COMMENTARY | Cincinnati residents are holding their ground in a battle with the Cincinnati Metropolitan Public Housing Authority. You can't pick your neighbors, but you do have the right to voice your opinion when taxpayer dollars are being spent. It is understandable that residents are unhappy with rising crime rates and sinking property values because of too many public housing units in the area. Anger over yet another low-income housing project in the Harrison Avenue area prompted anger from residents and a civil rights action lawsuit, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority moved residents out of the complex temporarily to prepare for a $640,000 upgrade to carpeting, cabinetry, light fixtures and heating -- all paid for with taxpayer dollars. The battle between residents and the agency began amid an ongoing debate in Hamilton County over the placement of public housing units.
The CMPHA is concerned about poor residents living in unattractive and outdated apartments, but area property owners are worried about the safety of their families and resale value of the homes they have worked hard to purchase and maintain.
Hamilton County residents are correct in their concerns about the CMPHA concentrating too much poverty in neighborhoods, first in the city and now in the suburbs as well. If public housing residents were given the incredible opportunity to become the owners of their apartments, perhaps the quality of the buildings would not deteriorate so rapidly and require yet another infusion of taxpayer funds for upgrades.
Fair-housing advocates are suing the CMPHA for discriminatory policies relating to failure of the Harrison Avenue public housing rehabilitation project, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The lawsuit states racial discrimination has occurred because 90 percent of the agency's clients are black. Investigators from the Housing and Urban Development Department are also vocally unhappy with the CMPHA and shouting discrimination claims because low-income housing expansion into Cincinnati's West Side suburb was shelved.
The CMPHA is stuck in a tight spot, but deserves no sympathy. The impasse between taxpayers and social services agencies needed to occur to foster real change in housing system procedures.
Liberal beliefs that the government and by extension the taxpayers, must provide cradle to the grave assistance for a growing percentage of the population is bankrupting the nation. Voters are fighting back on not only a fiscal level, but a quality of life one as well.
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