July 1, 2008
New politics my ass
There's an article going around the net describing the unmitigated disaster Obama's public housing policies have been in Chicago. While a state senator, Obama coauthored a law which created tax credits for private developers to construct affordable housing. The result was thousands of apartments built with state subsidies--including several hundred in Obama's district--which are now "deteriorated so completely that they [are] no longer habitable."
An example is Grove Parc Plaza, a federally subsidized project with 504 apartments, 99% of which are vacant, in buildings which federal inspectors rated 11 out of 200 for safety. The buildings are apparently scheduled to be demolished.
Interestingly enough, there are number of major developers with personal and/or professional ties to Obama, including:
-- Valerie Jarrett: CEO of a company which managed several of the failed Chicago projects. Senior advisor to Obama's campaign and member of his finance committee.
-- Allison Davis: Developer of a North Side building whose chronic plumbing failures have led to raw sewage spilling into apartments. Major Obama fundraiser,
-- Tony Rezko: Developer who used subsidies to rehab more than 1000 housing units then refused to manage them, leaving them uninhabitable. One of Obama's largest fund-raisers, who helped him purchase a house in 2005.
Six major developers, including the three above, have contributed over $175,000 to the Obama campaign. Rezko alone has raised over $200,000 more. Rezko is also in prison.
Obama wants to spend $500 million in federal money annually on such projects.
Read the whole article. It's incredibly damning. Obama is linked to perhaps a dozen people in the low-income development world, many of whom have received millions in government subsidies that he helped create, the vast majority of which have done almost nothing to help the low-income residents they were allegedly designed to support.
And this is supposed to be a brand new dawn in politics? This is it? I'm supposed to believe this... because?
