional scholar, but I've yet to read where "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" has been stretched to include "free housing", nor have I noticed the particular amendment that guarantees every citizen a place to live whether they can afford it or not...or whether they TRY to afford it or not. I'm also unaware of any state or local ordinances that say that individuals must be supplied with a place to live at the expense of the community, and further that these individuals get to PICK where and how they want the community to supply that housing. I'm sure there are plenty of HUD regulations that cover specific aspects of housing, both subsidized and other...but I can't say I've ever seen the statute quoted that says "All persons living in the United States have a right to housing, and this housing is to be provided at government expense." But again--I'm no lawyer.
That being said, I'll borrow a word from el stevo for my sentiments on housing--"responsibility". Only I don't use it as he does; oh, I agree with him that each individual has a responsibility to supply their own needs to the best of their abilities. Obviously those who are children, elderly, have disabilities, or in other situations where their ability to provide for themselves is reduced will have needs that they themselves are unable to fulfill. Here I certainly feel that the community of human beings that includes them has a "responsibility" to help them meet their needs. But I don't think that responsibility flows from some "right" that the persons have...but rather from the simple fact that assuring that individual members of the community are not wanting is good for the community as a whole.
Perhaps I'm coming at it from this angle based on something I've absorbed from my youth and all of the tenets on Catholic social justice that I had drilled into my head...I don't know. But beyond what the Constitution and our bodies of law enumerate as "rights" of each individual, I look at the fulfillment of needs as less the "right" of the needy individual and more the "responsibility" of the community as a whole.
"Some people value "fripperies" over the "deferred gratification" of those things which you seem to be expecting them to value simply because you do."
Well, gee whiz, Jeff...nobody said you or anyone else don't have a right to your "fripperies" if you want them. Only that if you make the choice to see that your "fripperie needs" are met over meeting your more basic needs, maybe we "ants" don't see that we owe it to you or any of the other "grasshoppers" to meet those needs for you.
"Some people value "fripperies" over the "deferred gratification" of those things which you seem to be expecting them to value simply because you do."
Fine, but if people prefer to squander their money rather than try to better themselves, why do we, the taxpayers, have to support them then? God help me for sounding like a republican, but if people have no desire to better themselves, why does society have to continually support them in their indolence?
I don't know if that is the case, with Sharon Jasper, but it sure looks that way on the surface. I would never deny that there are people who have genuine need -- the disabled, the elderly. But people who could support themselves, and just don't ... can you see how that would enrage people?
Again, I don't know that that is the case, but that is what people see in that TP picture. Obviously the picture was published to manipulate us. But it made me angry even as I knew I was being manipulated.
Pud,
An interesting recently published book on the evolving subject of "human rights" is called Inventing Human Rights by Lynn Hunt. The author traces the Enlightenment roots of the basic idea of a set of "inalienable human rights" and the ways in which its meaning has changed over time.
That's a bit of a digression really but I'm trying to get at the point that human rights are moveable targets. Something becomes a human right when we agree as a society that it is such. Such agreement is not won without argument.
(Also such agreement is never really permanently won. You have to keep reasserting yourself in the fight over your rights or risk having them taken away from you)
Maybe you're right that we haven't reached that consensus point on housing but I believe there are reasonable grounds for moving in that direction.
Also... one earlier draft of the Declaration of Independence read, "life liberty and property" but that bit was edited somewhat.
Hmmm...
And now we seem to be having two discussions. One is about whether or not people have a basic right to housing while the other involves my complaint against bourgeois values. We'll have to untangle those if we want to make any sense.
Not that I'm too hung up on making any sense.
I need a fucking drink. I find all of this extremely depressing. I find this city extremely depressing. I think I want out . . . again.
It's horrible, that melee outside City hall, it's a bad scene all the way around, there's no denying that.
Jeff RU coming to the party?
steve,
The funny thing is, I find it endlessly fascinating. At least I find the process fascinating. The lack of justice or even lack of agreement upon what constitutes justice can be a little depressing. I also need a drink.
Which brings me to...
I'm supposed to be at the office party in about an hour. Do we get booze this year?
Plenty plenty!
"Also... one earlier draft of the Declaration of Independence read, "life liberty and property" but that bit was edited somewhat."
That's just cuz there was a real sentiment to only consider "property holders" to be real "citizens". At any rate, it certainly wouldn't apply at all to our housing questions, because none of the protesting residents are trying to get back onto their own property. Unless you're saying they should have some kind of squatter's rights to the apartments or something.
While not morally superior, there is a great liberation in being in control of your own destiny in regards to your own living arrangements. By that I mean, a large behemoth like HANO can't come around and force you out. We don't have to go to the city council to fight for our homes and we don't have to explain our sense of entitlement to them.
And the Bank doesn't own people's home. The owner of the homes simply owes the bank a certain amount of money with the home as collateral. They don't own the house so much as you don't own the money in your pocket because you can be sued for it.
"It does not give you the right to deny that people have some right to housing.. or to ... say...tell such people how big their television should be. Please stop pretending it does."
Respectfully:
I'm a bit puzzled that this paragraph linked to my post, when I never made any of the insulting claims that are seemingly applied to me. If you are referring to commenters at YRHT, could you please link to them individually or specify that these claims are theirs, not mine?
If you are pointing to me as the example of the morally superior bourgoisie who "tell people how big their television should be"... I think we're going to have a bit of a row about this, and I don't like your chances.
It's unfortunate, too, because I was all amped to do a post arguing why one's house is not an asset, and generally defending your first paragraph. Now my enthusiasm is dampened. I still might do it, but I don't like the context of how I was linked to, here.
I'm all for social responsibility and was raised with "giving back to my community" as a core belief. I freely give time and energy as a volunteer for various organizations that work to address the needs of those whom are not able to do so for themselves or are in need of temporary assistance.
But in the past few years I've had ample cause to begin wondering, Why should I do for others what they are simply unwilling to do for themselves? There is a difference. the TV is an asset; it can be sold to provide money for other needs.
I used to hock jewelry I'd inherited from my mom every now and again to cover my bills as needed until my mid-30's; assets that you own can be used as collateral for a loan or sold to generate additional cash. Acting responsibility depends on whether or not one has accepted that they must address their basic needs of life first, and that non-essentials get jettisoned when the ship is goin' down. Help yourself first.
Some people value "fripperies" over the "deferred gratification" of those things which you seem to be expecting them to value simply because you do.
jeffrey | 12.20.07 - 1:26 pm | #
You can't say this last comment and honestly question why people think homeowners are more responsible than renters. This is the essence of the argument and I don't think you'd have to look too far to find statistical evidence that supports the claim.
And then there's this cop-out:
Hmmm...
And now we seem to be having two discussions. One is about whether or not people have a basic right to housing while the other involves my complaint against bourgeois values. We'll have to untangle those if we want to make any sense.
Not that I'm too hung up on making any sense.
jeffrey | 12.20.07 - 1:49 pm | #
Run away Jeffrey, run away...
Oyster,
No no I linked to your post because that's where the discussion was. I suppose I could have linked to DB there as well but I had already linked to her in a previous post.
I wasn't accusing you of anything there.
Anon,
I'd be more inclined to answer that but I tend to consider anonymous comments disingenuous on their face. Plus I can't really add much to what I've said as you're basically just gainsaying my points.
That's okay... but I just don't have an answer for it.... other than I really don't think I'm "copping out" on anything.
Ok, cool. Thanks for the follow up "Note".
Also, I think my position in that post is pretty clear based on the title, the highlighted text and the brief commentary. It was a criticism of the activists' decision to point to Ms Jasper as a victim of current housing policies.
I explained at more length here
Right. That's kinda what I was saying... but, you know... funny-like.
Taxpayers are not paying Sharon Jaspers rent, they are paying her landlords mortgage.
Oh, ok. I was a little slow there. My bad.
This is off the topical path, but, what else is new? I gotta take issue with Schroeder's claims tying "wealth creation" to home ownership.
He writes: "The path to economic well-being really does hinge on wealth creation -- and homeownership is the best way to get there, because most of a person's income goes into housing, but also because it's a vehicle for, and foundation for, stability.
...
At the end of the mortgage, the reward is a home, a significant base of economic power."
A single family home shouldn't be regarded as an asset of wealth creation. True, housing payments are usually one's largest monthly expense, but, initially, the vast majority of that goes to the bank in the form of interest. Sure, you get a IRS deduction, but you also get property taxes, insurance and maintenance costs.
There is "stability", but since the average homeowner moves every 6 or 7 years, that's a somewhat overrated selling point. The real wealth creation comes when home prices are on a steep ascent, so that you can buy a house and use the mighty leverage of a home loan to one's advantage, and sell a few years later and make a handsome profit, even after all the costs (including transaction fees).
But that time has past, and it might be a while before another housing bubble comes along. Prices could drop or stay flat for a long time.
My opinion is that most people shouldn't regard their personal single family home as a wealth-creation asset. There's plenty of better investments for one's savings.
Jeffrey, I hear you. No one OWNS their home or property. They just take care of it for a while. We have "owned" our home for 27 years. We actually paid it off once in 96 or so. Now Citizens Bank "owns" about 50k of it. And no we don't have a 97" flat panel Vizio. Now, audio is a different story for another time.
Oyster, really. Please educate me on these other extraordinary assets, and what some of the caveats might be.
Do you own a house? If there are better assets to invest in, why bother?
And by the way, you own what you've put into the house, as long as you don't foreclose. That's your equity. And at any point you choose to sell, you can keep the difference between the sale price and what the bank is owed.
As a technical matter, the bank owns the title until you pay the bank ... yada yada yada ... with all of the above stipulations ... blah blah blah ... It's still better than renting in almost every situation, unless you want to pay rent year after year and see your income disappear into someone else's wallet.
As for rent-controlled New York, as someone somewhere mentioned, that's an absurd scenario in which the market price isn't being obtained for the asset, but it sure works well if you're a tenant. It's still renting.
Jeffrey, it sounds like you're feeling morally superior to the morally superior. Doesn't seem to be much discussion about what's actually the best thing to do, probably because nobody knows and its easier to engage in moral posturing. But I haven't seen you, or anybody else, respond to Stevo's, or Beth's, or Schroeder's point that public housing residents are demanding a right that nobody else has. Much of the angry tone of some of the posts I've written is due to the fact that I fully expect to be looking for a new apartment soon, and I'll no longer feel guilty about it if I move to Jefferson Parish. But, it's not just renters, most of the home-owners (or mortgage-payers) that I know are wondering how long they'll be able to afford their insurance payments. If you want to argue that the city and HUD are making an irresponsible decision, that's fine. But don't act morally superior yourself because people get angry that other people are demanding a tax-subsidized right that they don't have themselves.
Cough.
At this festive season of the year it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provisions for the poor and destitute.
And yet, one wonders, are there no prisons? And the union workhouses, are they still in operation? And the treadmill and the Poor Law they're still in full vigor, we might presume.
The poor are always with us. No matter how much--or how secretly--we might want them to go away, they're not going to. Whether a person is born in the Magnolia Project or on Prytania Street, New Orleans is their home, and the ones that are back are not going to leave. The question is, do we want to pay to see them housed, or do we leave them camped out on C. Ray's lawn and under the overpass? Personally roving bands of homeless people make me more nervous than extra taxes.
As far as demanding a right that no one else has...that kind of makes me happy. That even the poorest in this nation demand some scrap of humanity is commendable.
If we think for a moment that denying the necessity of public housing will magically get rid of what we believe to be an "irresponsible" or "undesirable" segment of the population, we need only look to our neighbors in the cities of the 3rd world to see how wrong we really are. But maybe we just want them all safely encased in tenement slums, far, far, far away from us.
I think the keep-the-projects side is the racist side in this argument. I didn't hear any of you all say anything when the white elite got rid of the housing project near the Garden District, but now you're all up in arms because the black elite wants to get rid of the housing project near Park Island. Just kidding, but I can't help but wonder at the close proximity of the St. Bernard project to the residences of the Morials, the Nagins, the Haydels, and a Jimmie Woods. I found two Jimmie Woods listed, not sure which is the garbage collection/landfill guy who seems to own half the politicians in the area.
Back to my other point, I see a lot of talking past each other, but no reason to get upset that other people don't have a right that I don't have. The fact that at least two people on one morally superior side seized on the use of the word "fripperies" by somebody on the other side shows that there's plenty of smugness to go around. That's my smugly superior take, FWIW.
Schroeder said: "Do you own a house? If there are better assets to invest in, why bother?"
Yes, my business is real estate, so I own a number of properties, including my house. I own a car, too, even though there are better investments out there. A SFH is about other things than a wealth-creating investment. It's not an asset, because it doesn't put money in your pocket. Look at a 30yr mortgage table, and look at how little of your payment goes towards building "equity" in the first 7 years (about the average amount of time people live somewhere before moving). It's mostly interest to the bank. Then subtract yearly property taxes, insurance, maintenance and you're not "making" a lot of money from one's investment. You're hoping to recoup some of your money in the future, when you sell. If the market isn't hot, prices can stagnate or fall. Plus there are significant transactional costs when you sell the home.
People buy houses for utility and pride and status and other reasons. As an investment, single family homes aren't too great.
Schroeder said: "Please educate me on these other extraordinary assets, and what some of the caveats might be."
Investing in Income-generating Real Estate (Multifamily, Commercial... etc) or flipping/rehabbing distressed properties or participating in tax sales would be examples of investing in an RE asset that creates wealth. Investing in a business that one owns would be another "extraordinary asset". Equities, bonds, partnerships would be just a few examples of other potentially interesting opportunities.
The caveats, as always, would start with-- invest in what you know. If you don't "know" a lot, then you should invest in education about a particular financial instrument or business.
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