APNewsBreak: Habitat for Humanity gets $100M gift - Santa Cruz Sentinel: "ATLANTA—The housing market may be sputtering, but Habitat for Humanity International is getting a $100 million jolt.
The nonprofit group tells The Associated Press the gift from J. Ronald Terwilliger will help it build 60,000 homes worldwide. It's the largest individual contribution in Habitat's history.
Terwilliger, an Atlanta-based developer, says he hopes it will offer the world's neediest more access to decent, affordable homes."
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These days, "affordable" is practically synonymous with "common interest housing."
11 comments:
I wouldn't agree. Homes in all price ranges have -- and continue to be -- found in privately governed common interest developments.
Habitat for Humanity has been advised and is aware of the problems (harassment, terrorizing, threats, thefts, fraudulent foreclosures and discrimination, etc.) in many CID's. They, however, continue to develop and build housing within this frame-work. It is just plain stupid!
I have seen a few contacts concerning this "problem," that were sent to Habitat for Humanity, a few years back. If I recall correcty, Shu Bartholomew knows a fair bit about this. Hopefully, she will have an opinion.
I think it's going too far to attempt to hold Habitat for Humanity responsible for problems in private local residential government. Should the organization not build houses in Detroit because of problems in municipal local government there? The problem is with the governance, not the housing.
Ah but the governance is inseparable from the housing because of the use of servitudes to burden the homes with HOAs.
One could make the same argument about municipal ordinances and zoning burdening a home.
Private government is a *public policy* choice expressed via state enabling statutes, local government land use policy and common law precedent to govern privately at the local level. It is that choice that has created the adverse governance problems to which you refer. That choice cannot be simply shrugged off by blithely claiming that it merely comes with a particular dwelling unit.
How much choice does Habitat for Humanity have? Local planning boards LOVE cid housing.
"Local planning boards LOVE cid housing."
The real story from a public policy perspective is not so much the mere fact they love CIDs but rather WHY?
One cannot understand public policy unless one understands the underlying policy rationale. There is way too much shallow discussion that impliedly assumes that CIDs like excrement just happen. WRONG analysis. They are creatures of public policy and that policy is to privatize local government. That is a choice and it doesn't just happen out of the blue.
Municipal ordinances and zoning cannot control housing to the level that servitudes are being used to control housing. Also ordinances and zoning are easier to alter than servitudes. Finally, in many of these subdivisions the residents will never have any authority to change anything because the voting is controlled by developer-centric voting rights which are designed to disenfranchise the homeowners from having any vote.
In parts of Texas, the cities are actually using the fact that servitudes and HOA rules on "private property" can apparently impose unlimited restrictions on property use. The cities have been given enforcement and fining power for enforcing "private" deed restrictions and HOA resolutions - although you will never find the city working to make sure the elections are fair or anything else. In some cases, the cities are making HOA specific rule violations a criminal matter - but crimes that are limited in enforcement to a specific neighborhood and which are not generally applicable to all citizens of the city because a) the crime is defined as such because the HOA elected that the property be subject to an ordinance that cannot otherwise be imposed on the populace and all the residents must likewise be bound by virtue of "mandatory association"; and b) the city cannot impose such ordinances on the general populace. Once again, people in HOAs are noncitizens. The people are just batteries to generate more revenue for the city. This is more than a public policy issue.
see, e.g., "prohibited yard parking program"
http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/ComPlanning/yardparking_prog.html
Here's another one from the city of Houston:
http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/ComPlanning/deed_restr.htm
Note the chart re Prop Code 204. The city is feverishly working to try to force homeowners into mandatory HOAs throughout the city.
Note the bottom of the page where the city indicates its targeted areas. Generally, the city's program focuses on homes in a price range that will correlate with the economically disadvantaged or older (senior citizen) neighborhoods. In addition, the city is targeting areas that don't have mandatory assessments - Why? Because mandatory assessments indicate that there is already an HOA in place. They are specifically targeting areas that do not have HOAs and they are working very hard to impose mandatory HOAs in those locations throughout the city.
"They are specifically targeting areas that do not have HOAs and they are working very hard to impose mandatory HOAs in those locations throughout the city."
This is indeed public policy in action. The questions it raises are:
1) Why is this policy being pursued?
2)Is it good public policy and supported by the electorate?
The policy is being pursued for several reasons:
1) neighborhood "cleansing"
2) neighborhood reclamation (use the HOA - forget the owners)
3) withdrawal of services without a reduction in taxation
One such service is "police protection". Many, many subdivisions in Houston pay significant amounts to police to patrol neighborhoods. One never knows whether it is really the police or a moonlighting officer in uniform using city vehicles under the pretext of being the police. This is also problematic in HOA lawsuits - the police are not independent and know that their contract can be jeopardized if they don't take the HOA's position.
Industry pushes this involuntary servitude schem because the targeted neighborhood generally consists of "easy pickings" - senior citizens with large amounts of equity in their homes and also economically disadvantaged groups in areas that are prime for re-development.
No the general electorate does not support this. The majority of the citizens in these areas do not support this - that's why the city of Houston was proposing approval by a mere 30%. Does it really matter if 99.99% support it if the OWNER doesn't support it? Also, city of Houston was promoting a scheme where verification of "election" results is not possible. The relevant provision of the Property Code was written by a CAI attorney in Houston. The whole mess is designed as a wealth re-distribution scheme from homeowners to CAI affiliates and then developers. CIty of Houston also benefits from the generation of new revenues from "fines" and "civil damages" for breach of restrictive covenants that are applicable only to the specific neighborhood and that are supposedly "private" agreements. The city is becoming the "master association".
The policy is being pursued because the city, vendors, and developers profit from it.
Of course it is not good public policy. Even if it was supported by the electorate, it completely denies the individual the fundamental aspects of property ownership as well as fundamental rights. Majority rule is NOT the deciding factor when it comes to individual rights.
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