There's a lot of Section 8 housing in the area where I live. I guess that's one way that you can tell that you're in an inner city neighborhood: things are located here that wouldn't be tolerated anywhere else in the city. Not that we're the only place where there's Section 8 housing--there are pockets of them all over the city and even in some of the suburbs. There's been a lot of talk from the homeowners in the neighborhood about getting rid of the Section 8 housing, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Anyway, where would all of it go?
I have a neighbor--a homeowner--who said to me once: "I wish those people weren't in our neighborhood." I thought that was a pretty shitty thing to say. First of all, there are actually a lot more of "them" than there are of "us." So, if you go by statistics, it would technically be "their" neighborhood, except that they don't count because they're not homeowners.
Sure, this neighborhood would be better off if there was a higher percentage of homeowners. There are a surplus of houses here that are run-down or empty because the landlords don't bother to keep them maintained or even rented. But there are also homeowners like us who can't afford to do all the repairs that our houses need. So just having the houses owned is not necessarily a guarantee that the area will be well-maintained. You can be "house-proud" but not have the resources to take care of it. And that describes a lot of homeowners around here.
There is help available, however. Weinland Park (where we live) has just been designated as one of the neighborhoods which will receive financial aid to fix up its properties: 3% or 0% loans. I just called and put our name on the list, so we'll see what comes of that. We already qualified for weatherization work about a year and a half ago: the whole house was insulated--for free. We had applied for the program so long before, we actually forgot that we had and then suddenly they called out of the blue and said that they were ready to do our house. Hopefully, we'll be able to qualify for this new program, or we'll never be able to afford to fix the leak around our chimney or the soffits that are falling off the house.
