New York’s Ongoing Affordable Housing War

[WhiskeyGirl]

Now that junk mortgages, and the mortgage crisis are being funded, what about rental property?

But Obama's vote in 1997 is instructive for those following his current presidential bid -- as they fear his perceived move to the center. Anyone who follows Obama's record in the State Senate understands his background -- where his vote against SB 531 was just one example. As a columnist for the right-wing National Review recently lamented, Obama worked closely in the State Senate with the Illinois chapter of ACORN to pass living wage legislation and curb banking practices. "You begin to wonder whether," he writes, "in his Springfield days, Obama might have best been characterized as 'the Senator from ACORN.'"

In 1995, the Chicago Reader wrote an instructive profile of Obama as he made his first bid for office, which offers more clues. "What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer," said Obama, "who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected official, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than as a community organizer or lawyer. We would form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-hogarth/obama-rejected-illinois-r_b_114303.html

How would Obama hold elected officials accountable for failing to correct the mortgage problems with Freddie / Fannie?  Where to start?

Rent control?  A return to more traditional financial qualifications?  Counsel people on buying a house they can afford?

[WhiskeyGirl]

New York’s Ongoing Affordable Housing War

By Katy Mantyk
Epoch Times Staff
Oct 22, 2008

NEW YORK—Affordable housing advocates were out on the streets Tuesday to garner attention for what they deem as a battle for their housing rights. Banging drums and shaking maracas, the picket line outside the Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) chanted “Fight, fight, fight! Housing is our right!”

In the ongoing struggle between renters and landlords in New York, there seems to be a fundamental problem in the system. But where does the problem lie? Is it the agencies responsible for enforcing the rent regulation laws, the landlords, the demands of the tenants, or is it the laws themselves?

In an analysis of the rent stabilization law, William Tucker of the CATO Institute, author of ‘The Excluded Americans: Homelessness and Housing Policies,’ and ‘Zoning, Rent Control, and Affordable Housing’ concludes that cities that do not use rent control policies “Are rewarded with a normal competitive housing market in which housing is available at every price level. Those cities that succumb to the disease of rent control are doomed to never-ending, house-to-house warfare over an ever-diminishing supply of unaffordable housing. Public policy creates its own rewards.”

http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/united-states/new-yorks-ongoing-affordable-housing-war-5982.html

Would rental contracts be another thing renegotiated by the courts?  Why not move to a unit one can afford?

About Tony?  How does he fit in with rent control?

Does rent control work for everyone?

[WhiskeyGirl]

In the early 1980s, for example, former mayor Ed Koch paid $441.49 for an apartment then worth about $1,200.00 per month. Some people in this fortunate position use their apartments like hotel rooms, visiting only a few times per year.

Then there is the “old lady effect.” Consider the case of a two-parent, four-child family that has occupied a ten-room rental dwelling. One by one the children grow up, marry, and move elsewhere. The husband dies. Now the lady is left with a gigantic apartment. She uses only two or three of the rooms and, to save on heating and cleaning, closes off the remainder. Without rent control she would move to a smaller accommodation. But rent control makes that option unattractive. Needless to say, these practices further exacerbate the housing crisis. Repeal of rent control would free up thousands of such rooms very quickly, dampening the impetus toward vastly higher rents.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html