Living the High Life, On the Taxpayer.

This story in the NT Times today really makes me mad.  The story is about low-income people moving to the suburbs which is great.  They are able to get away from crime and drugs that are destroying inner city neighborhoods which is very positive.  What angers me is the fact the government is subsidizing this move and giving families large quantities of tax payer dollars to do it.

Ms. Payne, a 42-year-old African-American mother of five, moved to Antioch in 2006. With the local real estate market slowing and a housing voucher covering two-thirds of the rent, she found she could afford a large, new home, with a pool, for $2,200 a month.

Two-thirds of $2200 per month!  That is nearly how much I pay for my mortgage.  A pool?  I do not even have a pool.

To begin with I am against all forms of long-term government assistance.  The only thing this does is create dependency.  What incentive does Ms. Payne have to get off the tax payer payroll?  She has a nice home with a pool in the suburbs (of course I am not sure how she affords to pay for maintenance of the pool or the utilities).

In addition, the government is killing the value of homes in many neighborhoods by creating a large rental market.  Everyone can see the decline in any neighborhood once it turns into rental properties.  People do not have the incentives to take care of the homes, so you naturally see destruction.  Yet the government does not understand why home values are falling in California?  Again, when the government gets involved bad things usually happen.