DC is violating federal law by overpaying landlords tens of millions of dollars

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Voucher program is a mess with no recourse for the landlord. I am a small landlord and don't rent to section 8. So much is expected from the landlord where there are little consequences of the tenants getto behavior.

Someone by our house rented toma homeless mom and it was 2 yrs of hell from our block, constant loud music, weed, kds being yelled or beated, shooting, ambulance, and over 15 people living in a house.

Voucher on its own is not enough their needs to be done consequences for these families and support to learn to live in a civil manner.

You realize that if you are in DC, refusing to rent to Section 8 tenants is illegal? It is because "source of income" is a protected class under the DC Human Rights Act identical in importance to race, gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Nor are there any "small size" carveouts for small landlords like there is for the rent control program. That's why we promptly sold the single family rental property we had in the DC as soon as Section 8 tenants started applying. I didn't want to deal with the hassle that participating in a government rental program brings, on top of DC's already extremely favorable tenant laws, which prevent a landlord from evicting a tenant no matter how they behave or damage the property so long as the government continues to pay their rent.

So I took property out of the rental housing stock and sold it to "gentrifiers" thus reducing the availability of affordable rental housing. Had there been a small size carveout for landlords who own fewer than 4 units, then we might have continued to rent the place out.

Prove it

It's proven when some tenant maybe with some scammy legal aid lawyer or advocacy group files a complaint against you and then you have to pay damages to them in addition to being forced to rent to them. I have seen it happen.

Yes, they target even small landlords who don’t have to take vouchers. Even if the law doesn’t cover one-unit landlords the advocacy clinics try to entrap them by pretending to be prospective tenants asking if they’ll consider vouchers. If the response is ‘no’ the small landlord gets shaken down with a discrimination claim, DC style.

[Anonymous]

I think the LL's are using the voucher tenants to clear out the rent control tenants and then try to update the building w/out the rent control units.

Why should rent control tenants or peaceful voucher tenants have to live with violent neighbors setting fires etc.. more than any one else should. The #crimeforall mentality has to stop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the LL's are using the voucher tenants to clear out the rent control tenants and then try to update the building w/out the rent control units.

Why should rent control tenants or peaceful voucher tenants have to live with violent neighbors setting fires etc.. more than any one else should. The #crimeforall mentality has to stop

So will the end result be more “affordable” housing?

Or “attainable” housing?

Or “aspirational” housing?

Or whatever buzzwords the YIMBY spinmeisers use to sell the greedy agenda of their Big Development clients.

Caveat emptor.

[Anonymous]

DC voucher rent has to be updated or more than the current market rent otherwise no-one would rent to these deadbeat tenants. Same for Baltimore and PG county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Voucher program is a mess with no recourse for the landlord. I am a small landlord and don't rent to section 8. So much is expected from the landlord where there are little consequences of the tenants getto behavior.

Someone by our house rented toma homeless mom and it was 2 yrs of hell from our block, constant loud music, weed, kds being yelled or beated, shooting, ambulance, and over 15 people living in a house.

Voucher on its own is not enough their needs to be done consequences for these families and support to learn to live in a civil manner.

You realize that if you are in DC, refusing to rent to Section 8 tenants is illegal? It is because "source of income" is a protected class under the DC Human Rights Act identical in importance to race, gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Nor are there any "small size" carveouts for small landlords like there is for the rent control program. That's why we promptly sold the single family rental property we had in the DC as soon as Section 8 tenants started applying. I didn't want to deal with the hassle that participating in a government rental program brings, on top of DC's already extremely favorable tenant laws, which prevent a landlord from evicting a tenant no matter how they behave or damage the property so long as the government continues to pay their rent.

So I took property out of the rental housing stock and sold it to "gentrifiers" thus reducing the availability of affordable rental housing. Had there been a small size carveout for landlords who own fewer than 4 units, then we might have continued to rent the place out.

Prove it

It's proven when some tenant maybe with some scammy legal aid lawyer or advocacy group files a complaint against you and then you have to pay damages to them in addition to being forced to rent to them. I have seen it happen.

Are landlords allowed to run credit checks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Voucher program is a mess with no recourse for the landlord. I am a small landlord and don't rent to section 8. So much is expected from the landlord where there are little consequences of the tenants getto behavior.

Someone by our house rented toma homeless mom and it was 2 yrs of hell from our block, constant loud music, weed, kds being yelled or beated, shooting, ambulance, and over 15 people living in a house.

Voucher on its own is not enough their needs to be done consequences for these families and support to learn to live in a civil manner.

You realize that if you are in DC, refusing to rent to Section 8 tenants is illegal? It is because "source of income" is a protected class under the DC Human Rights Act identical in importance to race, gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Nor are there any "small size" carveouts for small landlords like there is for the rent control program. That's why we promptly sold the single family rental property we had in the DC as soon as Section 8 tenants started applying. I didn't want to deal with the hassle that participating in a government rental program brings, on top of DC's already extremely favorable tenant laws, which prevent a landlord from evicting a tenant no matter how they behave or damage the property so long as the government continues to pay their rent.

So I took property out of the rental housing stock and sold it to "gentrifiers" thus reducing the availability of affordable rental housing. Had there been a small size carveout for landlords who own fewer than 4 units, then we might have continued to rent the place out.

Prove it

It's proven when some tenant maybe with some scammy legal aid lawyer or advocacy group files a complaint against you and then you have to pay damages to them in addition to being forced to rent to them. I have seen it happen.

Are landlords allowed to run credit checks?

I'm not in DC, but in NY, which has the source of income law, the landlord can run credit checks, but if the tenant's income is so low that the voucher is essentially covering their entire rent, the landlord can't reject them for bad credit because the government is paying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else listen to the meeting last night? I was in tears listening to Amy tell her story of how she was forced out of Connecticut House after living there for 32 years because she feared for her safety after a voucher tenant in her building threatened her life. And that same tenant threatened a security guard with a hammer and NOTHING WAS DONE ABOUT IT. How is that OK??

It was crazy, I don’t know how anyone could listen to that meeting without being outraged. People are being run out of their homes by violent criminals, and the city is backing up the criminals. I suggest everyone listen to it. And Frumin was just sitting there saying nothing, just he really is working hard on finding solutions and maybe we can get more nonprofits involved.

The meeting was called because there were two separate instances where children were murdered in these Van Ness buildings over the past few weeks. During the meeting, one resident said he heard there was a stabbing in his building the night before, and wanted to know why the police didn’t tell anyone. The police Lt. said the public didn’t need to be told because it was a domestic situation. The residents said if there is someone in their building who violently stabs people they want to be informed (the police Lt. disagreed).

You got the same issue in the other discussion where people were worried about the city’s policies that were bringing child murderers into their buildings, and they kept being told to shut up (by someone cynically using the kids dead bodies to try to shut them up, just shameful).

Residents talked about how they had been talking with the mayor and council for years about these issues, and just kept getting ignored. Many have been forced out of the homes they’ve live in for decades because of the violence. Silence from their elected officials, and disturbingly many people who want to silence them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else listen to the meeting last night? I was in tears listening to Amy tell her story of how she was forced out of Connecticut House after living there for 32 years because she feared for her safety after a voucher tenant in her building threatened her life. And that same tenant threatened a security guard with a hammer and NOTHING WAS DONE ABOUT IT. How is that OK??

It was crazy, I don’t know how anyone could listen to that meeting without being outraged. People are being run out of their homes by violent criminals, and the city is backing up the criminals. I suggest everyone listen to it. And Frumin was just sitting there saying nothing, just he really is working hard on finding solutions and maybe we can get more nonprofits involved.

The meeting was called because there were two separate instances where children were murdered in these Van Ness buildings over the past few weeks. During the meeting, one resident said he heard there was a stabbing in his building the night before, and wanted to know why the police didn’t tell anyone. The police Lt. said the public didn’t need to be told because it was a domestic situation. The residents said if there is someone in their building who violently stabs people they want to be informed (the police Lt. disagreed).

You got the same issue in the other discussion where people were worried about the city’s policies that were bringing child murderers into their buildings, and they kept being told to shut up (by someone cynically using the kids dead bodies to try to shut them up, just shameful).

Residents talked about how they had been talking with the mayor and council for years about these issues, and just kept getting ignored. Many have been forced out of the homes they’ve live in for decades because of the violence. Silence from their elected officials, and disturbingly many people who want to silence them.

This is peak progressivism. Frumin and his colleagues are going to show Ward 3 just how wrong you’ve been on diversity by forcing thousands of people into luxury apartments in upper NW. But there is a plot twist, many of our new neighbors are violent mentally ill drug addicts. The neighborhood grocery store is about to close because of theft and there is a weed dispensary about to open. You can’t make this up.

[Anonymous]

"Source of Income" should never have been elevated to a protected class under the DC Human Rights Act on the same level as race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Because it is, landlords cannot legally limit the number of voucher tenants that they accept. Two policy changes that would immediately improve the Conn. Avenue chaos: (1) remove "source of income" as a protected class and instead require that landlords accept at least 10% voucher tenants but do not have to accept more. That would put the brakes on buildings slowly being converted to privatized public housing, which neither the landlords nor the market rate residents want, and enable LLs to be able to manage negative externalities while still making sure that building owners "do their fair share" with respect to accepting subsidized tenants. (2) modify the LL tenant laws to permit immediate eviction of violent tenants. No revolving door of second chances and cure periods for the violent who terrorize their neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else listen to the meeting last night? I was in tears listening to Amy tell her story of how she was forced out of Connecticut House after living there for 32 years because she feared for her safety after a voucher tenant in her building threatened her life. And that same tenant threatened a security guard with a hammer and NOTHING WAS DONE ABOUT IT. How is that OK??

It was crazy, I don’t know how anyone could listen to that meeting without being outraged. People are being run out of their homes by violent criminals, and the city is backing up the criminals. I suggest everyone listen to it. And Frumin was just sitting there saying nothing, just he really is working hard on finding solutions and maybe we can get more nonprofits involved.

The meeting was called because there were two separate instances where children were murdered in these Van Ness buildings over the past few weeks. During the meeting, one resident said he heard there was a stabbing in his building the night before, and wanted to know why the police didn’t tell anyone. The police Lt. said the public didn’t need to be told because it was a domestic situation. The residents said if there is someone in their building who violently stabs people they want to be informed (the police Lt. disagreed).

You got the same issue in the other discussion where people were worried about the city’s policies that were bringing child murderers into their buildings, and they kept being told to shut up (by someone cynically using the kids dead bodies to try to shut them up, just shameful).

Residents talked about how they had been talking with the mayor and council for years about these issues, and just kept getting ignored. Many have been forced out of the homes they’ve live in for decades because of the violence. Silence from their elected officials, and disturbingly many people who want to silence them.

You seem to be the kind of person who deliberately twists others’ words to manufacture false claims of victimization. I’m not sure what the psychological classification is that describes such behavior, but it makes it difficult to have a productive engagement with you.

For the record, no one was told to “shut up”. What you (and others, maybe) were told was that the other thread was not the appropriate place to make general complaints about the housing voucher program. And it wasn’t because the two kids’ deaths had nothing to do with the fact that their caregivers were voucher recipients.

None of those who were conveying this message to you were being the least bit cynical. Rather it was you who was cynically exploiting the violent deaths of two defenseless young children to draw attention to your problem.

You make me sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, no one was told to “shut up”. What you (and others, maybe) were told was that the other thread was not the appropriate place to make general complaints about the housing voucher program. And it wasn’t because the two kids’ deaths had nothing to do with the fact that their caregivers were voucher recipients.

None of those who were conveying this message to you were being the least bit cynical. Rather it was you who was cynically exploiting the violent deaths of two defenseless young children to draw attention to your problem.

You make me sick.

It’s easy to see that people were lying about “just wanting the discussion to focus on the kids” when, instead of actually talking about the kids, they wrote dozens of posts attacking people. Or claimed it isn’t the right place to discuss the housing vouchers, but then wrote posts defending the vouchers in the same discussion. Anyone can see for themselves what was written.

If you wanted to talk about the kids and not the vouchers or your feelings about other users, you could have. Instead you made dozens of other posts not about the kids, many about the voucher program itself, and then cynically kept using the death of the kids as a rhetorical cudgel to attack people here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, no one was told to “shut up”. What you (and others, maybe) were told was that the other thread was not the appropriate place to make general complaints about the housing voucher program. And it wasn’t because the two kids’ deaths had nothing to do with the fact that their caregivers were voucher recipients.

None of those who were conveying this message to you were being the least bit cynical. Rather it was you who was cynically exploiting the violent deaths of two defenseless young children to draw attention to your problem.

You make me sick.

It’s easy to see that people were lying about “just wanting the discussion to focus on the kids” when, instead of actually talking about the kids, they wrote dozens of posts attacking people. Or claimed it isn’t the right place to discuss the housing vouchers, but then wrote posts defending the vouchers in the same discussion. Anyone can see for themselves what was written.

If you wanted to talk about the kids and not the vouchers or your feelings about other users, you could have. Instead you made dozens of other posts not about the kids, many about the voucher program itself, and then cynically kept using the death of the kids as a rhetorical cudgel to attack people here.

You say that there were posts defending the voucher program on there. Show us. We will wait. We will be waiting a long time because there weren’t any.

That thread was locked because you couldn’t stop exploiting the deaths of these two children for cheap political gain.

You were directed to this thread, which was the appropriate place to discuss the voucher issue, yet you kept posting to the thread about the dead children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You say that there were posts defending the voucher program on there. Show us. We will wait. We will be waiting a long time because there weren’t any.

I'm not going to post everything from a 25 page thread, but here are people engaging in the debate about vouchers and attacking the criticism of them:

Anonymous wrote: Silly PP, the racists in this thread are engaged in "what-about-ism" on vouchers. Anything that can be loosely associated with a voucher program can and will be weaponized by the NIMBYs of Ward 3 to keep it as lilly white as possible.

Anonymous wrote:Let’s see what we can do with this logic . . .

1. Protected bike lanes are built on CT Ave, as was previously decided many moons ago by DDOT

2. Families living along CT Ave have an safe alternative to using their vehicles to run errands in the neighborhood and around NW DC

3. Deandre Pettus is not reliant on his car for running errands etc.

4. Deandre doesn’t suffer the frustration of being immobilized due to a flat car battery and so never gets angry that morning.

5. Deandre Pettus doesn’t beat his son to death.

You might find the assumptions underlying this hypothetical chain of events to be ridiculous, but those assumptions are no less so than your own.

Just like you don’t see bicycle safety advocates exploiting the deaths of these two children to call out the NIMBYs for blocking the CT Ave bike lane, you should similarly exhibit a modicum of decency and refrain from trying to make stupid arguments about how the tragic deaths of these two children were caused by DC residents using housing vouchers to move to Upper NW.

Anonymous wrote: You - and/or your ilk - have been demanding for pages that Frumin put a pause on the use of housing vouchers in Ward 3. Those demands are apparently serious.

Since you apparently can’t figure it out for yourself, I’ll have to spell it out for you. No one is making a serious argument that the deaths of the children were due to a lack of bike lanes. That would be ridiculous.

What they are showing is that the logic of tying these deaths to the voucher program is just as ridiculous and just as offensive.

I trust that you now understand how sick it is to exploit these deaths for pet causes.

Anonymous wrote: If the dad could have gotten around on bike lanes or bus lanes, he wouldn't have needed a car, and the kid would be alive.

Literally none of those posts (or the dozens of other comments like them) are about the kids, at all. If you don't want to debate things there, fine. Don't debate. But engaging debate over several pages where you're arguing against criticism of the vouchers, and then saying that the other side shouldn't respond out of respect for the dead kids, is truly amazing.

Anonymous wrote:That thread was locked because you couldn’t stop exploiting the deaths of these two children for cheap political gain.

You were directed to this thread, which was the appropriate place to discuss the voucher issue, yet you kept posting to the thread about the dead children.

It's truly fascinating how you feel that bringing up dead children as a way to attack your neighbors (repeatedly, dozens of times) is perfectly legitimate, but people saying they don't want to have the city house child murderers in their building is a disgrace.

It's also fascinating that you think people who are concerned about the city putting child murders next to them need to move to a thread to discussion how the city is overpaying landlords, or how you think you're the arbiter of what is allowed and isn't allowed to get discussed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say that there were posts defending the voucher program on there. Show us. We will wait. We will be waiting a long time because there weren’t any.

I'm not going to post everything from a 25 page thread, but here are people engaging in the debate about vouchers and attacking the criticism of them:

Anonymous wrote: Silly PP, the racists in this thread are engaged in "what-about-ism" on vouchers. Anything that can be loosely associated with a voucher program can and will be weaponized by the NIMBYs of Ward 3 to keep it as lilly white as possible.

Anonymous wrote:Let’s see what we can do with this logic . . .

1. Protected bike lanes are built on CT Ave, as was previously decided many moons ago by DDOT

2. Families living along CT Ave have an safe alternative to using their vehicles to run errands in the neighborhood and around NW DC

3. Deandre Pettus is not reliant on his car for running errands etc.

4. Deandre doesn’t suffer the frustration of being immobilized due to a flat car battery and so never gets angry that morning.

5. Deandre Pettus doesn’t beat his son to death.

You might find the assumptions underlying this hypothetical chain of events to be ridiculous, but those assumptions are no less so than your own.

Just like you don’t see bicycle safety advocates exploiting the deaths of these two children to call out the NIMBYs for blocking the CT Ave bike lane, you should similarly exhibit a modicum of decency and refrain from trying to make stupid arguments about how the tragic deaths of these two children were caused by DC residents using housing vouchers to move to Upper NW.

Anonymous wrote: You - and/or your ilk - have been demanding for pages that Frumin put a pause on the use of housing vouchers in Ward 3. Those demands are apparently serious.

Since you apparently can’t figure it out for yourself, I’ll have to spell it out for you. No one is making a serious argument that the deaths of the children were due to a lack of bike lanes. That would be ridiculous.

What they are showing is that the logic of tying these deaths to the voucher program is just as ridiculous and just as offensive.

I trust that you now understand how sick it is to exploit these deaths for pet causes.

Anonymous wrote: If the dad could have gotten around on bike lanes or bus lanes, he wouldn't have needed a car, and the kid would be alive.

Literally none of those posts (or the dozens of other comments like them) are about the kids, at all. If you don't want to debate things there, fine. Don't debate. But engaging debate over several pages where you're arguing against criticism of the vouchers, and then saying that the other side shouldn't respond out of respect for the dead kids, is truly amazing.

Anonymous wrote:That thread was locked because you couldn’t stop exploiting the deaths of these two children for cheap political gain.

You were directed to this thread, which was the appropriate place to discuss the voucher issue, yet you kept posting to the thread about the dead children.

It's truly fascinating how you feel that bringing up dead children as a way to attack your neighbors (repeatedly, dozens of times) is perfectly legitimate, but people saying they don't want to have the city house child murderers in their building is a disgrace.

It's also fascinating that you think people who are concerned about the city putting child murders next to them need to move to a thread to discussion how the city is overpaying landlords, or how you think you're the arbiter of what is allowed and isn't allowed to get discussed.

You claimed that people were defending the voucher program in the other thread. You were asked to produce evidence. But you didn't have any, so you brought to bear a whole bunch of irrelevant nonsense. What a clown.

[Anonymous]

Yes, making counter arguments to criticism of them is defending them. Even if you want to say that it’s not, all those comments are engaging in arguments about vouchers, something you claimed was disrespectful to the dead kids - except for when you are doing it.

It’s my fault for actually engaging you and spending the time going back through that 25 page thread to get examples. Judging by your other comments, I shouldn’t have been surprised that it wasn’t a sincere request. The discussions here would have been better if all of us just started ignoring the trolls, so I appreciate the reminder. Going back and reading it, the other discussion was actually pretty civil for the first 10 or so pages until the discussion vandals showed up and succeeded in getting it locked. And of course they didn’t start another discussion for the memory of the kids (which they pretended to be so concerned about) either - that whole line of attack was just a cynical way for them to shut down the discussion.