If you follow the local lamestream media, and for that matter a select few of the “big guys”, you've seen the anti-Astorino barrage of opininorials and pro-HUD, pro-affordable housing and pro-big government intrusion into our lives regarding any and all affordable housing. Specifically, with the ill-settled federal housing settlement the County agreed to before County Executive Andrew Spano left office.
The misnomer of “affordable” housing is just that. It’s a ploy that was developed by those in the not-for-profit housing game to garner support for their well paid businesses and employees under the guise of a struggling “little guy”. The reality is that it is nothing so noble and just subsidized housing, formerly called welfare housing. Examples of a few of these known companies might be Westhab and Habitat For Humanity (although HFH has a bit of a different angle). What they do is mask their real purpose: developers hiding behind the not-for-profit moniker to pretend to be a caring and helping organization. The reality is they are developers who have found a loophole that would put the brakes on anybody else’s projects and exploited it for their own benefit. Notice I didn’t say exploited for their own profit? That’s the only difference. They will make sure their books show a break-even point and not a profit – all while paying their management and employees very nice salaries. Not for profit indeed!
The federal housing monitor tried to flex his federal muscles to intimidate Westchester into complying with mandates that simply weren’t part of the agreement former County Executive Andrew Spano caved in to. When I ran for County Legislator, I publicly stated I was against this agreement for several reasons, as did others. If you reviewed the 37 pages settlement agreement when it was proposed, the vagueness of the document should have precluded any agreement. We should have gone to court to fight it. However, for those who profess in a belief system that the law is the law and appointments to the bench have no consequence, again because the law is the law, watch out! Electing liberal judges also means no matter how solid your case, if the cause is one of the social agendas of that particular judge you are before, you’ll lose. Could this have been why the County Legislature, cohabiting in lock step with Spano, conceded to his agreement? Probably.
Astorino, has repeatedly stood up to and stared down the mighty federal mediator each time the Goliath tried to force a new change into the settlement equation. I have never agreed that Westchester is racist, biased or discriminatory. That said, I do agree that you can certainly find bigots, mental-midgets, and frankly a few idiots that exhibit parochial and racist thinking when it comes to anyone that is different than themselves. They are not representative of the majority of Westchester residents. In fact, I think the people of Westchester are more tolerant than people I’ve met in other parts of our country.
The feds claim that the County isn’t doing enough to change the law in Westchester regarding proof of income for HUD and/or Section 8 housing. It’s not necessary. The settlement has a provision in it stating the same thing. So if they agreed to it as part of the settlement, they’re just insisting on legal duplicity. Creating and passing a law for this would remove the landlords ability to refuse anyone a rental. Without knowing the proof of income of either, if a Section 8 housing recipient and a Non-Section 8 person applies for an apartment, and if the landlord offers the apartment to the Non-Section 8 person, they can be sued by the Section 8 recipient for proof of income discrimination. If they give it to the Section 8 recipient, he can be sued by the Non-Section 8 person for discrimination, although they can’t easily prove discrimination. It creates a lopsided equation for the small landlords that they simply can’t win.
How should we proceed? I believe CE Astorino is on the right track. By standing up to the federal administrator of this lousy HUD agreement on principle and continuing to meet or exceed the timelines in place, he has set the stage for compliance. By doing so he keeps the feds at bay. How much longer he can do this also depends on the various communities who must participate in this debacle. Good luck Rob!
