1. Low Income Housing
2. Taxes
Low Income Housing has become a hot topic due to local governments' push to move this kind of housing to areas that are more upper class than not. Those against the idea bring up the bad connotation that comes along with it. When you talk about LIH many peoples' first thoughts are that it will increase crime and cause poverty stricken people to "infest" their community. In some cases this can hold true but not under most circumstances. They do not stop to think that many of these families or individuals moving in are human beings with just as much moral fiber. Also, many of these people that take in a low amount of income have important jobs that we take for granted, i.e. janitors, cashiers, waste management. One of the ideas behind low income housing is allowing those that have these jobs to live close to where they work, such as downtown. From a more liberal mind set, it is wrong that they have to be bused in from the outer parts of the city where it is the only affordable place for them to live. Another hot topic on lower income housing is when the complex or property is bought by an investor who is going to make turn the area into luxury apartments and kick out the prior residence. When this happen there are not many funded programs that have the resources to be able to relocate these individuals. Who does the responsibility lie on, the public or the government?
Those that are against the idea of lower income housing are usually of an elite or wealthy status. They pay big money to have their big, lavish houses and since they are paying this kind of money they feel they have the right to say they don't want this by their neighborhood. They only want their nice houses with well respected individuals of community in their smaller community. But is this really a great idea? Is having one non-diversified community the best way to live or grow up. Our teacher talked about Los Almos, New Mexico where the Atom bomb was created. This was a little community full of multiple PHD's per house, only the smartest and the brightest lived here. This sounds like a very stimulating environment for someone to grow up, right? Actually the high school within the community had the highest suicide rate in the country. Many kids felt the pressure to be the smartest and the brightest that when they failed they did want to accept the "repercussion" of being less smart. The funny thing is that the less smart kid in this community is probably the brightest kid in any of the other surrounding high schools if not the country.
Taxes, Taxes, Taxes. More so than not people hate taxes. The only time someone ever says taxes with a smile is when taxes is followed by credit or cut. Taxes have become a big issue in recent months now that we a health care reform that will increase taxes considerably. I am not going talk about my position on this topic but rather the good things that taxes can do. For one, they finance the services that the public market did not create themselves. This can be seen from police and firemen to water treatment. Taxes also influence the general public in certain ways, mostly good but sometimes you are going to not like the direction the government is pushing towards. The most recent influencing is the first home buyers' credit for $8,000. Others include deductions for being more green or rebuilding a historical building. Regardless, taxes are always going to be there, sometime low, sometimes high. Just one word of advice, pay them.
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