THE WAR ON COMMERCIAL LOW-INCOME HOUSING IN AMERICA
Death by a Thousand Cuts
(c) 2003, Mike Barkley
Low income? Can't find a place to live? This is why.

There used to be a huge industry in this country dedicated to providing you cheap housing. You and the politicians who work for you have systematically destroyed it. Congratulations! You're living in your car because you succeeded so well! Yet, you still blame the people you ran out of business. How silly you are.

And you think it's bad now? It's just begun. In the coming years you are going to see an avalanche of homelessness as commercial low income housing stock continues to disappear without replacement.

Operating rental housing is not for the timid. It's a quick way to meet the worst in human behavior. Most people get out of it fairly early, and of those who remain, they either get hard or go broke. Still, until 1986 it didn't matter because there was always someone new to step into the market.

• Federal
  • The 1986 Tax Reform Act - imposing tax on money you may never see - even with State and Local barriers to commercial low-income housing, until the 1986 Tax Reform Act and the subsequent (and resulting) S&L collapses, apartment projects were constructed routinely and profitably - no matter what mistakes were made in their design, construction, or operation, they could be made up on tax breaks and on the sale to the next guy. This came to a screeching halt in 1986, as if the entire industry ran into a brick wall. It not only choked off the flow of commercial low-income housing replacement, it drove many of the operators out of the business and discouraged new entrants.
    • Depreciation periods lengthened / accelerated methods banned
    • Passive investment designations and limits on losses
    • Rental income property loss limits even if not "passive"
    • Interest expense limits
    • Taxing of preference items / alternative minimum tax
    • The so-called "Low-income housing credit": illustrative of the government's failure to understand that the bulk of low-income housing came from the two sources they were killing (unless of course it was deliberate class warfare):
      • Obsolescence of the existing rental housing stock in the face of new construction
      • Commercially viable projects under existing tax laws and lending rules.
  • The subsequent collapse of the Savings & Loan Industry, followed by stiffened rules on rental property loans - federal authorities have made it as difficult to finance residential commercial property as they have made it easy to finance single-family homes. They could not make it more clear that they feel the government has a mission to choke off the supply of commercial low-income housing.
    • Bulldozing apartments in Texas - 'bye 'bye, tomorrow's low-income housing
• State - The California Experience
  • Evictions are dangerous - the longer they take, the more dangerous they are. And of course, if you can't get them out, you either won't let them in or you will lose your property.
  • Statutory Eviction limitations
    • Theft of property & services: "I know my rights!", as in "the right to steal"....
    • No "self help"
    • 60 day notices, up from 30 days.
  • Procedural Eviction delays - how a procedure set at 13 days in the codes actually takes 30 to 90 days or more
    • The Courts
      • Claim of right provisions backfire, court clerks interpret it as substituted service
      • Delays in setting court dates versus the "5 days", etc. in the code
      • access to the judges; the judges endorse legalized theft, at least for awhile...
      • issuance of writs
    • The Sheriff takes his sweet time - Sheriff Baxter Dunn letter
  • Deposits - The Terrorists Won : many landlords walk away from damage and cleaning costs rather than fight this nosebleed
    • State codes
      • Limitations
      • Offsets
    • The Small-Claims Court crap shoot - what the codes say versus what the judge does.
  • Collections
• Local
  • Discriminatory law enforcement - a letter to the Manteca Bulletin
  • Defrauding an Inkeeper - hotels and restaurants versus apartments, but the language is the same in the codes, go figure.
    • Embezzlement - when is a felony not a felony? When the victim is a landlord.
    • Identity Theft - how law enforcement ignores merchants defrauded by customers with false identities
  • Theft of services
  • Trespass
  • Trespassing vehicles - the failure of California Vehicle Code Section 22658
  • Abandoned vehicles - the City of Manteca shirks its duty under Vehicle Code Section 22660
  • Vandalism/malicious mischief
  • The San Joaquin County District Attorney prosecutes landlords for renting to people despite information regarding criminal history known only to law enforcement - the ultimate Catch 22: the D.A. won't tell us, the D.A. won't cooperate, but they will prosecute us for not knowing what they know (and which knowledge it is illegal for us to possess?).
• Rent control - the most punitive tax in America and the ultimate kiss of death to commercial low-income rental housing, if nothing else kills it, rent control does.

Until 1986, sufficient commercial low-income rental housing was assured because sufficient housing for everyone was assured. After 1986, all the low-income patch programs were mere spitting in the wind because no government program conceived could begin to make up for the loss of commercial viability of the industry.

- - - - - - - - EMBEZZLEMENT OF REAL PROPERTY

Felonies against person and property have two remedies, one civil by the victim in the courts and the other criminal on behalf of the state. The unlawful detention of real property, an embezzlement under California law as it is written, is the only major felony which is never prosecuted (at least in California) and it's also the only one not prosecuted because the government asserts that the civil remedy is adequate, a position victims know to be an unsupportable fiction. When representatives of the government assert such embezzlement is not a felony, they are parroting the ignorance they were taught or they are lying to protect themselves against litigation. The failure to treat landlords equally with the people who steal from them should be actionable under Federal civil rights statutes. - - - - - - - - Return to Sentinel Home.

--Mike Barkley, 161 N. Sheridan Ave. #1, Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com
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