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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Mission 5

Learn:
The burst of the housing bubble and subsequent foreclosure crisis our country has seen over the last few years has caused many people to lose their homes, forcing those with even jobs to move in with family, hop from cheap motel room to motel room and even forced some to live on the streets. It is completely unacceptable that we have allowed one of the basic necessities of life, shelter, to become one of this biggest stresses in our society. On top of that the crisis has left a dearth of vacant homes, allowing the seedy underbelly of society, crime, to move in. Our government has already helped, with the people's tax money, the banks deal with the loss of value from real estate, yet the banks have done little to help the people! They are even making the market worse by continuing how they have been!

Act:
I, Adouchi, know just the way to handle this! My plan has three goals: keeping those at risk of losing their homes in their home, helping those who want to buy a home but are low income get into a home, and helping those who have lost their home into one they can afford. For my first goal, I would use my Gaze Of Justice to show those in charge of the banks that it is in their better interest as well as the public's, not to kick people out of their homes but to work with them to keep them there. My gaze would show them how they are glutting themselves of future profit by continuing to destabilize the market and making fewer eligible buyers (as those with foreclosures on record have to wait many years to get a loan again) to make them money on new loans.  My gaze would also show them that they have tightened restrictions on loans so much that now even with cheaper homes that are vastly more affordable, they are preventing many low-income people who would at these prices have mortgages lower than their rent from buying, which is preventing them from making money. For my third goal, since my Gaze of Justice is already changing the minds of bankers, how about some more government officials? Even with my gaze bankers are going to be wary of lending money out again to those who have already been foreclosed upon. I would use my gaze at the state level to allot funds for communities to buy up some of the vacant homes to be used for people who have been foreclosed on but want another shot at buying a house. The communities would rent these homes to those who have been foreclosed at rates similar to what the mortgage now (at the lower home prices) would be. Residents would be responsible for all upkeep unlike a typical rental, on the condition that after so much time of renting with on-time payments, they would then purchase the home with the government backing the loan for the same payment as their rent.

Imagine:
While my Gaze of Justice persuaded the bankers in terms they could appreciate, money, the effect is much broader than that. Citizens will rest easier and turn their attentions to more important things int he community without having to worry about if they are going to have a roof over their heads. Those unable to buy homes before in the inflated market will have a chance to become a permanent part of their community versus a temporary renter. This will keep and reoccupy homes, which keeps away crime. It is also known that owner-occupied properties are better taken care of, so it even has the possibility of making the neighborhoods even better than before the crisis started. Just imagine what people could do without that constant worry they now have.

4 comments:

  1. sounds like the exact current system we have now except what you are talking about is more like communism. low income people are low income for reasons that keep them from owning houses. the ghetto of modesto airport is evidence of that. they own many of the homes and do not take of them. and this is not fair to other neighbors in the hood. they keep their stuff up while some low income pirate lets his yard pile with junk.

    no, the system we have now is best. people who lost their houses cuz they were greedy need to pay the piper and pass the lesson along to their kids. i know i sound evil, but someone has to have a sense of reality.

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  2. Hey now Barosso, saying things like "the system we have now is best" is a little subjective. There is no such thing as the perfect system. There'll never be such thing as the perfect system. You're always trying to get towards perfection, but you never get there. And not everyone is poor because they deserve it. There are a lot things that just happen. There are jobs that used to be around that have been phased out suddenly. What are people in their 40-50+ supposed to do when the jobs they had are not just in short demand, but are no longer in existence? Elements of communism/socialism shouldn't cause an automatic knee jerk just because we're taught that capitalism is best. Like iron, systems grow stronger when they become tempered.

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  3. "Low Income Pirate" is my phrase of the day. How nice and simple things would seem if we could all see the world in black and white like Barosso. You're either bad or good. But it seems like bad always equals low-income (poor).
    Anyway, great post Larry! Very well thought out. I think that Gaze of Justice would come in very handy. I really like the system you propose of putting prior-foreclosed people into vacant houses as renters with the option to own (as soon as they've proved they can keep up payments). It's a shame to have a bunch of empty houses when people are out on the street.

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  4. I think for people to choose public transportation over driving they have to consider taking the bus to be time-saving and this is not true, I would guess, in all cases. Most people wouldnt choose to take the bus if they had a car.

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