Public Housing Repairs

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/10/public-housing-repairs

The New York Times has a front-page news article about how a lot of apartments in public housing projects need repairs and how it takes a long time and a lot of money to get the work done. The entire article is unburdened by any recognition whatsoever that a lot of people who don't live in public housing have things in their houses that they'd like to get fixed, too. But they may not have the money to make the repairs, or the power to tax others to fund them.

The subtext of the Times article seems to be that those people who live in private housing should be taxed more so that those people who live in public housing don't have to wait so long for needed repairs.

In New York City, there are still years-long waiting lists to get apartments in these housing projects, and last I checked the average length of time a family stays in one of these public housing apartments was 17 years. If the conditions are so horrible, why are so many people waiting to get an apartment and why aren't people moving out more quickly? I don't doubt that some tenants have bad conditions in their apartments that they have waiting a long time to get repaired, but it isn't always easy to get a skilled craftsman to show up to fix something in New York even in a fancy private apartment building where money is no object. Something about this Times account just doesn't quite add up.

by Ira Stoll  |  Oct 25, 2010 at 9:06 am Related Topics:  Housing receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list