Augusta Commissioner Betty Beard helped one person while acting to deteriorate the lives of many people.
I don't oppose helping the sick, but I do oppose the unethical way Beard pulled this stunt. I think she sold her vote in the Maxwell House Section 8 housing matter to lend a hand to a single individual -- at the stolen expense and suffering of taxpayers, business owners, law enforcement and our history. I encourage the other commissioners who also voted for this housing to also seriously reconsider.
Greene and Broad streets are important historic landmarks that could provide a much needed economic boost to Augusta. The Olde Town area that includes these streets were added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 11, 2004.
An economic boost isn't going to happen when the number of vagrants and low-income housing continues to swell in numbers in that area. My husband and I own a house on Greene Street, only a couple of blocks from the Maxwell House apartments. Our plan was to rehabilitate our property and turn it into a business.
But we are fighting a losing battle with this house, as are many of our neighbors who also are trying to rehabilitate the historical structures that line the streets. Break-ins are rampant. Vagrants camp in the yards of these houses and force entry into them to squat.
The garbage and litter strewn about by these people who walk the streets every day is disgusting. When I tried to provide a trash can by the edge of my property for people to use, it was stolen. You can't walk outside without being targeted by panhandlers. Drug abusers buy and peddle their vices on these streets. Vandals deface signs and buildings with graffiti.
Augusta took a step in the right direction by getting rid of the Section 8 housing and the rundown car wash that once stood in place where the new library is being erected. But by allowing the Maxwell House to become Section 8 housing, Augusta commissioners are taking a step back. Our officers already are heavily burdened trying to sweep the streets of these nuisances, taking away the precious time they need to tend to more serious crimes. The Business Improvement District patrollers, for which we pay extra taxes, can only do so much.
Another Section 8 housing development in this area will drain our resources to the point where Olde Town will just be another run down, abandoned neighborhood in Augusta. It is time to put a stop this injustice.
Melonie Dappie
Harlem
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What is your solution Melonie. Not in you neighborhood others will say not in my neighborhood. The bottom line is owners will rent to section 8 people if they can make money doing it. That is capatalism.
Bottom line is section 8 shouldn't exist. It artificially raises the cost of living for everyone while taxing worker Willy to pay for a roof over drug addict Dan's head. If landlords weren't guaranteed a check for X amount of dollars from the government, then the free market would help keep prices down to levels they should be. But since Section 8 isn't going anywhere anytime soon... I understand these folks have got to live somewhere, but sticking them in a downtown thats already struggling was a baaaaaad idea. See also: Richmond Summit.
Why can't they just house 'em all on the other side of East Boundary? It's already a cesspool.
Section 8 shou.d stay in a controled area and not out where homes and neighborhoods are ruined. I realize everyine has to be som ewhere but most do not take care of the places they live so the neighborhood begins to look bad.
i empathize w/your situation, however you may need to bone up on you geography...you home is not located in old towne...the olde town neighborhood start an 4th and greene streets, i would agree with you for a call to modify of become more strict regarding section 8, but again your home unfortunate as it may be isn't located within the olde towne neighborhood
When a neighborhood is opened to section eight the homes are devalued.
The tax collector doesn't think so National Hills property values went up despite the national devaluing of homes and also opening up to section eight. City Hall needs new faces remember that in the next elections.
It does seem that our entire county government is determined to do everything possible to HURT the property owner and HELP the non-working welfare types. They have made Augusta a welfare haven with free or subsidized housing at the expense of property owners as they destroy neighborhoods. The commissioners, the TAX Collector's office, and the Planning and Zoning office are all ANTI taxpayer and ANTI property owner and the taxpayers need to put all of them on the unemployment line. Let me give you a clue Augusta. If you have a country that is being sucked dry by welfare leeches it is NOT A GOOD THING to make more room for them by giving them better housing in what used to be nice neighborhoods. Every neighborhood you destroy means less tax money. When you open up Section 8 housing you lower the average income of the residents of the county as the "working people" move out to CC or NA. Less sales tax revenue and lower property values always follow. RC taxpayers need to file a class action suit against the Tax Commissioner for not valuing the property properly when they destroy a neighborhood and when the value of housing is tanking.
WW1949 does not understand the purpose of Section 8. The goal is to get low-income people OUT of designated low-rent areas and get the INTO upper-middle subdivisions with rent subsidies to private landlords.
Amusedandconfused: A few blocks up and a few blocks down on Greene St is the historic area. I double checked. Granted the author doesn't specifically state the address, but I'm sure Ms. Dappie knows if her home is in a historic district, especially if she is renovating the property. Homeowners can't do anything to historic properties without first getting approval from the Historic Preservation in Augusta. Cut and paste this link in the browser to see the map of historic sections:
http://www.nps.gov/nr//travel/Augusta/maps.html
I agree with omnom and WW. The system needs to be revamped and stict rules enforced on the tenants. Little lamb, we understand the goal, but the goal isn't a good one. A ton of the people on this program do not deserve it. They turn their free places to live into hell holes, so we move them into other neighborhoods to make them hell holes too. what a plan. Either enforce strict rules on them to weed out the rif raf or keep them all in one area and let them trash their own neighborhoods.
I agree with TakeAstand - I understand the logic behind section 8 housing - to "integrate" them into better neighborhood. We can all see how well that has gone. For the most part, those in Section 8 housing don't care about the house, keeping the yard cleaned to neighborhood standards. They begin to tear things apart and soon the whole neighborhood is trashed. Unfortunately, the city does not want these people to live all in one area. Why, I don't know. They seem to spread their destruction, filth, grime, everywhere they go.
Thanks Miss Melonie for that great letter. I 100 percent agree. CONCERNEDNATIVE: Would you want your neighborhood trashed? We folks that pay taxes certainly should have say over the bottom feeders that we pay for. No. Not in my neighborhood is right. You find me a section 8 development that is eye appealing, without crime, and clean. Ain't gonna happen. Those tenants have no sense of ownership so that trash the places they live in. Remember the shooting at Cherry Tree Hill? Those bottom feeders defaced a brick sign that was part of the building they lived in. There was a picture of it in the AC. LITTLELAMB: Yeah, your right about the law for section 8, but Abortion is legal but is it right? No. And until the right way is the law, people should and will fight for what is right. SOUTHERNCHICK is right about the historic district. OMNOM,TAKEASTAND, AND ROESCHEN glad to see you agree.
What is your solution Melonie. Not in you neighborhood others will say not in my neighborhood. The bottom line is owners will rent to section 8 people if they can make money doing it. That is capatalism.
Posted by concernednative on Thu Sep 24, 2009 7:02 AM....Capitalism doesn't destroy neighborhoods, the greedy do and that is who rents the secton 8 housing-the greedy.
Put sme of those section eight houses on
"the Hill" and listn to them squawk. (Actually, the residents wouldn't let it happen if they live on "the Hill".
csra, i moved from a neighborhood because it was my starter home and people started to rent heavily even b4 section 8 got there. I was 26 married for 9 months and built a home in which my mortgage double but renters and section 8 folks ruin neighborhoods. So you can fight the good fight or you can cut your losses and sale. It is a tough battle to win. The best is to get strict neighborhood covenants and hold the owner not the renter to those standards.
Are you kidding, The powers that be do not care about the tax payers. They allowed Mercy Ministies to be placed in the middle of the Historic Harrisburg Neighborhood. They are more focused on the Tee Center. Special interists rule Augusta. Most middle class people don't have a chance so they move on!!
CONCERNEDNATIVE, you give up too easily. If our patriot great many times over grandfathers gave up that easily, we'd be bowing to the Queen of England. Fight for what is right!
Well Melonie I say my neighborhood is filled and if you have none I demand they fill yours also. Only if we all feel the pain will we all get on the same band wagon. What are the rules for section 8 and what is the number to call for violations? I'll save you the trouble, there aren't any. Just keep on electing the same old incumbent party people and nothing will change.
Welcome to our world, Melonie, you get to watch the value of your property disintegrate before your eyes, and you are helpless. You work for years to purchase a house, and between the Section 8 residents and the registered sex offenders, it all disappears. And Section 8 renters are exempt from homeowner rules if they are in contradiction to Section 8 rules. And since there are no Section 8 rules, everything is a contradiction, and you are stuck.
Section 8 for the most part has not worked and is the detriment to many neighborhoods. People who for the most part who do not take pride in where they live, are totally destructive. Of course, there are exceptions, but if you take people who have been in public housing projects, move them to Section 8, they don't give a cr@p about taking care of where they live because they never have had to do it.
8 years ago I worked for Bradley Construction who was hired to remodel 125 houses in olde Town. We took a bunch of junk and made them back into houses. They were low income and Section 8 homes. We couldn't get the thugs on Walker and 3rd to stop stealing our materials and tools while we worked on the project. They would steal the A/C units as fast as we were putting them in. Eight short years later and the houses are in awful condition again.
My wife and I just moved out of the Olde Town Historic District, too. We are going to turn the house we left there into rental property. Not Section 8, though. Not yet. But it is the only way to get back the money we spent buying and restoring our property in that slum. I figure that after ten years of rental payments, I should have just about all our money back. Then the house can collapse for all I care. With the new historic guidelines in place, the city is punishing people who try to make improvements there. The city is not, however, enforcing simple zoning codes on the slumlords in Olde Town. You get more of what you reward, and less of what you punish....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md5jABij3qo
By the way, lifelongresidient, check out the street signs on Greene Street above 4th Street all the way up to 13th. They say 'Olde Town' for some reason. But that's Augusta for ya.