Reply to Shooting at Brandywine & Connecticut Ave NW This Afternoon

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It seems some possible policy solutions are:
1. Limiting the number/percentage of voucher holders per building. This is to stem destabilization. If non-voucher residents move out, the problem magnifies as landlords fill more and more units and create private public housing. 
[b]2. Ensure that vouchers pay landlord what existing tenants pay and not an amount above that. This would end market distortions for the rental market and temper the incentives for landlord.[/b] The main incentive would instead be filling vacant units, not garnering as much profit as possible. The profit is coming from taxpayer dollars. 
3. Require that voucher holders participate in relevant support programs
4. Ending the musical chairs of sending people who have been kicked out of one building to another down the street. [/quote]

Federal law prohibits paying more than market price, though DC was asleep at the wheel about this for years and only recently stopped doing it (previous arrangements are grandfathered in, however, so the scam continues in some ways).

It's amazing to me that no one said, "You know, maybe it's a bad idea to just dump these people -- many of whom have deep-seated issues with addiction and mental health -- in empty apartments with zero support services." It's just so half-assed, which I guess is the DC way of doing things.  [/quote]

That is Housing First in a nutshell, a HUD program, not something DC dreamed up.

Framing the problem as "housing" has been $$$ for developers, nationwide. Even people who are temporarily without housing typically couch surf with friends or family until they can get back on their feet. Those same people are not inclined to repeatedly allow mentally ill, addicted or violent people to stay with them. If the issue was framed by the drivers of the situation, solution would not be so lucrative. Addiction and MH treatment is $$$ as is incarceration. Since there is so much corruption around development in DC, they took a problematic program with great PR and added a layer of shared graft on top. The bones of it were all put in place under Bush. Due to the size and density of rental buildings on Connecticut and Wisconsin, the problems are amplified. [/quote]

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