Where is HUD? Interesting about this video is all the housing stock that is waiting to be renovated and that it does not mention the federal government agency called the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development that to promote the general welfare of the nation dolls out tax dollars to cities and private developers who will renovate dilapidated housing stock and put it up for rent or sale again. Of course, the developers need to know the city has an economy that will support the sale or rental of those units once renovated or some other guarantee that they will not be socked with a monumental economic loss if the units do not sell or rent within a reasonable time frame. So the city has to couple an urban development renovation scheme with an economic renovation or expansion scheme in order for HUDs urban renewal schemes to work. Economic expansion implies some type of boost to the manufacturing base as you cannot build shopping malls to employ people to sell items to other people who do not have jobs. People need jobs to support their spending at the shopping mall or there is not point to building the shopping mall. In my town (I do not know what HUD has done elsewhere), HUD gave a loan to private developer billionaires (the Cowles family, of course) who did not need a low-cost government guaranteed loan to renovate their shopping mall that was not dilapidated and that was not renovated but was completely torn down and completely rebuilt into a completely new structure. The HUD loan was actually more for the accompanying parking garage that was allegedly renovated, though an accident a few years after the renovation that left one woman dead showed some repairs of faults know about for a few decades (not repaired when the developers originally owned the garage, not repaired when the city owned the garage, and not repaired when the private developers re-owned the garage) did not take place. The loan was guaranteed by the City with its Community Development Block Grant funds (these also come from the federal govenment and are also meant for repairs, renovation, and infrastruction in LOW-INCOME communities; Spokane has the states three poorest neighborhoods within the City, yes, even poorer per capita income than neighborhoods in Tacoma) and its parking meter revenue. When the renovated garage opened, the owners charged exorbitant prices so no one would park there, which saved them a lot of money in employee and other overhead cost, and allowed them to collect the CDBG and parking meter funds on the guarantee made by the jackals running the City at the time the deal was made. A bunch of litigation ensued, suits and counter suits, the City lost many millions of dollars, kids have to pay to use the City swimming pools during the summer now, we are lucky we have our libraries still open, and the current mayor campaigned on cutting the pay and benefits for police and fire fighters (I am not making this up!). Of course they eventually lowered the parking fees at the garage, or else the stores inside the mall would not have had enough shoppers to maintain their businesses because in Spokane only poor people, with very few rare exceptions, take mass transit to downtown where the mall and garage in question are located. Thank you Ms. McKinney for the shares today. May peace be upon you. Praise Allah.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:36:30 +0000
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