{"id":713,"date":"2009-04-12T22:18:10","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T22:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=713"},"modified":"2009-04-12T22:18:10","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T22:18:10","slug":"why_the_government_needs_to_re","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=713","title":{"rendered":"Why The Government Needs To Rethink Poverty Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Times<\/a> ran an article this morning that shows the need of the government to rethink some of the ways it tries to help people escape poverty and achieve financial success.  The article cited the federal government’s Dollar Homes program as an example of good intentions gone bad.<\/p>\n

The program began in 1998 with the intention of clearing the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s books of foreclosures and providing affordable housing to lower income people.  The plan was that local governments would buy the homes for $1, fix them up and resell them at a discount to poor families, who would get a chance to put down roots in the community.  According to the article, that’s not what happened:<\/p>\n

“More than 2,300 homes have been sold by HUD for $1 each nationwide, with 326 in California. Nearly half of the homes in California were bought by companies or individuals who typically resold them at a much higher price. Only 15% were sold to nonprofit housing groups such as Habitat for Humanity, records show.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The article sites one specific example of the program’s failure:<\/p>\n

“At 1064 N. D St. in San Bernardino, a home in the Dollar Homes program has had three owners. The city sold it for $6,000 to California Capital Properties, which then sold it to a buyer for $97,000. That buyer refinanced twice, ending up with a $280,500 loan<\/em>.”<\/div>\n
Records show that the homes involved in the program have changed hands frequently, being sold at whatever the current market price is.  There are no rules in the program to ensure that the houses remain affordable when they are sold.  In many cases, the homes needed improvements and repairs and the owners refinanced to pay for them–creating mortgages that they could not pay, and the houses were foreclosed on.<\/div>\n
Home ownership is a goal of most American families and affordable housing is needed, but somehow we need to find a way of helping people own a home without also placing a financial burden on them they cannot bear.  We need to go back to the drawing board on this one.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Times ran an article this morning that shows the need of the government to rethink some of the ways it tries to help people escape poverty and achieve financial success.  The article cited the federal government’s Dollar Homes program … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}