NYC's welfare problem

Cracker Boy, settle this disagreement . . . is your toothless mother a crackhead or just a crystal meth fiend?

How come even at the bargain basement rents and apartment prices, no one wants to live in Chicago? Must be pretty shitty.

Rufus, does your mom also do tricks?

nyc10022, no one wants to live there? Chicago has 3 million people, dumbass.

the only reason nyc is expensive, is because of liberal rent stabilization and regulations. but since you know nothing about basic economics, i don't expect you to understand that.

i met a lady at starbucks in harlem that gets SS disability cause of her fake back pain and pays $275 towards her newly built rent controlled apartment. she is not swimming in wealth, as actually 30% of her pay goes towards rent.

here's my point: is it worth it for the welfare system to keep these people living in on of the most expensive cities on earth? this lady for example, will never work, she is just not willing to. so why on earth don't they help them to relocate to the cheapest place in NY (like upstate) so that her subsidize housing can be used for somebody that earns income? these might go a long way towards making housing more affordable for those that work.

admin, great point. that's exactly what the city should do, but it's controlled by liberals like bloomberg, who believe in the welfare state.

the 80/20 program is even more absurd because it puts poor people in luxury doormen buildings, thereby inflating the price for everyone else.

NYC is the only city in the U.S. that has these absurd programs. Just one more reason why Chicago is superior and better managed.

admin, why just upstate NY? Germany relocated people to Poland, so under your way of thinking, there's no reason to offload human beings within the same state.

how much money was just handed out to AIG and other companies?

"the only reason nyc is expensive, is because of liberal rent stabilization and regulations. but since you know nothing about basic economics, i don't expect you to understand that."

but if NYC were overpriced relative to the value of what it offered, wouldn't the demand to go there keep declining until the price reflected its true value? i guess they don't offer microeconomics at your community college rufus.

kspeak, NYC's real estate prices are in a freefall right now while Chicago is relatively stable. this shows that Chicago prices were realistic while NYC's was grossly inflated, given the quality of the product you were actually getting.

admin, that is a fantastic idea. I think Jersey would be the perfect place to off load all of Manhattan's poor people. While we are at it can we send all of the disabled people there as well? Would really like to increase the number of parking spots in the city. After that, lets ship the gays, Jews, and Blacks to Staten Island and the rest of the middle class to Boston. Chinese? Off to Delaware. Brazilian? Get the hell out, off to West Virginia. Anyone else admin?

Admin, you make a perfectly logical point. There is no reason why people who are not willing to work at all should live in some of the most expensive real estate in the world. It just makes no sense. They can not work anywhere so why not not work where it is so expensive? Unfortunately, this topic makes people uncomfortable so instead of acknowledging that it is logical they make it about race and class when it's not. It's about laziness and having a sense of entitlement.

Admin, I agree in some sense with you. But it's a nuanced point. Life isn't fair. People steal ever day in big and little ways. Can we drag the heads of the banks that failed out and shoot them? As Dylan said 'steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and the make you king'...I think you're falling into that trap. Housing did not become less affordable because of this woman and her assumed scam. It became inflated because of greed of the "smartest" and most powerful people.

> nyc10022, no one wants to live there? Chicago has 3 million people, dumbass.

And the population keeps decreasing. All while folks keep moving to NYC. Check the population stats. Chicago is dying.

"the only reason nyc is expensive, is because of liberal rent stabilization and regulations. but since you know nothing about basic economics, i don't expect you to understand that. "

NYC has more free market housing than Chicago, yet Chicago is waaaay cheaper.

Rufus, you're an idiot if you think that it is ME who needs the economics lesson. But, understandable given that they don't teach economics in 3rd grade special ed.

> kspeak, NYC's real estate prices are in a freefall right now while Chicago is relatively stable.

All evidence to the contrary. Chicago prices have been declining for TWO YEARS. Even before the finance crisis. Chicago sucked without any help!

Also afmarino, the reason disabled people want to be/need to be in cities is due to the fact that their mobility limits them so they need public trans./delivery/the best hospitals/and people to assist. If you put a disabled person in Alabama, they're screwed. Go to Rome, Montreal, Dublin and you will see a lot of disabled people for this reason.

"Unfortunately, this topic makes people uncomfortable so instead of acknowledging that it is logical they make it about race and class when it's not. It's about laziness and having a sense of entitlement."

afmarino, first, I'm not uncomfortable with the topic at all. Second, if you want to talk about entitlement and laziness I'm all for it, there have been many discussions on this board regarding such topics. Where I think the argument crosses the intelligence barrier is with talk about relocating people. Hasn't history proven that this doesn't work? Should we start busing again? Fix the problem here, stop passing the buck.

"Where I think the argument crosses the intelligence barrier is with talk about relocating people. Hasn't history proven that this doesn't work? Should we start busing again? Fix the problem here, stop passing the buck."

JuiceMan, I am interested in knowing what your solution would be.
I live in a neighborhood where some people definitely take advantage of the welfare system. When I leave for work in the morning, come back home in the evening or take a day off to take care of some business, I always see the same people hanging outside all day long. My girlfriend and I work more than 40 hours a week and our monthly rent is $1,800.00. They need to tell me how they can make it.
Please enlighten me!

my point is that the same disability check goes way further in a cheaper place than in one of the most expensive cities. they might receive a check without working but they are still very strapped living in an expensive place. this issue is improving though, but one of the drawbacks of the system is that if you are in rent controlled and become unemployed your labor mobility gets curtailed as you cannot go to another city and carry the low rent with you.

alan: germany to poland? in case you are making a race statement? if so you really need therapy.

here to make it clear to alan and others: in nyc the rent is not the only expensive necessity you have to pay. from food, to clothing this is an expensive city to live in. wake up, average household income in harlem is $23k. tell me how would you live on that at without stress even if you have rent control. if you don't work and have to stay in teh city to keep your entitlements you are still pretty much fucked without the option of carrying them to a cheaper place. the feds are footing a lot of the bill for rent controlled housing anyway, so why not make it more flexible?

admin. are you missing the point. if so, go to 23rd st. there is a blind school/housing. almost every day i am asked to lead a blind person to the subway. what would that blind person do in a less ppulated area. live cheaply and never leave the 5 sq. ft they can safely navigate with their walking stick? have some compassion. meet disabled people. the need the help of others..often strangers they will never meet again. cities fulfill this need. thats why they suffer the cost...so they can actually leave the house and engage the world and live some semblance of normal life. i am sorry for you that you're so punishing and mean spirited that you wish them to be sent elsewhere because you have some delusional thought that this will lower your housing cost or justify why you go to work each day.

Blind/disabled, eah, I agree with you.

Able bodied folks on welfare... I always figured we should move them cheaper. Even if its the suburbs. If you can't afford NYC, you generally don't live there. If you can't afford anywhere, not sure why you should be entitled to live there. I get familes and such, so I'm saying within long commuting distance. Send folks to Beacon, NY.

How much do you think it costs to move someone and their entire family to Beacon, NY? Sounds sort of complicated. We would need to create a new branch of government charged with finding homes, schools, transportation, coordination of moving vans, health support, etc? We could call it the Department of Welfare Relocation and Suburb Integration Specialists Task Force. We’ll need a presidential appointee and a large management team plus a bunch of administrators to do all the actual work (35 hours a week and full benefits for life of course – only the best for government employees) What if they don't want to move and hire a lawyer because we are infringing on their civil rights? Who pays for the DWRSISTF lawyers? Where are the judges and courtroom spaces going to come from?

It is all really simple isn’t it? Just move em to Beacon. Brilliant.

Chicago got rid of the cabrini green housing projects and moved the tenants to the far south side, away from the nice areas of Chicago. As a result, gold coast, river north, and lincoln park, are all safer, cleaner, and more gentrified. It's really tragic that NYC can't accomplish what Chicago has done. But then again, bloomberg is a pathetic mayor compared to Daley.

Thanks Rufus for mentioning Cabrini-Green. I did not know about it.
It is very interesting. Here's what I found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini-Green

eah: "i am sorry for you that you're so punishing and mean spirited that you wish them to be sent elsewhere because you have some delusional thought that this will lower your housing cost"

if you care about them, at least give them the chance of entitlement mobility. anyway, i bet that your bitching makes you feel a good person. wrong! you just sound politically correct to me, to a fault, but show no real interest in these people's future. being stuck in an expensive city with few dollars per day forever, lets see how happy you are under that conditions without being able to chose anything else. it might happen to you too, poverty can knock on anybody's door. so eah, i'm sorry you are such a moron.

mornon? you're quite funny. don't be so defensive. own that you're a dick and move on. eventually something will happen to you that will open the door to the part of you with compassion.

What was a lady on welfare doing at Starbucks, for crissakes? If people are spending welfare money on $7 venti lattes, then something is REALLY f'd up around here.

I mean, shyte, I can't even afford Starbucks these days.

Squid, she was there on summer afternoons for hours for the AC (her room was too hot), bought the cheapest coffee with coins and complained about how expensive it is. this is my whole point. It sucks to live in an expensive city counting coins forever. true, maybe i'm wrong.

eah, yes, you don't seem very smart nor a good person to me, just politically correct. but hey, who cares? so lets move on.

mornon?
- moron

you're quite funny.
- thank you

don't be so defensive.
- i just tell it like it is. i notice you feel like an advocate of people you might not really know that have preferences you might not really get to know. also noticed that you like to use a false sense of morality to put people down (that's something only morons do in my mind, an easy "this is fair, this is unfair, be like this, be like that"). when both things are combined you sure feel better about yourself, but it doesn't mean that you are contributing to the bottom line of those you advocate for. nice intentions you seem to have though.

> It's really tragic that NYC can't accomplish what Chicago has done.

Yes, absolute tragedy that NYC can't "accomplish" having more crime, more poverty, more white trash, more stress, less wealth, less culture, less of, well, anything one wants in a city.

Next, we'll all hope to "accomplish" living in Rufus' crackhead mom's Indiana basement.

Then we'll all be totally "accomplished".