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Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues.
It wasn’t easy to keep up with the business flooding through the Council as the latest session neared its end. Amid the bills dealing with Greater Southeast Community Hospital, authorizing development bonds, addressing land deals in the West End and over the Center Leg Freeway, and placing moratoria on new Adams Morgan taverns, an interesting pattern nonetheless emerged. In just this past week, the Council agreed to halt single sales of alcohol on H Street for three years, introduced legislation clamping down on fireworks sales and use, and gave preliminary approval to a measure capping payday loan interest at a 24 percent annual rate of interest.
The vibe given off by the Council cast them squarely in the role of public nanny. It’s also clear that the Council’s actions were not exactly a temporary departure from form. During last year’s crime outbreak, the Council quickly signed on to Mayor Williams’ crime prevention measures, which included expansions of video surveillance and a contentious 10 p.m. curfew for people under the age of 18. In the past year as well, Council members, and particularly Ward 1 representative Jim Graham, have acted swiftly to close down District businesses connected with crimes, even when it appears that there was little the business could have done to stop the criminal act. Increasingly, it seems that the Council’s first inclination when faced with a problem is to restrict choice.
It isn’t difficult to understand why. As the District’s population has grown, patience with lawlessness and the city’s neglect of quality of life issues has grown thin, and demands upon public officials to improve order in the city have increased. In many ways, the new lack of patience is a welcome and healthy thing; it’s right that public officials see how frustrated residents are with lagging public services and feel pressure to fix things.
At the same time, the Council seems all too willing to reach for the easiest and most facile conclusions available to them. Ward 6 Council Member Tommy Wells, in pushing for the H Street singles moratorium, directed constituents toward numbers showing drastic drops in police calls in Mount Pleasant since a similar ban was passed there four years ago, blindly assuming, it seems, that absolutely no other trends have been at work since 2003. Of course, during that same time period homicides across the city have fallen by a third; should we likewise attribute that decline to the Mount Pleasant singles ban?
Picture taken by the The Skipping Hippy.
The payday-lending bill is a more peculiar example. The notion of usurious companies trapping innocents in a negative spiral of growing debt tugs at the heartstrings. On the other hand, the price of a loan to high-risk borrowers is high interest; without adequate compensation for the assumption of such risk, such loans will not be made. Is a 400 percent “annual” rate too high? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but if capping payday lending rates at 5 percent of that level drives the industry out of the District, the Council will have succeeding in eliminating a large source of credit for the city’s poor. Perhaps Mary Cheh, Ward 3 Council member and sponsor of the bill, should go to the customers of these businesses and tell them why she believes they are not responsible enough to handle borrowing money like the rest of us.
Which isn’t to say that her motives are bad in this case. Rather, she displays a tendency, along with much of the rest of the Council, to eliminate choice—the easiest route—instead of tackling the difficult underlying issues that lead to those choices in the first place. The problem on H Street manifestly is not single sales of beer. It is the presence of a large number of underemployed, under-skilled, and poor individuals, whose problems are not easily solved. So rather than solve them, the Council chooses to place a nice stalking horse of a band-aid over them in the form of the singles ban, to assuage the concerns of those who want order and to make life more difficult for the vagrants in the hope that they’ll then behave or move to someplace else, all because they can no longer buy one can of beer.
And this seems to be the way we do things now. It’s hard for us to see how to improve the earning status of low-income individuals enough to free them from the need to use payday lenders; since we can’t tackle that issue, we eliminate the lenders. We don’t know what to do about children suffering from too much time and too little supervision, so we ban them from the streets at night and take away their fireworks and hope they don’t find some other trouble to get themselves into. Despite a long-term drop in crime in this city, we still face high and stubborn levels of violence, and because the police can’t make it go away quickly, we shut down any business unlucky enough to find itself in close proximity to some argument gone wrong.
There are times when restrictive policy is justified. From my perspective (and I know this isn’t necessarily a perspective others share), the benefits to banning smoking in public places and the benefits to curtailing gun ownership outweigh the costs. In those cases, it’s also clear that the problem being addressed is actually the problem being addressed. The smoking ban isn’t a lame effort to target some more stubborn and sensitive issue, and gun restrictions aren’t attempting to mask some more delicate and intractable problem. Agree with those positions or disagree, there is at least clarity as to the issue and the goal.
But not so for the Council’s new nannying. Under pressure from those fed up by a lack of order in the District and unsure how to solve the deep divides between the haves and have nots, the Council has taken the easy route, striking quickly and determinedly at the most superficial of things. And that’s disappointing. It’s disappointing that we so gladly accept these new curtailments of choice, and it’s disappointing that we don’t call the Council on the game it’s playing.
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It is well past time that dc'ers recognize that the total capability of this council is incapability at its highest level. Their actions in restricting your freedom is met by roaring silence and your quality of life diminishes daily as they rachet up ban after ban with no supporting evidence for their actions. This city has already lost major tourism as who wants to come to a city where freedom is a memory. The Japanese sure don't as their visits have decreased 40% from last year. As I stated with the smoking ban, 'soon they will come for you'. They continue to push one fool agenda after another and they are incompentent to handle any problem in intelligent terms. Drive by shootings at night? Ban everyone from driving at night. Simpletons do as simpletons are. You allowed and welcomed the door to open and now they are taking the liberal mile of oppression. It's a slippery slope you have allowed.
I'm told that Massachusetts still has a law on the books that forbids the feeding of lobster to slaves seven days per week. When it was enacted, lobster was plentiful, cheap, and used as bait for more popular seafood.
I wish all stalking-horse band-aids would fall into such absurdist obscurity. I also wish my local liquor store was open on Sundays.
Ryan: Your argument against the payday bill is bizarre. Cheh's bill gets rid of the exemption payday lenders have from the District's usury caps. I see it more as leveling the playing field than anything else. Why does one group of lenders have an exemption that is applicable to every other lender? Under your logic, loan sharking should be legal because, after all, it's just another option for consumers. I think if you did a bit more research, rather than posting knee-jerk reactions, you'd find that a growing number of states see payday lending for what it is: legalized loansharking that preys on low-income residents. Even Congress last year figured out what payday lending was all about and capped payday loans charged to military servicemembers and their families at 36% APR. Maryland does not allow payday lending. Neither does West Virginia. Or New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Oregon, and about 8 other states.
I'm all for consumers having choices. So long as the playing field among competitors is the same. As it stands now, the payday lenders are immune from usury laws that apply to everyone else. There is very clearly demand for short-term, unsecured loans. By putting all lenders on the same playing field, consumers will benefit through more loan products being offered at non-usurious rates.
--Cranky
Lots of places have rent control laws, too. That doesn't mean they're a good idea. You assume that the rate of interest payday lenders charge doesn't accurately reflect the risk inherent in the loan. Maybe it doesn't, but if it does, then Cheh's bill will sharply curtail the ability of these businesses to operate. Other lenders, like banks and credit card companies, aren't going to charge risky borrowers nice low rates out of the goodness of their hearts; they'll simply reject their loan applications, and credit will be denied to low-income borrowers because we've judged them unable to determine for themselves what they should and should not be able to do with their own money. Remember, Cheh's bill won't affect the borrowing options of households making six figures per year.
And the broader point is this: rather than address the aspects of poverty that make payday loans an occasionally negative part of life, the Council seems ready to just nip at the already limited financial tools of the poor. Eliminating payday lending won't pull people out of poverty, but it will get rid of lots of businesses that make Cheh's constituents uncomfortable.
This commentary is a good example of utopian thinking at its worst. Rather than undertake concrete steps to make the lives of DC residents better, Ryan would have the City Council legislate away poverty, poor education, bad lifestyle choices, and racism. Let's get this out in the open: poverty isn't going away anytime soon, and there's nothing the council can do to change that situation.
So, the next best thing is to regulate the negative behavior associated with poverty. I'm completely in favor of the "nanny" bills that the council has issued, including the single serving law. Where in the constitution does it specify that citizens are entitled to drink 40 ouncers on the street? Does this fall under freedom of speech?
In a nutshell, DC certainly doesn't suffer from an overabundance of restriction. When you have 10 year old kids throwing bricks and selling drugs, maybe a little "nannying" might be a good idea, eh?
Anyone who is for the smoking ban but against the single-sales ban is a fucking moron. Smoking is bad, but urinating in public and trash everywhere is good?!? Yeah, that's logical.
The correlation between smoking in restaurants and second-hand smoke probably approaches 1. The correlation between the purchase of singles and litter/public urination is much weaker. Since you brought up logic...
Guest: You really think there's no correlation between purchase of singles and litter / public urination / crimes of opportunity?
Really? Have you never lived near a place that sells singles?
DCist is showing it's youth and lack of real world experience in this post.
I enjoy posting on DCist (too much so, some would say). But one thing I find endlessly alternatively humorous and frustrating is that DCist writers often write like they've never lived in the real world and they are simply experiencing DC for the purposes of writing a term paper for their Urban Utopia Wonderland community college course.
It's pretty simple, really. Selling singles obviously meant for immediate consumption to street bums and neighborhood streetcorner thugs sucks. It makes living in entire blocks and areas really suck for no good reason. Noboby said a singles ban will end crime. But it's worked very well in other areas in DC, and it cuts down on a lot of the annoying crimes that make urban living unpleasant. And it frees up police to concentrate on more serious crime.
And not allowing check cashing places to charge obscene amounts of interest is a very good thing because it protects stupid people from their own stupidity.
Contrary to DCist's apparent opinion, there really are a lot of people in society that are fairly stupid and need to be protected from their own stupidity. And there are a lot of slick operators out there that can and will take advantage of even reasonably intelligent people.
As a practicing stupid person, I take issue with Hillman's contention that stupid people (or the "differently smart" which is the sensitive and correct term) need protection from their own stupidity. It is clearly within my right to use Lotto as a retirement/investment plan, just as it is my right to be charged usurous interest rates for instant gratification.
I will agree that for sheer entertainment value, Ryan's utopian urban visions rank up there with The Glass Bead Game and The Story of the Vivian Girls. What I find fascinating is the ability to cherrypick good nannyism (guns, nicotine) versus bad nannyism (predatory lending, singles, club shutdowns), as if they existed in a vaccuum. The kneejerk reactions Ryan derides are the kneejerk reactions that the Council's constituency demands. Is the fault a nanny Council or a constituency that insists on being nannied?
Every single sold in DC is purchased, consumed, and urinated IN DC, usually in the open-trench latrines we refer to as "alleys." The singles ban won't have any impact on violent crime. It isn't meant to. It's meant to address quality-of-life issues that affect the affluent and poor alike. And if the Council would one day grow a pair and pass a bottle bill, the singles drinkers would return those empties for their deposit. As for addressing poverty, like God Jr. said, "The poor will always be among you." That doesn't mean we can't help them get jobs if they're willing to work. It does mean residents who are tired of living in a urinal will exercise their right to whine and do something about it. And where is the pro-urine contingent anyway? They can't all be at Pissmop Night at Ibiza.
And it's way too early for a 2nd Amendment dogpile, but I have to say THAT kind of nannying really frosts my Kelvinator. When the nannying gets to the point where it starts creeping into the Constitution, what parts of the Bill of Rights should be open to nannying? Because that whole First Amendment dealie is really starting to piss me off. Because someone on a blog somewhere MIGHT say something hurtful and lower the self-esteem of differently smart persons like myself! Clearly, the Council needs to author bold legislation like the Protection of Kittens, Puppies, and Anonymous Bloggers from Speech that They Might Find Offensive Act of 2007. And I suggest dcist be cited as an unindicted co-conspirator. Might actually get your readership numbers up.
I do find it telling that the writer doesn't include one of the most long term government intervention schemes - rent control.
Perhaps could it be because DCist writers artificially benefit from rent control, so they are willing to make an exception for it, so it escapes their rather odd list of 'nanny state' items?
But I wonder what Ryan's 'solution' for the pathologies exhibited on H Street would be? More free housing for the 'underemployed' as he calls them? That's been tried for 30 years. Job training programs? Again, been tried for 30 years. Midnight basketball?
There are plenty of jobs for these folks. Have been for at least the last 10 years. Often it's simply a matter of them not wanting to work, and the fact that we've made it so easy for them to 'work' by hanging out on the corner, drinking all day, and waiting for a chance to steal stuff from those that are chumps enough to actually go to work all day.
What would help is real policing, which has been sorely lacking in DC.
But given DCist's history of painting everything as 'haves' and 'have-nots', I'm sure we'd see an endless series of stories bemoaning the evil police 'harassing' the innocent streetcorner character that really just lives to make the children sing and laugh, not break into people's houses, piss on their cars, and steal all their stuff - while the evil working homeowner sits at home on big piles of $100 bills, gloating while they thumb through the latest issue of Gentrifier Weekly.
DCist writers sometimes seem to make the same mistake - confusing crime and shitty behavior with being poor. They are NOT the same thing. They also assume that poor people are thrilled to have public drinking, crime, and other crap in their neighborhoods. I find this assumption to be very odd, condescending at best, and a pretty good indicator of the level of real world experience some DCist writers actually have.
Hillman, I guess I don't know what you mean by real world. Trust me, though, I'm not as youthful as I used to be. You'll also note that I mention rent control in a comment above. Sadly, the mortgage I pay for my home in Brookland doesn't get any lower when MFL Barry writes new rent control laws.
And look, I'm not saying we should tolerate poor behavior. If people are committing crimes, then they should be punished. Drunkenness is responsible for lots of unpleasant behavior, from all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds. We could eliminate a lot of dangerous activity by banning booze. Should we? Why is it that we choose singles to ban and not double vodka redbulls?
Monkey, please don't start a 2nd amendment discussion. My only point with those particular policies is that they aren't a stalking horse for some other goal. We don't restrict gun use so that the government's totalitarian impulses can go unchecked, we restrict gun use so that people use guns less. Whether or not that works is not the discussion I want to have here. My point is that we don't restrict singles because we don't like singles, we restrict singles because we don't like the people who drink singles. So fine, take the singles away. Oddly enough, the people drinking them are still there, and they aren't suddenly saints because you took away a choice they had.
And yeah, it's fun for everyone to call my posts utopian. It's a real pipe dream to think that we might spend more money on transit or try to fix our schools or think hard about what we might do about persistent poverty. I have to tell you, utopia ain't what it used to be.
The idea that some laws are "nanny laws" and some are not is illusory. All laws are "nanny laws" because that's what the government is there for: to protect us from ourselves and others.
Even to the extent that you try to define "nanny laws" as being those laws that regulate behavior that affects only the person subject to the regulations, I still don't see how banning singles comes even close. Banning singles sales is not just about protecting bums from themselves, it's about protect everyone from the results of that bum getting his drink on.
And to your larger point that these laws do nothing but sweep the problem over. Fine. So what? DC is making a concerted effort to rehabilitate H St. If it wants to move the problem over a few blocks in the interest of improving its stated target, then let it. In the end, a revitalized H St. is probably going to do more to decrease the aggregate poverty than sitting around navel gazing thinking that we can cure poverty before improving our neighborhoods.
Ryan-
Because double vodka redbulls are generally not pissed out into my alley.
signed,
God Jr.
I don't think it's so much that we don't like the people who drink singles, we just don't like the inevitably stinky behavior singles result in. You can't drive with an open container of beer, right? That doesn't mean we hate drivers OR people who drink beer. We've just decided as a society that the two really shouldn't be together. You can still get your drunk on on H Street, it's just that you have to go through the added hassle of saving your panhandlings or go in on my personal fave, the three-liter jug of Carlo Rossi.
And you're making a curiously libertarian argument, in that people should be free to have choice in negative behavior...so long as they're within the poverty bracket. So just because Ms. Oksana Bagels of Georgetown is free to drink her merlot on her stoop and vomit in her neighbors begonias, Ivy City Antwayne should have the same options of stinking up his 'hood? That's some whacky egalitarianism!
But really, nobody thinks that with the singles ban, all the drunks will suddenly wake up and smell the pee and sign up for an adult education course in How to Polish Up Your Resume. Yes, it's a Band Aid on a sucking chest wound, but when all you have is Band Aids and the First Aid kit is empty because you sold the tourniquets to pay off your pimp, you have to make do with what you have.
Come to think of it, I don't have much use for the hiptards who drink vodka redbulls either, so I have no problem with that ban.
Hillman:
I did not say "no correlation". I said the correlation was "much weaker". Simmer down and read what I write before you post a reply, please.
Yes. I've *only* lived in places that sell singles. Singles of beer, fifths of Popov Vodka, singles of MD 20/20- the list goes on and on. Where, pray tell, does it end?
I would call on you to please support (through action, not rhetoric) the enforcement of existing public nuisance laws (littering, DIP, UIP, etc) and a new and robust deposit/return law.
Reid, I do understand why people want the ban. And I do understand that a ban might contribute to the pace at which H Street revitalizes. H Street revitalization will also reduce poverty in the neighborhood. In general, that won't be because it made poor people less poor. It will be because it made poor people less there.
And monkey, I'm not saying that everyone should have the unfettered right to get blitzed and pee on people. I am saying that it's a little screwed up that the Council is NOT an equal opportunity restrictor of choice.
Ryan:
I apologize. You did end up mentioning rent control at least in passing before I made my rant.
Ryan:
Your statement:
"H Street revitalization will also reduce poverty in the neighborhood. In general, that won't be because it made poor people less poor. It will be because it made poor people less there."
Nonsense. Revitalization brings new jobs, new everything. Boarded up store fronts employ no one.
Yes, there will be more middle class and financially stable people. But the considerable majority of those are being housed in trendy new condos - the emphasis being on new.
Revitalization provides a lot of opportunities for employment. Sometimes existing neighborhood residents take advantage of that. Sometimes they don't.
And as for those displaced - more than half of DC is still just like H Street - where opportunities for low income housing abound.
Ah, the old "if you ban singles you might as well ban alcohol" canard.
When people are drinking vodka double redbulls on my corner, then pissing them into my car or yard, then we'll talk about trying to regulate that.
We've always picked and chosen what liquor we regulate, and how. A singles ban is just one more example of that.
Singles exist primarily to serve the street drunk crowd. It's really as simple as that.
There is no 'right' to sell such a product, then sit back and do nothing while your patrons literally piss on their neighbors thanks to your product.
I blame not only the street drunks. I blame the liquor and corner stores that sell this crap, then pack up and go back to their MD suburbs at night.
Guest:
Please keep in mind that if we ever get a bottle deposit bill in DC, we'll possibly end up with a delightful new phenomenon: people digging through the trash to make a living. Chances are quite slim they'll bag your trash up nicely after they've emptied it looking for bottles.
And monkey, I'm not saying that everyone should have the unfettered right to get blitzed and pee on people.
Here's where we differ, because I AM a firm believer in enshrining this right in the Dipsomaniacal Urolagnist Empowerment Act of 2007, as sponsored by Beverage Bottlers Association and Kim Kardashian.
Let me put this in terms that maybe you can appreciate. As you yourself noted in your blog, you're completely in favor of demolishing/burying the Southeast Freeway. The endgame being fewer cars in the core, more business real estate for tax revenues and residences for affordable housing. The negative behavior being automobiles going through an urban environment. Replace "automobiles" with "singles" and you basically have the pro-singles-ban argument: hate the sin, love (or tolerate) the sinner.
As for "simply" enforcing existing nuisance laws, residents have been trying to get the cops to do this for DECADES. It doesn't work. You call downtown saying someone's taking a wiz in your backyard and when the cops show up in late August, the Mr. Weak Bladder has already hopped a boxcar to Barstow.
And a "robust bottle bill?" Last time DC tried it, the bottle bill crowd spent $80K lobbying, and the bottle industry spent $2.2 MILLION. They'll be screening shaved panda amputee snuff films in the Vatican before DC gets a bottle bill.
But Ryan did hit on one thing correctly - DC residents are getting tired of a lot of the crap that went on unchallenged in DC for the last 30 years.
The shiny glitter of Marion Barry and his ilk - claiming that all investment other than liquor stores and nail salons were evil and that we could run a city by providing only for the very poor in a way that encouraged them to be unproductive citizens, not require anyone to actually do any work, that there were no truly bad or lazy people, that all could be cured with a make-work summer job program and midnight basketball, and simply let the 5% of the rich in Georgetown and such pay for the rest of the city - has finally worn thin, and many are beginning to see that that shine came primarily from the fact that the load of shit they were being fed had sat in the sun too long, creating an enticing sheen that they couldn't see past for 30 years.
But I don't see that as a negative. I see that as a positive.
And it's not just the 'haves' that are demanding change.
Does anyone really believe that singles are sold to the street drunks crowd, really? really? really?
I lived in College Park and we'd regularly buy singles because:
1. They were cheap and we could afford better pizza with them
2. My roommates would have bummed or stolen the remainder of a sixpack
3. Pilsner Urquel tasted pretty good, but Colt 45 was really wild.
4. They were ice cold and near the door
Since I drove to the liquor store, I couldn't drink them until I was back at my house.
I bought singles once or twice in Mt Pleasant prior to the ban. Since my neighbors haven't reduced their complaints about public drunkenness and urination- I can't say whether the ban worked. Frankly, I think people who complain about three drunks would probably complain the same about 1 drunk even though it's a reduction. The complaint now is that people leaving a bar at 1am leer at women walking home. I came home at 1am in June and decided to stop at 7-11 and I ran into boisterous guys talking about soccer who filed into their apartment buildings. No urination, no leering, nothing more than guys leaving a sports bar. So I really wonder- do these quality of life problems only happen when I'm not around?
"It will be because it made poor people less there."
But Ryan, don't you think having a revitalized H St. could benefit those poor people? Or do you think that the only way to benefit them is through government spending on social programs?
I believe that having an economic renaisance on H St. will benefit many of the poor people that live on and around H St. And in my opinion, the people who will benefit the most from the singles ban are all those poor people who aren't buying singles and trashing the neighborhood.
Will a certain number of poor people miss out on the benefits of a revitalized H St. and be shuffled off to other forgotten corners? Certainly, but it's not a zero sum game. Many other poor people will benefit both on an economic level and a quality of life level.
And besides, it's a false choice to say that we either ban singles or we provide more government funding of social programs. And it's a similarly false choice to say that we can only have revitalization of H St. by moving all poor people to another sector.
Ryan:
Your payday arguments aren't based on facts. Payday lenders charge triple-digit APR interest rates because they can, not because it reflects the risk of a loan. I have no problem with interest rates reflecting credit risk. But there's a difference between charging 400% APR because a borrower is a significant risk and because you can charge the borrower whatever you want knowing that he'll likely pay it because he has no grasp on how bad the deal is for him.
Credit unions have been issuing payday-type loans. They are for $1,000 or less, they are capped at 18% APR, and they come with financial education for the borrower. As a result of a recent FDIC guidance letter, banks are likely to move into this area as well. Will banks and credit unions make huge profits from offering these loans? Not at all. It's not possible for them to make huge profits when their interest rates are capped by usury laws. But banks and credit unions are more interested in getting that borrower to become a long-term customer, rather than is making quick profits off their 2-week loans. Payday lenders have no similar concern. Their goal is to make loans to people who can't pay them off in 2 weeks, then extend the loan for an additional fee, and keep repeating this process for several rollovers. That's where payday lenders profits come in: from the continual rolling over of a 2-week loan so that it's not a two-week loan anymore, but a loan of several months' length.
As I said before, there is clearly a market demand for these short-term, small-dollar loans. But where is the fairness is requiring one set of rules for all lenders and then exempting payday lenders from those same rules? If you'd look at research from several other states that have gotten rid of payday lending in the past 7 years, you'll find that while most payday lenders do wind up closing their doors, other lenders - whether banks, credit unions, or consumer finance companies - come in to fill that void. And they do so while complying with state usury and consumer protection laws.
Hillman:
I recycle. It's the law. Cans and bottles go in one container, not with general trash. You (yes, you, Mr. Law and Order) do that too, right?
In the big picture, I don't really care if some enterprising poor and/or homeless person hauls it away for bucks and change, rather than the city doing it. In fact, if they did, I kinda think it might free up DPW resources for other good things.
Monkey: I'm aware of the forces lined up against a deposit/return law. But it's the right thing to do- I think it's inevitable in the long run- and so is calling out those councilmembers who whore against it. Why wait?
No, I don't recycle regularly. Why? Because three out of every four times the recycle guys don't pick it up. I get tired of having to haul it back in after waiting weeks for them to pick up.
Most people in my neighborhood gave up on recycling in DC for this very reason.
Maybe they've gotten better recently. But for the better part of ten years they've sucked to the point that it's become a bad joke.
And do you really think the homeless guys are going to neatly restack your recycle container after they've dug through it and emptied it's contents everywhere?
And do you think they will limit themselves to recycle containers and ignore regular trash?
I'm not saying a bottle bill is all bad. Bottle bills are a good idea in many ways. I'm just saying this is one possible result that should be considered.
Hillman: Give it another shot. They've gotten much better in response to demands, at least from what I can see. I agree they did suck when it first started. If you've not been doing it, you'll want to keep on 727-1000 'till they get into the habit.
I've got bigger waste management concerns than homeless guys replacing my trash neatly. I've got kids running around who dump them over for fun. At least the homeless guys might clean some of that mess up, and there might be less broken glass in the alley if it were worth something to someone.
Reid, I agree with most of what you're saying. And no, a singles ban isn't mutually exclusive with efforts to do something to improve the lives of those exhibiting the negative behavior. But I'm not seeing the public outcry for better policies vis-a-vis the destitute. Just arguments that crime fell in Mt. Pleasant because they banned singles. No, it didn't.
Cranky, is this the FDIC guidance letter? It says that payday borrowers have "few, if any, lower-cost borrowing alternatives." If you want to regulate payday lending to improve credit checks and ensure that lenders aren't knowingly lending to customers who cannot pay, then I totally support you. But capping interest rates is not good policy, in my opinion.
Ryan: No, that FDIC page is outdated. The recent guidance is here: http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2007/pr07052a.html
If capping interest rates is a bad idea to you, then why not do away with all usury laws and bans on loansharking? After all, it's just more options for consumers, right? What's wrong with 400% APR on your credit cards? Or 60% on your student loans? All are the same kinds of unsecured credit.
First, 400% APR, in this case, just means that someone is willing to accept $84 today instead of $100 two weeks from now. Second, are you advocating caps on other prices, as well?
If I need to borrow money, and I can afford 60% interest, why shouldn't I be able to borrow? If the lender knows or suspects strongly that I cannot afford such a loan, then he shouldn't be allowed to make it. Otherwise, I don't see the problem.
In general, that won't be because it made poor people less poor. It will be because it made poor people less there.
Concentrated multi-generational poverty begets concentrated multi-generational poverty. In Chicago, public housing high-rises like Cabrini Green became engines of dysfunction. When they went to tear them down, there was a *huge* outcry from people making the same type of argument you're making.
It's a real pipe dream to think that we might spend more money on transit or try to fix our schools or think hard about what we might do about persistent poverty.
Looking forward to someone--just for once--to "try to fix our schools" and "think hard" about poverty. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to gentrification, and a voucher-fueled dispersal of the chronically impoverished to other areas of the region (whether DC, MD, or VA). Sorry, but there it is.
I've got kids running around who dump them over for fun.
-----------
just in case anyone doubts this, I saw kids have a trash fight in philadelphia where in about 60 seconds they had dumped over all the cans on the block and were flinging bags at each other, screaming and laughing. When the police showed up, they asked, literally, if the "wind" did it. So I know kids do this.
ibc, you should probably read what I wrote last week.
If you want to borrow money at 60% interest, then knock yourself out. But you're arguing for a suitability test (look up securities law). Which runs oddly counter to your anti-nanny state arguments. It seems that according to your logic, having usury caps is a bad thing, but having the government prohibit certain loans to certain people is a good thing. I don't see how that is logical. It would also mean no students would ever get student loans since how would any lender know whether that student would ever be able to repay many, many tens of thousands of dollars back in principal and interest?
You're basically arguing that the nanny state is bad, except when it's good.
Guest #24 - yes, people really believe that singles are sold to the street drunks crowd, really! really! really!
Just because you have bought singles before, doesn't mean that "street drunks" don't. And comparing College Park to H Street is downright ridiculous.
DE - Not so different as you'd think. Both College Park and H Street bars are full of drunk, loud hiptards who wander the streets while intoxicated. Both have their fair share of smug, priveleged jerks. And they both have a Cluck U.
Yeah Monkey - I know College Park fairly well...I don't think it's some idyllic suburb, not by any stretch. True, the university supplies Route 1 with plenty of a-holes at night and I'm sure they do their part to add to the pee content of neighborhood alleys. But, CP does not have the loitering/littering problems that plague H Street. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
Ryan:
I am curious as to how you would suggest we solve the poverty and crime problems in DC generally and in areas like H St specifically. If you could give us a detailed explanation of how you think this should work it'd go a long way toward furthering a substantive discussion here.
"Just because you have bought singles before, doesn't mean that "street drunks" don't."
Well, yes, that's the exact point he was making- It's not just "street drunks" who buy singles. Plenty of occasional drinkers and convenience or economy minded people do too.
A singles ban is an exercise in self-delusion and self gratification. And, years later after gentrification sweeps away the undesirables, you'll get the clean sidewalks you want. Then you can start bitching about dogs pissing in flowerboxes, the color and materials people use on their window frames and rear decks and front porches, the condition of the brick sidewalks, and how late all those Joe E clubs are open at night. But you won't be able to buy a single $9 bottle of trappist ale. I've seen it all before- you're in for a great ride. Have fun.
Hillman, that's a tall order for the comments section. I've advocated for specific policies in previous columns, many of which I know you've read (or at least commented on).
There are limits to what the District can do. Some of the best anti-poverty programs will only work if applied at a national level, and others really ought to be maintained at a metropolitan level. As people have noted in the comments to earlier columns, successful anti-poverty programs in the District will often lead to the beneficiaries moving out of the District. This leads to public questioning of the programs (since why should we spend on people only to have them leave when things start going well?), and it also means that, to a certain extent, the District is left with a growing concentration of people who are, in many ways, the most difficult to assist.
But, I think you start by improving government processes, by increasing transparency and accountability, so the public can be confident that money spent on poverty programs isn't wasted. Then I think you improve public education at all levels, from pre-Kindergarten to UDC, and I think you develop work training programs and public recreation programs to keep kids busy when they aren't in school. I support the idea of housing vouchers, to help people move out of the most troubled neighborhoods if they wish to do so. We absolutely must fix the criminal justice system. Dangerous juvenile criminals shouldn't be able to avoid serious penalties, and people with minor infractions shouldn't spend time locked up with hardened criminals getting lessons in how to do real damage.
We need to do better at supporting local businesses. It's absurd that property taxes should shut down successful enterprises. We should offer benefits to employers that work to develop relationships with local schools and organizations and employ students.
The police should enforce quality of life laws, but I think the city should do a better job dealing with the homeless and those with serious drug problems. We should offer them free housing and rehabilitation; many of them will never become productive members of society, but we'll all be better off if they're not left on the streets.
And government can't do it all by itself. Community organizations need to be encouraged to keep their streets clean, to watch for and report crimes, and develop a public and visible attitude that disrespect for the city and its inhabitants won't be tolerated. When neighborhoods are taking ownership, the police must respond; ultimately their jobs will be much easier if residents know they can count on police to answer their calls and if police know they can count on residents to make the calls in the first place.
And my personal specialty, urban design, is important too. The city needs to make sure that streets are well-lit and maintained. Dead areas with little retail or through traffic are difficult to police. Neighborhoods should encourage walking and distributed retail and a mix of activities, so that people are often out and about in large numbers.
I have no illusions about the problems involved. I don't imagine that doing some or all of these things will fix everything. But these are, I believe, some good ideas from which to begin.
"The police should enforce quality of life laws, but I think the city should do a better job dealing with the homeless and those with serious drug problems. We should offer them free housing and rehabilitation; many of them will never become productive members of society, but we'll all be better off if they're not left on the streets."
Ryan, have you read about "Million Dollar Murray"? It speaks to what you write.
Abstract:
www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/02/13/060213fa_fact
Article:
www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html
Just because you have bought singles before, doesn't mean that "street drunks" don't. And comparing College Park to H Street is downright ridiculous.
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Why is it ridiculous? College Park is over the DC border from Northeast DC. Branchville, Riverdale, Chillum Road, Forestville, Mt. Rainier, they're all just like Upper Northeast. I challenge you to tell me where the DC border is just by looking. College Park is basically a working class/ middle class area.
Homeless drunks in college park? Absolutely, they'd wander around the campus and sleep in the restrooms. I'm old. when I started at UMD we had to drive into NE DC to buy beer. So my college experience involved many treks into Northeast.
I really don't see what's wrong with the comparison between NE DC and any inside the beltway PG County town. There has been a lot of movement between the two areas.
I have to second guest on that New Yorker article. I read it when it came out and I still remember it. Touching and well reasoned.
Ryan - I'm at a loss. I agree completely with everything you've posted, particularly this bit:
We should offer them free housing and rehabilitation; many of them will never become productive members of society, but we'll all be better off if they're not left on the streets.
I'm convinced that YOUR neighborhood in Northeast would be an ideal location for just such free housing: access to public transit, very walkable, much less expensive than those bulky, uncomfortable, crime-ridden, homeless shelters downtown. I'm sure your neighbors would be thrilled to be providing such a much-needed resource to the local homeless, drug addicted, and mentally ill population. While we're at it, we need to bring back the Right to Shelter laws that were repealed in 1990. This would almost guarantee an increase in the population of those who most need shelter and rehabilitation. The more the merrier! I can only assume there is ready and easy access to single servings of fortified wines and malt liquors? All that walking does give one a thirst.
As for paying for all this largess, that's not really our problem, is it?
Monkey, perhaps you should read that New Yorker article. Sure it will cost money to house and monitor the chronically homeless. You think the way the city handles them now is free? And you think that the attraction of the homeless lifestyle is so powerful that the prospect of a tiny apartment and careful and constant observation by social workers is going to draw new homeless from the ranks of those with paychecks and the right to come and go as they please?
Let's hear your solution.
Ryan:
Thanks for the detailed post.
The idea of providing apts for street dwellers is interesting. I've heard of experiments like this before. I think the one I heard was in NYC, where a grand old hotel was turned into just this sort of thing. But apparently a good many of the new apts were trashed and empty within a year.
What's missing in this idea and in the idea of homeless issues in general is enforcement. If you are given an apt for free and you trash it, then you go to jail. It's destruction of city property. And I firmly believe that anyone receiving city services like public housing should be required to submit to drug / alcohol testing and should be forced to go into treatment if needed. Also, their free apartments should be subject to search. They are getting free stuff from taxpayers, so in return they need to give up something.
If there truly are that few long term homeless then I've got no problem with provision of apartments for them IF it's followed up with mandatory comprehensive drug and alchohol treatment, and if they don't get some sort of job then they must contribute in some other real way. What that way would be is of course a bit problemmatic. But I'm sure we could think of something. If all else fails, they could sit in the empty stands at Nats games so on TV it looks like the Nats have a full house.
What I do agree with is that we are simply enabling people to be homeless forever as it is.
And we are confusing the common thug with the truly troubled homeless person. Not every person panhandling or pissing on the corner is actually homeless. A good many of them have a place to go at night. It's just that we've made it acceptable for them to panhandle and piss on the corner, so from their point of view why should they stop? And a good number of panhandlers are actually just thugs killing time until they can find something to steal.
What I continue to have a problem with is the professional poverty industry working as apologists for all these public behaviors, saying we are evil people and demonizing us if we question allowing people to live this way and if we want it to stop, both so we no longer have to put up with it and because it's highly detrimental to the person doing it in the long run.
We now have foreclosure rates up 300% from last year and the dumping of the properties has just begun. This is the very tip of the iceburg. The subprime market knew these people were risks but it generated profits. Now they have put themselves out of business.
If I open a sandwich shop and charge $50 per sandwich then it won't be long until I am out of business. WaPo would say it's the new trend and I'll get rich. These predatory lenders charge their rate as no secret. The same ignorant people who knew they could not afford these homes might be the same idiots trying to pay next months mortgage just to keep their sunken ship alive one month more. The collateral for the loan might be the home they knew they could not afford.
When you went to the mafia for a loan you knew the consequences or they quickly reminded you. Government has no business trying to protect voluntery idiots. They know the score when they walk in. Their protection is bankruptcy court. Just like when you charge your credit card and cannot pay it back. People used that as a scam before congress acted and closed the loopholes.
The "Bankruptcy court" option was removed some years ago.
I'm a bit suspicious of the crackdown on payday lending, given that mortgage deliquencies are on the rise, and banks' profits from the mortgage markets is tanking. I just have this sneaking suspicion...
And government can't do it all by itself.
I agree with most of what you're saying; I'd add this though: This is a problem that *all* regional municipalities should address. And by "address" I mean "pay for". Oh, and as monkey-e pointed out, the most critical commponent of any of this stuff is that everyone share the burden equally; and not just NW as well as NE (or SE, or SW), but MD and VA as well as DC.
The idea that the 68.3 square miles that comprise The District should be on the hook for all this largess (self-interested or no) is one of the things that pisses me off to no end about regional politics.
Great, so DC will house, feed, and provide essential services for every economic and mental health hardcase in the tri-state area. But if the District government agrees to take on that burden, can we at least get Alexandria, Bethesda, Potomac, etc... to foot part of the bill?
It's all very nice to say "We should do X, and we should do Y..." but can we make that contingent on taxpayers of VA and MD stepping up to their responsibilities, rather than creating a ghetto out of DC, then blaming the District for the very ills they've helped exacerbate. Cause we tried that for the last 30 years, and while it worked out pretty well for Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, it didn't work out so good for DC.
Oh, (as if my last post wasn't long enough) I wanted to add: Until some sort of burden-sharing is in place, what's left is a race to the bottom, where the only solution for the District is to make things less attractive for the very poor here than PG County, or NoVa.
Which is pretty sh!tty, but there you go.
Ryan - So, I guess $100 in poker chips and a one-way ticket to Atlantic City is no longer on the table?
Like I said, I'm on board with the Avent Five Year Plan (tax credits for local small business, public/private partnerships, bureaucratic transparency, designing mixed-use urban environments that don't kowtow to internal combustion fetishism). Where we diverge is on the whole recycled Great Society highrise-poverty-storage-box school of paying lip service to homelessness. What you're basically selling is Housing Projects 2.0. What makes you think that it will work this time?
The Truman Administration had the best intentions when they levelled working class black neighborhood "ghettos" in Southwest, replacing them with sterile rental units and NO groundfloor retail. Similar situation in Southeast, which gave rise to the highrise hellscape that's only now been levelled to make way for office cube farms. Pretty expensive experiment on making people equally dependent on Federal largess.
But I don't see how your free housing initiative will work, fiscally or on a nuts-and-bolts level. Nobody is going to give up their job to live the "homeless lifestyle." But if Mitch Snyder taught us anything, it's that when you provide an environment that is comfortable to transients, they will migrate from all along the eastern seaboard to get some. And the reverse is true: eliminate underclass entitlements and that population migrates elsewhere; in the case of DC, straight to P.G. County where the handouts are lousy, but still better than DC.
What it comes down to is Hillman's point: what are the negative repercussions for negative behavior at the Ryan Avent Dwellings? Forced medication and therapy? SCOTUS has consistently ruled this unconstitutional. Mandatory job training? My experience with DC's homeless in the early 1990s has been that they can make more money panhandling in a couple of days than they could ever hope in a legitimate bluecollar job. So long as guiltridden folk continue to subsidize their lifestyle with handouts. And again, where is this money coming from, because I don't see any groundswell of support for people who either can't or won't contribute to their community.
However, if you can manage to convince the ANC to have your neighborhood re-zoned for Section 8 housing, you can put me down for a contribution of $1,000.
Cynicism is the new altruism.
"Where we diverge is on the whole recycled Great Society highrise-poverty-storage-box school of paying lip service to homelessness."
What you seem to be missing, Monkey, is that mixed-income and mixed-use are the best practices of the 2000's. Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning. Workforce housing based on DC's median, not the MSA's etc.
No one is suggesting warehouses. The meme has moved. Your objections haven't.
Though I like mandatory rehab etc. Maybe it's tied to participation, instead of broadly applied.
I don't know the law on this subject, but a Google search indicates the Supreme Court said that public housing tenants could be evicted if anyone in their apt is convicted of drug use, in 2002.
How many times has this been done in DC? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing zero times.
One of the few benefits of our new Supreme Court is that they would be more willing to entertain measures that would demand accountability from public housing recipients, both the ones we have now and any new 'homeless' housing ones in the future.
The other missing element - we've allowed the hand-wringers and the self-righteous poverty pimp industry to guilt us into allowing panhandling in pretty much every public space. We could end panhandling by tomorrow if we all just decided to stop giving people money. Contrary to what the panhandlers say, they wouldn't starve to death.
We are the enablers.
Hillman says: "How many times has this been done in DC? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing zero times."
I have first hand knowledge of at least 4 instances that this has happened within the past two years within two blocks of my home. Thought for the day: Nihilistic cynicism is a poor substitute for engagement and effort.
- Same Guest #7, 16, 27, 28, 31, 43, 45, 52, and 56