A friend of mine who was a commercial real estate agent
found out about this Section 8 housing project
they wanted to build in his neighborhood the first
day it was announced. The next day he put
his house up for sale. This was 12 years ago.
It has taken that long to get this project done. My friend worked all over Dallas and saw Section 8
housing up close and personal.
Take a look at this perspective from a Dallas writer,
and then some of the comments below.
Elect Obama and expect more of the same,
only on a grand scale that even I cannot comprehend.
Tod Robberson: Housing the poor alongside the rich
Some quotes from the comments section:
“The FIRST day that residents moved in large grafitti appeared.
THE FIRST DAY! I am sick with the prospect of how the place
will look in a few months. Two wrongs (or three or four) will
never make a right. You can take the hoodlum out of the hood,
but not the hood out of the hoodlum. It just doesn’t work that way. DUH!”
“I don’t think that distance from North Dallas is the only reason for for building “free” housing for less affluent citizens in south Dallas. Your own statistics indicate that land is cheaper and more plentiful there, so obviously more can be housed at a lower cost to the taxpayer. Where are potential employers offering unskilled jobs that pay anything? They are not in South Plano and North Dallas. Just houses, chain restaurants and light retail there. Just a final question or two: in general what ever happened to being
thankful for help of any kind, and when did having less stop providing
an incentive to learn more and do more to remedy the situation.”
“I lived for five years in what used to be one of the most exclusive
apartment complexes in South Carolina. They began taking Section 8
tenants about a year ago. The differences are like night and day.
Graffiti, vandalism, window rattling music, burglaries, rapes,
home invasions, trash everywhere. I don’t understand why someone
getting a real deal on their housing expenses would want to trash
their own living space. No respect at all. The entire neighborhood
around the apartments is turning into a slum. What a shame.
There’s a reason for the divide between the haves and have nots
and that’s because most people don’t want to live like pigs.”
“Mr. Robberson must not care too much to mention that there
are poor white and Hispanic people too. We have a big ol’
section 8 housing in Plano. I see these folks all the time.The section eighters are easy to spot. They wear the dew rags
and butt pants. They just now started spraying my westside
Plano neighborhood with graffitti.I guess now I will see my property values go down like I’ve seen
the quality of education in Plano go down. You see, we now have
more learning disadvantaged and discipline problem kids in
Plano schools. There goes the numbers for those who didn’t graduate H.S..”
“Tod – the apartment complex that backs up to the alley behind
my house has recently begun allowing Section 8 vouchers.
The quiet, well maintained, Richardson neighborhood where I
have lived for over a decade is changing fast. The apartments
had a nice new fence erected this spring. It is now decorated
with graffitti. The one-bedroom apartments house mothers
and broods of their children – who play outside and throw
things at and hit each other and the poor animals and scream
at each other and shriek until 11:00 at night or later – when
their mothers stagger out and scream their threats to beat
them all if they don’t come in now. The young men in their
dew rags scowl at me and skulk up and down the alley behind
my house, leaving me afraid for my animals and my property.
The cars that are in the apartment parking lot are dented, dirty
and have license plates hanging on by one bolt or broken glass –
that does not count those that have flat tires. As I drove down
the street past the apartments toward my house this morning,
a young woman ran out into the street right in front of me
without looking – but I soon realized that she was running from
a big man that was chasing her and yelling profanity.
He stopped when he saw me looking at him. No doubt when I
next see the young woman, she will have a black eye or broken arm.
I hope they move next to you next.”
