I saw two stories yesterday on the Missoula Current that were kind of related.
The first involves a 12-unit wet housing complex for homeless people.
Yep, you heard right – the City of Missoula is going to use your tax money so chronically drunk people can have a free apartment.
In fact, the city is already doing this. They’ve been doing it for 13 years.
The place is called the Uptown Apartments, located across the street from the courthouse.
Currently there are 14 people staying at the Uptown Apartments, and 5 of them have been living there rent-free since the place opened in 2005.
Yep, for 13 years your tax dollars have been spent on apartments for 5 people that refuse to get sober and take care of themselves.
Hell, when you enable someone for more than a decade…what incentive is there to get sober and take care of yourself?
None.
The Missoula Housing Authority is behind this new $2 million, 12-unit project, and they desperately hope to secure 50% of the needed funds via a Housing Trust Fund application.
The Department of Commerce in D.C. oversees the Housing Trust Fund program, and the states administer the money.
The program came about in 2008 following the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but then was shelved just a few months later as the scope of the global financial collapse became apparent.
It wasn’t until 2016 that the program was fully operational, with $174 million to dole-out to “extremely low-income and very low-income households – vulnerable families struggling to stay in homes.”
By 2017 that amount rose to $220 million.
By 2018, however, Trump had cut 13% from HUD’s budget, and this meant the Housing Trust Fund lost $194 million.
This spring, over 1,300 organizations called on Congress to raise the Housing Trust Fund’s budget to $3.5 billion annually.
The first involves a 12-unit wet housing complex for homeless people.
Yep, you heard right – the City of Missoula is going to use your tax money so chronically drunk people can have a free apartment.
In fact, the city is already doing this. They’ve been doing it for 13 years.
The place is called the Uptown Apartments, located across the street from the courthouse.
Currently there are 14 people staying at the Uptown Apartments, and 5 of them have been living there rent-free since the place opened in 2005.
Yep, for 13 years your tax dollars have been spent on apartments for 5 people that refuse to get sober and take care of themselves.
Hell, when you enable someone for more than a decade…what incentive is there to get sober and take care of yourself?
None.
The Missoula Housing Authority is behind this new $2 million, 12-unit project, and they desperately hope to secure 50% of the needed funds via a Housing Trust Fund application.
The Department of Commerce in D.C. oversees the Housing Trust Fund program, and the states administer the money.
The program came about in 2008 following the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but then was shelved just a few months later as the scope of the global financial collapse became apparent.
It wasn’t until 2016 that the program was fully operational, with $174 million to dole-out to “extremely low-income and very low-income households – vulnerable families struggling to stay in homes.”
By 2017 that amount rose to $220 million.
By 2018, however, Trump had cut 13% from HUD’s budget, and this meant the Housing Trust Fund lost $194 million.
This spring, over 1,300 organizations called on Congress to raise the Housing Trust Fund’s budget to $3.5 billion annually.
$3.5 billion...are you serious?!?
Pray tell…where’s this money going to come from?
- While I’d have no problem cutting the military’s budget by double digits and then give the money to this program, I know Congress would never do that as the media would label them as anti-troop and anti-veteran.
- We could close loopholes for rich people and tax corporations more and that’d pay for this, but we know Congress would lose a lot of campaign donations if they went this route.
- Another option is to cut a lot of useless, pork-barrel spending that we see directed to each and every one of our states…but if Congress did that, they could lose their jobs as constituents complain they’re not getting their federal tax dollars back…to hell with the rest of the country.
Of course to many, this Housing Trust Fund money is pork-barrel spending.
And it’s not just the feds that are tied-up in it.
We know the project here in Missoula costs $2 million, which comes to about $167,000 per apartment for these homeless alcoholics.
The city wants to get half the money from the feds, which means federal taxpayers pay that half.
We know the Missoula Housing Authority donated the land that will be used for this, and I’m sure that had a very high value…but good luck finding what that was. On top of this, the agency will be giving $607,000 in cash to the project.
But we're not done! A $480,000 grant from the Home Loan Bank could be secured, and that means banks, credit unions and S&L’s will pay for this.
The Home Loan Bank system was set up in 1932 and has 11 member banks overseeing various regions of the country.
So in effect, it’s a combination of local taxpayers, federal taxpayers, and banking customers that have to pay for drunk people to have a home.
- This at a time when the City of Missoula is so desperate for additional tax revenues that it’s raised taxes by 100% over the past decade.
- The city is so desperate for money that it wants a sales tax in Missoula.
- And just yesterday we saw the city so desperate for even a little bit of money that it’s annexing 61 residential lots so it can make $50,000 more a year, and 4 commercial lots so it can make $20,000 more a year.
$70,000 in extra revenue a year ain’t gonna come close to the $607,000 the Misosula Housing Authority is about to piss away.
Your city government in action.
Notes
Capps, Kriston. “The Cruelest Cut in Trump’s Housing Budget.” City Lab. 23 May 2017. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/05/the-cruelest-cut-in-trumps-housing-budget/527730/
Devlin, Sherry. “Missoula annexes 20 acres in Linda Vista; planners to write annexation strategy.” Missoula Current. 1 October 2018. https://www.missoulacurrent.com/business/2018/10/missoula-linda-vista-annexation/
“Federal Home Loan Banks.” Wikipedia. 10 August 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Home_Loan_Banks
Kidston, Martin. “Missoula Housing Authority plans 12-unit apartment project for homeless.” Missoula Current. 1 October 2018. https://www.missoulacurrent.com/business/2018/10/missoula-apartments-homeless/
“Memo to Members & Partners.” National Low Income Housing Coalition. 13 February 2018. http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Memo_021318.pdf
Capps, Kriston. “The Cruelest Cut in Trump’s Housing Budget.” City Lab. 23 May 2017. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/05/the-cruelest-cut-in-trumps-housing-budget/527730/
Devlin, Sherry. “Missoula annexes 20 acres in Linda Vista; planners to write annexation strategy.” Missoula Current. 1 October 2018. https://www.missoulacurrent.com/business/2018/10/missoula-linda-vista-annexation/
“Federal Home Loan Banks.” Wikipedia. 10 August 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Home_Loan_Banks
Kidston, Martin. “Missoula Housing Authority plans 12-unit apartment project for homeless.” Missoula Current. 1 October 2018. https://www.missoulacurrent.com/business/2018/10/missoula-apartments-homeless/
“Memo to Members & Partners.” National Low Income Housing Coalition. 13 February 2018. http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Memo_021318.pdf
