Ben Carson wants to raise rents on public housing tenants by 300%+, attacking elderly, people with disabilities and working poor

After a 6 year wait I was offered Section 8 subsidized housing. Then I found out I have been using a voucher from a private foundation. There is also almost no low income subsidized units available. I said when I moved into the brand new fully furnished apartment I have lived in 6 years they’d have to take me out on a gurney or a body bag–$256/month.
Ben may be gone in a couple of years and someone who understands the HUD mission may replace him.

4 Likes

Howabout they get to do the congressman’s work too? And if they do a better job they get to keep it!

11 Likes

image

21 Likes

More likely it’s gonna incentive people to go on a crime spree.
When society sends a message “we don’t give a fuck about you”
That is answered in kind. “we don’t give a fuck about society”

13 Likes

Must be some of that compassionate conservatism I always hear about…

8 Likes

HUD Tenants are not taking this lying down. Check out and support the resident advocacy group:

For anyone in the Berkeley area, our local Gray Panthers (yes, we’re still here) co-organizer is reporting back next week on their recent national conference:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1879910778968947/

11 Likes

the plan marks the administration’s effort to “give poor people a way out of poverty.”

Well, I guess if you consider a hole in the ground a “way out,” he’s correct.

It’s weird that every brain surgeon I have any knowledge about has led me to believe that brain surgery must not be that difficult, or they wouldn’t have been able to manage it.

8 Likes

Brain surgery is easy. Proving that the brain surgery you did on the patient is what killed them is the hard part.

5 Likes

He would use a spade bit, wouldn’t he.

DIY self-trepanation with a spade bit would be. Really, he should pilot the hole with a ⅛" split-point cobalt spiral bit, then switch to a ½" wave-serrated Forstner.

That’s advice, Ben. Feel free to act on it.

10 Likes

Just to be safe, he should practice on the rest of this administration, first.

4 Likes

In a recent interview with Fox News, Carson said the plan marks the administration’s effort to “give poor people a way out of poverty.”

I hated turning down that job and the chance for better housing, but I was unable to leave poverty. Thanks, Doc, for giving me a way out!

That was a couple administrations ago. Trump & Co. don’t even bother pretending. Their brand is Bullying Bastardry.

11 Likes

Bastard asshole.

4 Likes

“You see, if we take everything from them and they have nothing to lose, then the only way they can go is up.”

7 Likes

Nothing too surprising here. The American zeitgeist is besotted with the legend of the guy who started with nothing and ended up a millionaire, and denies and attacks any evidence that those days of boundless opportunity are over. And the American zeitgeist also loves to Punish. It Punishes the poor for being poor; it Punishes the poor for attempting to escape poverty; it Punishes the poor when they fail to escape; and of course, it Punishes anyone who falls into poverty.

Soundtrack: Dead Kennedys - Kill the Poor

11 Likes

“… he claims the rent hikes will incentivize public housing tenants to seek work.”

Maybe a damn good shoeing would incentivize Ben Carson to seek a soul.

1 Like

I think this might be related to how, a few years back, (2015 IIRC) the Republican Congress cut off the unemployment insurance extension leaving millions of people who had been on unemployment and not finding work with no safety net. The deal is, they only count the people on the unemployment rolls (getting checks) as looking for work. So, people who had been on unemployment for six months (or whatever their state labor office provided) and were expecting the six-month federal extension were no longer being counted and the Republicans patted themselves on the back for improving the unemployment numbers. -They said that they moved these people from lazily taking hand-outs to working, but in fact, most of these discouraged workers were/are still looking for work, bankrupt, moved in with relatives, committed suicide, etc. The gig economy is not serving us well.

Anyway, there’s probably some sort of similar catch here. They will redefine ‘poverty’ and who is eligible for the housing and those who don’t qualify will be evicted and no longer counted, despite continuing to be poor and in need of housing.

Fact is, the war on poverty worked pretty well until Reagan started dismantling its programs.

11 Likes

You’ve been hanging out over at BME, haven’t you?

https://news.bme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/pubring/people/A10101/trepan/index.html

2 Likes

I just want to credit the illustration to Hablot Knight Browne.

1 Like

Right. and that’s why all rich republicans dump their excess wealth into charities and put their children out on the street, penniless at a tender young age, to make sure only the right-Minded ones who deserve it end up rich. See you at thanksgiving son! can’t wait to see you back at the top!. Oh and certainly why they spend their days in poor neighborhoods, looking for young “right-minded” talent to invest in instead of hiring each others children in a big fucking circle-jerk.

11 Likes

“This weekend I had a hole drilled through my skull. I read that this increased one’s consciousness permanently. I read about the supposed de-conditioning properties. I read about more parts of the brain working simultaneously as there would be more blood up there to help this happen.”
(Not a quote by Ben Carson, in case you wondered.)

Given the website’s design, trepanation doesn’t seem worth the bother…
On the other hand, there are people who suffer for years and feel better when they’ve had a perfectly healthy arm or leg cut off, so what do I know.
In a way trepanation seems less radical than that - a leg won’t grow back, the hole in the skull should heal. After all, Neanderthals did this and lived.

As to the arguments for it - I’m pretty sure that all the parts of the brain work simultaneously already.
And if your goal is to get “more blood up there” to increase your mental faculties - not thinking with your penis all the time has this effect as well. Maybe worth a try before getting the power tools out.

1 Like