dpb wrote:
Ed Pawlowski wrote:
...
I've not asked him about that. He was the construction manager for
the builder on the job. I did read a while back that the house is
leased to the homeowner to get around the tax, but I don't know that
for fact.

That would imply the property is then owned by somebody else who's
paying property taxes, etc. Seems unlikely unless there's a quiet
foundation or something similar behind the scenes as the "sugar
daddy". Can't imagine the production taking on that obligation for
the
duration being a likely cost model.

Do you think if you cannot afford to repair your 1000 sq. ft. house
you can easily afford the utilities on a 4000 sq. ft. palace? And
the taxes that go with it? Depending on where you live, I can see
some of these places costing $1000+ a month just in real estate
taxes and astronomical heating costs.

That was precisely the point I was making. These families apparently
are hand-to-mouth already in many cases in a hovel, where's the
wherewithal going to come from when the new wears off?

Some of the recipients certainly need help and are in trouble
through no fault of their own. A few though, seemed so intent on
doing some other charitable work that they just neglected to take
care of the property they own. Of course, we never know all the
details .

Again, my question/concern/complaint isn't with the principals so much
as it is w/ the premise or model of the aid. Whatever got them to the
position they're in, a good many seem to be without adequate resources
to take care of what they already had. Whether that's a lack of
income or attention to the routine doesn't really matter--is this
"drop a new mansion out of the sky" thing really going to change the
root cause of the problem whether it is financial or behavioral? It
only seems likely to do so imo if the case is one where there was a
catastrophic event that caused a problem that a one-time infusion can
obviate and they have the wherewithal to go on once the situation is
set of on a new zero-point. If, otoh, there still isn't enough
current income to meet expenses or the underlying behaviors change
(and it surely is hard to get people to change long-term behavior
voluntarily), it seems almost inevitable that the situation will just
revert to that found previously.

If there is some longer-term support, that would be good--but, as you
say, there's no way to know overall; all one hears about is the ones
that do go bad, of course.

I'd like to see them all succeed; I agree that most I saw had serious
problems and were trying to do good. We participate in aiding
situations like that in the area thru other less dramatic
mechanisms...

It's all based in the same notion as Welfare--the way to make a poor person
rich is to give him stuff.

Poverty for the most part comes from doing the wrong things in your life,
not from simply not having money--give someone with the wrong attitude a
million dollars and he'll spend it all and end up back where he started
from. Change the attitude and even if he's working at McDonalds eventually
he'll start getting ahead.