United Nations Investigator Launches Probe Into US Housing Crisis
vict0r
The New York Times: The United Nations has assigned an official, "a special
rapporteur on the right to adequate housing," to check the city's affordable
housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next
three days with housing advocates and city officials to "hear the voices of
those who are suffering on the ground," she said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjl0TtvYz3k&feature=player_embedded
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Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy
The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build
low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many
projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair.
CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense
neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state
senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people
who can't afford to live anywhere else.
But it's not safe to live here.
About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed
problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the
halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In
2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a
100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.
Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures
of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage
affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best
replacement for public housing.
liberal
> The reason for the 'crisis' is that Joe Plumbers dumber
> cousin took out a loan for a mini-mansion he could NEVER
> afford on his ditch-diggers salary.
No, stupid, the reason is a banker or mortgage broker approved that
loan. Ya see, silly reichtard, loan officers use to be expected to
perform "due diligence" in examining mortgage applications.