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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Charm City Has Its Own Version of “The Bricks”

Last week we learned from Salisbury Mayor Jim Ireton and councilwoman Shanie Shields that three members of the Salisbury City Council are racists because they don’t want to jump at the chance for Salisbury to build “affordable housing” units at $179,000 each (that $179K per one bedroom apartment).  I’m glad Jim and Shanie didn’t find out about this:

from the Baltimore Sun

30 more boarded-up rowhouses will soon be rehabbed at an average cost of $300,000 apiece, much of it from federal stimulus funds. Those houses will then be sold to lower-income buyers at steeply discounted prices of $70,000 or $75,000.

You read correctly!  The taxpayers are ponying up $300,000 PER UNIT and then the city is selling them for $70,000 – $75,000.

We highly recommend that you read the entire Sun article.  Scott Calvert provides example after example of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars being spent to provide certain folks housing at a GREATLY subsidized price.

If Ireton or Shields had heard about this prior to their commitment to “The Bricks”, we can only imagine what stunts they would have pulled.  In the “progressive” world view, there is only one problem:  How do we suck all of the money from the productive classes of society before they mobilize and move their capital offshore?  or .. to quote the great Margaret Thatcher:

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].

As with the boondoggle in Baltimore, “The Bricks” is a project that simply cannot stand on the merits.  This is precisely why Ireton, Shields (and councilwoman Laura Mitchell) need to shift the focus away from real issues and towards personal attacks.  If they didn’t, taxpayers would be up in arms about wasting taxpayer dollars on “projects” such as these.

H/T – Hon. Ellen Saurbrey

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the goal is to SELL the units? Are they going to condominumize the building? If so then the unit owners would have to pay condo fees on top of mortgages and taxes.

Anonymous said...

I wish they would do that for the broken down homes, boarded up homes... Instead of just the row homes... I make well over minimum wage and theoretically i should be able to afford a home but i can't... the city taxes, and fees and levies and everything else make is so I can not... Plus I am a single person so i have to survive on a single income not 2 as everyone says when they say you can afford this house...

Anonymous said...

When will our elected officials WAKE UP! Quit spending my tax money on useless projects! I am tired of people that are NOT PAYING into the tax system always voicing their WANTS (free housing, food, etc.)! People better watch out because the US taxpayer is becoming the minority and what happens when the majority has there hand out looking for a free ride? This country is slowly crumbling. The buck stops here!

Anonymous said...

I'll bet the booth street townhouses were real nice the first day they opened

InvictusV said...

When the government subsidizes things like this it gives the people who benefit less of an incentive to put forth the effort necessary to improve their own lives. If your goal in life is to move into something like this then that says it all as far as I am concerned.

Anonymous said...

What the "honorable" Ellen Sauerbrey conveniently left out is that well over 1/2 of that $300,000 cost is due to lead paint remediation -- a cost that would have to be borne if the homes were torn down OR rehabbed.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how much lead paint asbestos and black mold inhabit the Bricks as it stands?

Anonymous said...

hilarious. I used to do contracting in DC/Baltimore, and we'd buy boarded up row-houses for 2-5K. Put in about 75K into them, and flip them for well over 100 a piece. Some other gc's we worked with from time to time, were literally buying entire blocks of rowhouses and doing the same. Gotta give these guys a ring, and try and get some gubment $$$ haha

lmclain said...

LOL! After the taxpayers (rewad that again ---tax PAYERS) spend 300 hundred grand to rehab the places, the government will then "sell" them (I'll some some 'grant" money will come into the picture sooner or later) to people who don't give a damn about the new home, trash it and not pay the "mortgage" payment. Then after squatting through the foreclosure process (and not paying a dime during said process), will then apply for--- you guessed it --- a "bailout", OR "loan modification", financed (again) by (dang, you guessed it AGAIN!) the tax PAYERS! I'm REALLY starting to wonder why people want to work at all. NOT working seems to be a pretty lucrative and easy way to go. Now, yo, gimme my "earned" income credick"....

Anonymous said...

Should of condemned 'em and took 'em. Some scumbag made out great. The lead thing, you know, let the private owner pay for that. I'm going to dump my house and get big gov money for it and use it to live somewhere nice.

Anonymous said...

9:18 AM

How do you know if anyone paid taxes or not? There is about 11 million people unemployed. I am sure they paid taxes before losing their job and needing help.