Asymmetrical Information

First you have to find landlords willing to accept section 8 vouchers. The law does not require landlords to accept them.

Speaking from personal experience, I owned a house in the "M" Streets in Dallas that I leased to a family using section a 8 voucher. It is an experience that I will never repeat.

Idealism must ever be subordinate to reality and experience.

People who own nice rental properties are not inclined to want to rent to a certain section of the population.

I'm not trying to by snooty or racist. But it is well known that a certain element of people tend to trash your property.

My husband and I have a camper/RV we could possibly provide for free - but we don't want our property trashed. And from past experience, sometimes, being a good sumaritan harms you or your property.

I'm not trying to be snooty or racist. But my personal anecdote proves that you can make generalizations about entire groups of people. I knew this Romanian girl who was so snooty and snuck up, plus she borrowed $40 I'll probably never see again. I'm not going to befriend any Romanians again, that's for damn sure.

I'm close to some people who work in affordable housing, and the first paragraph of y knott's comment is, far as I'm aware, completely on point, though.

I was actually referring to the "poor." Most of "the poor" don't have any respect for your belongings, because they don't have respect for their own belongings.

(Of course, a lot of middle class people do this too, but not on a wide scale like the lower classes do)

Ghettos are occupied by "the poor" - and you don't see any gleaming beautifully tree line streets, do you? Most less-poor people don't want to live in "poor" neighborhooods because those neighborhoods are trash, not because they are racist or snooty.

I realize it might be easy to assume that I am some upper middle class white racist... but I am actually a minority, I grew up in the ghetto (aged 0-15), and have volunteered much of my time working with underprivileged children.

It is not just one or two or three incidents, but many. I see it all around me. I saw it growing up, I see it working with the "poor" today.

Hey, the only places I mentioned race were to quote you, w/out attribution, and in my hypothetical example of a Romanian. I could've just as well said "Green Peacer" or "libertarian" or "rich guy." I just picked a random group that amused me. So I wasn't accusing you of being racist, I was accusing you of making generalizations, and in doing so I sort of combined your comment with y knott's personal anecdote.

I don't have the biographical experience that you do, but I've interacted with underpriveliged people as well (mostly tutoring kids) and been in/around public housing developments. Some people treat their stuff as though it were garbage and treat their home like the dump; others don't, and keep it as best they can. I can come up, as you acknowledged, with examples of same from the middle class. Or the upper class. I'm aware of the reality that lots of people don't want to invite the poor into their home, and I'm aware of why, and I'm aware that there are some truths behind that "why". I'm sorry I snarked on your post when I really was more moved to snark by y knott; your post just provided the better line, because true or not, it's always funny to me when someone prefaces their point with "now, some of my best friends are republican..."

All I'm trying to say is that I don't think personal anecdote is sufficient grounds to say "therefore, I won't rent to people w/section 8 vouchers, so it totally makes sense that others won't either."

I have a friend who rents several units to Section 8 tenants and he swears by it. There is currently a very long waiting list (which is closed by the way) for Section 8 vouchers because there aren't enough landlords that will accept them. If a tenanat mistreats the property and gets evicted, then they go back to the end of the waiting list. So there is an incentive in place for Section 8 tenants to treat the property with some respect. Now, if the government said that they would guarantee Section 8 housing for displaced people, then that incentive might be erased.

Quaterican said

All I'm trying to say is that I don't think personal anecdote is sufficient grounds to say "therefore, I won't rent to people w/section 8 vouchers, so it totally makes sense that others won't either."

Neither ns nor I made any such statement or inferred as such.

You're being an ass and intentionally mischaracterizing those responses.

y knott:

"Speaking from personal experience, I owned a house in the "M" Streets in Dallas that I leased to a family using section a 8 voucher. It is an experience that I will never repeat.

Idealism must ever be subordinate to reality and experience."

I took this to mean "I rented to section 8 people once. It wasn't a pleasant experience. I won't rent to section 8 people again, due to the unpleasantness of the experience." If I'm being an ass because this interpretation of your statement is incorrect, please tell me what you meant. It was pretty clear to me that you were taking your personal anecdote and extrapolating that it justified not renting to people w/vouchers.

Now, if you think I'm being an ass because you disagree with my opinion on the situation, that's different. But how have I misrepresented what you said?

Quarterican,

You are delibertly being obtuse and yes you are being an ass by attempting to define what I said as meaning what you want it to mean.

My statement stands as it was written, I did not say that you or yours should not not lease your property to whomever you want based upon my experience. I said that "It is an experience that I will never repeat".

Fine. In my original post I indicated that I didn't think much of the fact that one experience w/vouchers led to your decision never to do that again. Your words, exactly as written. From that, I attempted to extrapolate that you actually had an opinion on renting to people with Section 8 vouchers, or that you might use your personal experience as advice to someone considering whether to do so. After all, you offered it up for discussion as the first post in a comment thread commending the idea that the NOLA refugees might get Section 8 vouchers. But fine, you only intended it to speak for your personal isolated experience. I think you're being disingenuous, but then you think I'm being deliberately obtuse. I assure you, any obtuseness is entirely unwilled. But at the most conservative possible interpretation of your words - taking them at precisely the value they literally carry and no more - I still disagree w/your attitude, which was the reason I posted in the first place. My interest wasn't to put words in your mouth, it was to voice my disagreement, which still stands. As I said, if you're interested in having *that* conversation, fine, and if you think I'm an ass for those thoughts, that's your business. I think it was totally reasonable to read your post and make the assumption that I did - that from one experience you judged a group of people - because in your anecdote, from one experience you judged a group of people by deciding to not have dealings with them.

If you want to accuse me again of deliberately misreading your words/intent, please do so, but I'm not wasting the energy on responding. If you want to discuss the actual issue involved, please do.

I know little of poor minorities, but I've seen plenty of northern rural poor whites, and there is a reason that "poor white" and "trash" are often associated. As ns said, many of the poor have no respect for their own property and less for yours.

I have seen a rental property trashed far beyond what 2 months deposit would pay to repair - and besides that, they were 4 months behind in the rent by the time I could evict them. I'm not rich enough to absorb that big a loss without some hardship, nor can a corporate landlord with thousands of apartments take similar losses very often and stay in business.

Not all poor people will trash a place. Some rich people will trash a place. But aside from rock bands, the chances of the place being trashed are a whole lot higher with poor people - and rich people have bank accounts and other assets that can be attached in a lawsuit. So if I was still renting out a place, I wouldn't rent to someone who was paying with a welfare voucher unless I knew they kept their previous residence up fairly well.

However, I think that the odds would be better with evacuee Section 8 vouchers. Many of the people receiving these would be temporarily impoverished middle class, rather than poor (any color) trash. If the vouchers cover a substantial damage deposit, I'd accept one. (Except that I'm out of that business - and besides, no one is hiring around here now, or likely to hire anyone new before tourist season starts next May.)

I don't find Quarterican's statements obstuse in the slightest. What I find difficult is the interpretation of the sentence "[i]dealism must ever be subordinate to reality and experience." Even aside from its somewhat lyrical word order, its meaning is unclear, given the discussion that's taken place here. I find two possibilities: (1) Quarterican is correct, it is meant to say that "[Other people's] idealism must ever be subordinate to reality and experience [such as that which I had]", and what follows in the discussion is just a rear-guard action; or (2) it is a general admonition, intended as parting words, something like, "with great power comes great responsibility".

In order to interpret (2) in a way that makes the sentence germane to the discussion, it could have been intended to mean "Idealism [such as that which I once had about Section 8 vouchers, but do not now] must ever be subordinate to reality [such as I have found it to be] and experience [such as I have had]; therefore, [renting to tenants with Section 8 vouchers] is an experience that I will never repeat, [but you are free to make your own mistakes.]" If you take that line, and given the first two sentences, its implication is that "many landlords have had my experience, and have subordinated their idealism or will subordinate your idealism to reality and their experience," in which case, we're more or less back where we started.

These considerations aside, it seems that the program is a good one, as is Olsen's proposal. I would contend, further, that many landlords who would not be otherwise willing to rent to people using Section 8 vouchers would be in this case, because of an infectous sympathy for victims of an event that garners this sort of attention.

Don't you reqad the New York Times. On the Friday op/ed page they have an article by Nicholas Eberstadt of the AEI you should see.

All week we have been watching the poor people in New Orlean, many of whom died because they could not afford a car.

But Eberstadt assures us that the people we are seeing on TV do not really exist. They are just a bad statistic.

Sure makes me feel a lot better.

Should I cancel my donation to the Katrian relief funds?

Quarterican said,

"From one experience you judged a group of people by deciding to not have dealings with them."

Christ-on-a-pogo stick, Quarterican, you are delusional. I believe you wholeheartedly when you state that your obtuseness is unwilled.

You have no direct experience with the section 8 voucher program but it is your belief that my objection to continued participation in it must because of my categorizing all recipients of said vouchers as unworthy of leasing to.

I decided to not have dealings with the section 8 voucher program because of the management of said program, the dependency on government that the program engenders and because of the distortions in the market that such a program has.

Quarterican,

Bor the record, I don't think you were being an ass. But I actually really thought you were being snarky to me.

Either way, I think yknott is perfectly valid to not want to rent to Section 8 voucher holders, whether it's one experience or many experiences.

There have been times that I have been a good sumaritan, and it has hurt me financially and emotionally so bad, that I vowed to never repeat it again. Does this mean I am overgeneralizing? It may be, but it's a sad fact.

I've opened my home to many people, tried to help many not-so-fortunate people. One really bad experience caused me to never do it again. That's just a fact of life. If that fact makes me an overgeneralizing snooty bastard, well, then I'm a overgeneralizing snooty bastard.

ns:

I did snark at you, and on subsequent consideration - partly due to your reply - I wished I hadn't. My reply (to your reply...) was in part meant to be an apology, which was probably really hamfisted and unclear. So, more clearly, I apologize. I also understand where you're coming from, and while I'm still inclined to (respectfully) disagree w/parts of your standpoint, I certainly don't think your position is defenseless or immoral. Heaven knows if I behaved in accordance with every principle I believe in I'd...be a much better person, for starters.

Despite the unwillingness of some landlords to serve families with Section 8 vouchers, essentially all of the vouchers that have been authorized are used. In years when Congress has authorized additional vouchers, additional landlords have participated. So the unwillingness of some landlords to participate in the voucher program will not prevent displaced families with vouchers from using them.

I have worked in both property management, renting to people who could afford market rate units,and as a section 8 program manager. (Each jobs was in a large east coast city.) In my experience, the same percentage of my market rate renters and section 8 clients were bad tenants, and the same percentage were good tenants. The worst demographic of renters that I encountered were wealthy undergraduate college students.
If a landlord is considering someone with a section 8 voucher as a tenant, it is their right to subject them to the same background checks that they would subject to any other potential tenant. Even in a state like Massachusetts, where voucher holders belong to a class protected by fair housing laws, landlords can refuse to rent to a family with poor credit, bad landlord references or for any other legitimate reason. For the landlords that know this, renting to voucher holders is not a very risky situation.
As a section 8 manager, I worked with lots of families who respected property, paid their portion of the rent punctually and were an asset to their communities.

sd: But how do you do background checks when they are coming from a city that has lost all it's records and dispersed the people across several states?

"The worst demographic of renters that I encountered were wealthy undergraduate college students." With only community colleges around here, I didn't experience this as a landlord - but I can well believe it. Have a kid educated by socialists (public school or any private school that doesn't work hard to find teachers that resisted the education schools' indoctrination), give them more than they need, and never let them experience having to work to survive - what you get is brats with no respect for anyone's property. There were plenty of these at the colleges I attended - although they became pretty rare in the school of engineering after they realized that the teachers were serious about those ten-page homework assignments, every night from every class...

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