🚀 go-pugleaf

wrob wrote:
> 
> Kenneth Cornelius wrote:
> 
> > Eternal Nay-sayer wrote:
> >
> > > In dc.biking wrob <wrob@erols.com> wrote:
> > > > Kenneth Cornelius wrote:
> > >
> > > <munch>
> > >
> > > >> Then the ownership and everything else changed.  Most of the staff vanished.
> > > >> The boilers went to hell.  Piss stains appeared on the walls and holes appeared
> > > >> in the plaster.  The laundry rooms became a free kill zone.  My mother, of
> > > >> course, was long gone the instant this started.  I retained a mild interest in
> > > >> the place and one day I woke up to discover that my Clifton Terrace was just
> > > >> about the most notorious slum in the city.
> > >
> > > <munch>
> > >
> > > > Barry, Cora, and the rest of the DC Govt now want to evict the
> > > > subsidized Section 8 tenants and sell the building to a luxury housing
> > > > developer. That's right, no affordability provisions involved.
> > >
> > > My god... they're not letting people who piss on the walls and make holes in the
> > > plaster stay when they try to pitch the place to folks who won't buy if they
> > > see piss stains on the walls and holes in the plaster! How totally unfair!
> >
> > There are different time frames involved here.  Presumably, by the time subsidized
> > tenants appeared the worst elements were living elsewhere.
> >
> > > Oddly enough, of all the places we rented before we bought, the landlord would
> > > have evicted my ass had I (or any member of my family) started leaving piss stains
> > > on the walls or making holes in the plaster. I guess I was just dealing with a
> > > bunch of tight-assed stiffs.
> >
> > At the time this was going on the "tight-assed stiffs" had long been fired.  Nobody
> > was minding the store.
> 
> EXACTLY. Eternal Nay-Sayer missed my point, which was scattered site or no,
> the subsidized housing is only chosen for properties like Clifton Terrace that
> are ALREADY beyond the pale.

Um -- try telling that to the outgoing public-housing receiver David
Gilmore. He's done a fantastic job of rehabilitating subsidized housing.
Also, try contacting "DC Habitat for Humanity" and ask them about their
implimentation of "scattered site" housing. The whole point of
"scattered site" is that, where possible, it specifically aims for sites
that are _not_ beyond the pale.

> 
> What the hell, do you think the landlord had a bunch of luxury apartments and the
> city FORCED them to become Section 8, dooming them overnight to decrepitude?
> 
> There were several decent articles recently about Clifton Terrace --
> pointing out that there are typically three stages to slum housing --
> 
> * The point where it becomes slum housing because the landlord can make
> more money off a lower grade of tenants than on keeping it well kept for
> a dwindling "preferred" clientelle;
> 
> * The point where it became subsidized housing because the landlord could
> make more money off the city than he could offering it as slum housing for
> a similar or lower class of tenants, and STILL not pay a thin dime on maintenance;
> 
> * The point where the area is suddenly desirable again among "preferred"
> upper middle class folks,

You're totally omitting the point where the black middle class
completely abandons the place, and the only people willing to live in
the area are the few, the insane, the single white wackos who really
don't care if they have to kick dead junkies off of their porches on the
way to work, as long as the rent's cheap.

> 
> AND SUDDENLY we hear all this talk about "betterment" of the poor people
> living in Clifton Terrace!!!!!

Suddenly my butt. I know you weren't here, but you should have seen some
of my posts here in about 1995. Or on BBSes in about 1990-1992.

> 
> Where is the CONTINUING outrage? Methinks Eternal Nay-Sayer was too busy
> trying to follow everyone else abandoning the city in the 70's or 80's to care.
> Nuff said.

The city wasn't officially abandoned until 1992, when even _I_ gave up
and moved 1000 miles away. Right about that time, people decided that if
even that wacky bat "klaatu" couldn't deal with it, it was time to see
what he knew that they didn't; they looked and saw and ran for their
children's lives. Five years later, one sixth of DC's population, mostly
parents with elementary-school children, had bailed out in utter dismay. 

> 
> -BER