The "poor" make their choice

Some exceptions, but most actively choose

Published on March 9, 2004 By Dynosoar In Politics

This is my observation after 15 years making a comfortable living off of the poor.

I have to confess, I am a "Affordable Housing Provider", with monies I made selling, financing, and repossessing cars, I bought Real Estate. Not fantastic mansions, but 800 to 1200 sq ft houses, a couple of duplexes, and 1 small apartment building ( 6 units). I do not participate in Title 8, or any other government subsidy program. Those programs provide me with plenty of people who do not qualify for anyone else, 'cept me. It's quite simple, and with the exception of houses that need major repairs ( due to tennent damage ) I keep my rentals full. This is a "high risk, high return" game.

My average tennent is unmarried, 2 children, and receives on average a net of $2000.00 per month in income !!! This income is derived from AFDC, SSI, Child Support. They are typically enrolled at Community Col, have free daycare, and have the nicest nails and hair you'd ever want to see. This doesn't include the windfall in the spring when "Tax Season" begins, our government has created the Earned Income Credit, (which I really believe is veiled reparations), if my renter has held any job and earned at least $2000.00 in the past year, the average refund of my renters has been $3500 !!!!!!!

This cash is what runs the economy of my area. Our chamber of commerce has stated that the 1st qtr of the year( tax time ), has
surpassed the Christmas season in spending....

So, my renters, to collect my rent is like pulling teeth, I have to personally vist every one every month. Then I get to see how much the boyfriends have torn up, I get to see the big screen TV's, stereos, Sat dishes, new furniture, and the bills stacked up in the kitchen. Oh, forgot to mention the cars with new tags in the yard.

The cars, heh, I used to tell my car customers at closing to always remember " you can sleep in the car, but you can't drive that house ", I'm eating those words now. Seems everything comes before the rent, Hair, Nails, CD's, rims, clothes, goodness, the clothes. I had a renter to skip out, we locked down the house so she couldn't return, and she never did ( tried to sue me, but never returned) The House was left in such a mess, it was a 3 bedroom but we threw out over 10 mattresses, a DUMPSTER full of clothes( no, none of this was fit to donate ) They had kindly burned holes with an iron into the carpet of every room....She was 3 months behind and had been in the house for only 4 months....oh well.

I rent a house to a family who had worked hard to buy a house, and then just gave it up. The maintanance was killing them, when the toilet clogged up there was no one to pay for the repair......No one to cut the grass, or paint the shutters.......I bought that house out of foreclosure for about half of the balance they owed, spent $2000 on repairs, and rented it back to them. They're happy now? I find that it is culturally ingrained in the "poor" of this area to work the system, it offers a comfortable life, without having to try hard at all.

They receive a fantastic education from their churches who teach accessing those benefits ( along with the need to tithe...), the social services assist them with everything but an enviroment for a Nuclear Family.
Women run this entire operation, "poor" men in this area are devalued to the extreme, if they are caught in the Housing Authority the woman can lose all of her benefits, they are constantly brought to court for child support, and subsequently locked up for non-payment ( but the mother of the baby has to keep having children to maintain her lifestyle ) We have over 9% unemployment in this area, there is no job out there, yet the men have to stay on the fringe of this culture for the survival of the mothers and children........Hey, I didn't create the system, I just live off of it.

Comments (Page 4)

Dynosoar

on Mar 12, 2004

Jeb,
I granted their job noble.
I know they do good work, save lives, et al...
My problem is with their management and the perpetuation of the Department...

I have always been led to believe that for every horror case that you describe, there is 10 cases that are unfounded, and border
on harrassment by the agency. ( my unfounded belief, based on unrecalled info )

Coming full circle in this post, could it be that the system created the original situation, rewarding childbirth, but ignoring the formation of a functioning family?
Some would conclude that the truly innocent children are nothing more to the parent than a qualifier for more income.

I accept your jeer for my rather sweeping stereotype of Social Workers ( there was a wink at the end of the comment ), but it is
my opinion of MOST of them. ( everybody can have opinions, just like.......)

Gideon MacLeish

on Mar 22, 2005

Lots of satellite dishes,

I hate to say it, but this is why you shouldn't jump to conclusions.

My house has a satellite dish attached to it, but guess what? It isn't hooked up, and hasn't been hooked up since we've been here, let alone the many years the house sat vacant. Even if we DID have satellite dish, in our area you need an outside antenna at least 30 feet high (at our house, and we're at the TOP of the hill) to receive 3 to 4 part time channels. An outdoor antenna, for those who don't know, costs about $100 out of pocket, plus the costs of cable, etc...add to that the fact that not everyone has the skills to install one, and you could easily end up spending over $300 just to have TV reception (although TV isn't a necessity, it does help as far as news, etc., are concerned). In our case, the antenna was given to us, and I installed us, which still isn't finished as the antenna still has a tendency to turn, but I digress. The point is, given the choise of $300 out of pocket to put up an antenna in rural areas and $50 per month for satellite with clearer reception, most people choose the latter. We were considering it ourselves, even though we can ill afford it, as we found ourselves HORRIBLY behind on current events.

Moral to this story: a satellite dish is not necessarily a sign of indulgence.

Dynosoar

on Mar 22, 2005

WOW! A full year later and I,m still gettin' comments.

Draginol

on Mar 27, 2005

It's a very good article.

I grew up pretty poor. My dad left my mom when I was 4 and we were on our own. And so we lived where my mom could afford on her minimum wage job. And we lived amongst the poor, being poor ourselves, for some years.

And what I saw left a strong impression on me. Most, though not all, Americans who are poor are poor because they're stupid, lazy, or both.

And while some like the champion the cause of the poor, most of the time when you start digging into the specifics of a typical poor luck story you find a series of idiotic decisions and poor judgment.

One of the nice things we're seeing with these new reality shows that have people going into to "Rescue" some of these losers is that champions of the poor (who are typically pampered middle class people) get to see first hand what many of us who have some real world experience dealing with the poor have. They see the loser who can't be bothered to take out his own trash and so lets it fill up his apartment or trailer. We see the stupid mother who has 4 out of wedlock children that she feeds whatever junkfood is more convenient for her to get. We see the lamer who loses his job because his car tire goes flat and is too lazy to change it or ask someone to help him change it and so just misses work.

That's the real world. That's the real world of what most poor people in the United States are like. And before some frothing at the mouth left winger comes on and starts condemning me, I will say that there are truly good, hard working, honest, intelligent people who get screwed over and end up poor. They certainly exist. But they are so few, as a percentage, that it seems like we could custom tailer programs for those people and quit letting the stupid and lazy leech off the rest of society.

ParaTed2k

on Mar 27, 2005

From my experience there are two kinds of poor. Those who have a low income and those who have a low income lifestyle.

Most "rich" people I know have been down in the dumps a time or two. For that matter, right now I'm not so financially set myself. However, what me and those "rich" folks I know have in common is, this will only last long enough for us to do what we need to to get out of it.

Hurricane Andrew held one of my favorite examples of the low income as a lifestyle.

I ask you (and anyone else reading); a couple of weeks after Hurricane Andrew went through your neighborhood, your household garbage was filling your yards. A recovery team shows up in your neighborhood, handing out all the plywood, plastic sheeting, candy corns and other necessities of life and recovery. After an evaluation of your future needs, a person from the recovery team announces that port-a-pots and dumpsters would be delivered in a few hours...

What would your reaction be:

A) "Thanks for the much needed supplies,port-a-pots and dumpsters."

"Just drop the stuff off and let us get on with our lives and you can get on with yours".
C) "I don't know who you expect to pick up all this garbage!"

Would it surprise anyone if I told you which response came from the neighborhoods most closely fitting what your article describes??

Glad this article was regenerated!!!!

joeKnowledge

on Apr 21, 2005

To me this is amazing.

If I was getting that much money from Public assistance I would have to be stupid to want to be off of it.

Apparently having 2 kids means living well off of others.

Personally I thought this type of system was ending in 1992 with the Welfare Reform Act

joeKnowledge

on Apr 21, 2005

Oh and one more thing

Poor people tend to buy the nice something just to have it. Some also get carried away with it and buy the Lexus-Hummer-Benz while living in a shack.

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