Georgia: Thirty Thousand People Show Up at Shopping Center for Chance at Government-Subsidized Housing
August 12th, 2010Holy shit.
Via: Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Thirty thousand people turned out in East Point on Wednesday seeking applications for government-subsidized housing, and their confusion and frustration, combined with the summer heat, led to a chaotic mob scene that left 62 people injured.
At the Tri-Cities Plaza Shopping Center, emergency vehicles passed each other, transporting 20 people to hospitals. Medical and police command posts were set up on scene. East Point police wore riot gear. Officers from four other agencies supported them. Yet no arrests were made.
All of this resulted from people attempting to obtain Section 8 housing applications and, against long odds, later securing vouchers for affordable residences. Some waited in line for two days for the applications.
It is a type of price distortion. The purpose of money in the economy is to allow people to specialize in different areas. If everyone took a step back to a more simple barter economy, there are plenty of people in that group with skills to build and maintain houses, w/o using over 50% of their collective labor. A shortage of buildable land or certain materials is one legitimate reason for increased cost of housing over time, but I don’t think that is the case in Atlanta. It seems like the partly employed people who can’t afford necessities of food/housing/healthcare, (when previous generations could with a single earner household) are not being paid for what they contribute to the economy, i.e. life might be better if they could break off into an alternative system.
I don’t want to play daredevil here, but maybe its some evil masterplan. If they earned more than enough (you have to, to save or stash it under the mattress), they would consume the hell out of the economy. With almost no income, they stay where they are, eat what they get and shut up. Imagine if they got 25$/hour for simple tasks and could afford a house/real food/healthcare themselves: How much would everything in price rise, esp. for the higher earning families? Thats not wanted here. So, until they leave the american dream, american bullhist lala-land and see, that a open system needs internal boundaries, they have to accept such idiotic queues for gov. funded housing. Maybe they don’t get what they should also because the labor market is in fact a really huge oligopoly. A few intertwined corporations, the state and welfare set the wages.
Hm, I am too cynic these days…