A landlord I know rented his property out to a section-8 voucher holder. The process involved having a CHAC (Chicago Housing Authority) representative inspect the premises to ensure that it was up to code. The property was in great condition, so the inspector came up with a light list of things that he needed to address. My friend wrapped up the work in a matter of days and called CHAC to schedule a follow up inspection.
Two weeks later, when a different inspector came out, the landlord presented him the original list and showed him that he had dutifully attended to each and every repair. The 2nd inspector replied "the last guy's list don't mean nothing to me..." and proceeded to write up a list of minute repairs, which the landlord was able to knock down in less than an hour.
Two weeks later a 3rd inspector came out. Ignoring the the reports of his predecessors, he wrote up a contrived set of repairs...which necessitated a 4th inspection two weeks later! Naturally, my friend and the prospective tenant were quite perturbed that the terrible organization of CHAC dragged out the process for over three months. The end result was three months of lost rent for the landlord and a tenant who needless had to wait for her apartment.
If CHAC were efficient, they would have sent the same guy to re-inspect the property or at least required that all inspectors use the same case sheet for each property. Either option would have resolved the problem in two inspectors, rather than four. At first we attributed this to terrible organization, but after hearing this same story from a half dozen other landlords we became convinced that it was intentional. The 2nd and 3rd inspectors had to generate arbitrary lists of repairs to justify their presence in a bloated, overstaffed bureaucracy. If enough inspectors were able to wrap up a case in half the time, with half the work, sooner or later the bureaucracy might be forced to do what is fiscally and ethically sound - streamline their operations to waste less of the taxpayer's money.
I am certain that the same dynamics apply to other government workers, from the lowliest bureaucrat all the way to Pelosi and Obama. We can be certain that not even the highest mountain of evidence that indicated that the market will correct itself and the recession will run its course would ever prompt Pelosi or Obama to take a less interventionist course of action.
To do so would diminish their importance and power. The expansion of their power and prestige is contingent on the existence of a crisis that only they, with their divine intervention, can solve. And by spending a trillion dollar on permanent programs to solve a temporary ailment, these demagogues increase the dependency of individuals, businesses and whole communities on the federal government.
Intelligent individuals and communities who are not dependent on the state hold politicians and parties accountable and accordingly are more independent in their voting patterns. And of course, those who are dependent on the state will always vote for the same statist politicians and parties, no matter how poorly they deliver. Just look at how awful public schools and public services are in African-American communities in Chicago, yet the democratic machine is strongest in those very communities. Now that's change we can believe in!
Very nicely stated, sir. I find myself wholeheartedly in agreement with you.
ReplyDeleteHaving just found your blog today, I've scanned a number of your posts and I like what I see. Keep up the fantastic work.
http://glenoterica.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-firsts-in-american-history.html
Thank you very much Gleno!
ReplyDeleteThe taxpayer pays for the 4 demented gov employees.
ReplyDeleteThe taxpayer will pay for the rent if/when the tenant actually moves in.
The taxpayer, in one month of the anointed presidency, is 1 trillion, or nearly $10,000 per income tax payer, deeper in debt.
Feel stimulated yet?
We have a president, an administration, and a congress who would look at the scenario Jason has described, and view the landlord as greedy and not paying his fair share, the bureaucrats as checks on the wild free market system (and, incredibly, as stimulus), and the tenant-to-be as a victim of a country full of cruel an unjust people.
Jason has told us a story of bureaucrats with absolute powers over property owners. Stand by for that same competence and care with healthcare, banking, auto industry, energy, and goodness knows what else.
So long, America. It was a great run.
CHAC has come a long way in their inspection process, so I have to give them credit even though they are not 100 %. The problems I have involve the tenant doing things like ripping – breaking doors, putting large holes in the walls, breaking windows, ripping kitchen counters from the wall, putting holes in SOLID wood floors, destroying stoves (3 to date) and ALWAYS it is marked as a land lord fail. I fix, paint, get the unit passed and within 9 months they are back out and the tenant has done it again. First year was over $1000 in damage, then the next year $2500, now it has jump to $5000 in damages. I call and call and call, I get customer service (which can do nothing) they refer me to her CHAC rep who never calls back (23 calls and counting). I fax in complaint letters asking for help and they never get them (funny I hear the fax machine pick up on the other end, and I get fax send messages on my end). I all but beg them for help, nothing. I am now faced with having to evict the tenant and her children. I hate this! Why don’t they help the people in their program? As a business decision I would not recommend CHAC section 8 housing to a land lord. On the personal side, this is a travesty. She will go back into the system and someone else will get the mess, and the children get to live in a house where doors are kicked in, holes are punched in walls, and God knows what else all paid for by the government. In the end no one sees, no one hears, no one that will read this will do anything. It’s sad.
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