You get a house, you get a house, everyone gets a house.

There are just so many examples of 'bad government' policies I could blog for years.  So what is it this time?  Multiple news sources have reported that Obama has decided to use some tarp funds to help significantly underwater home owners.  It should be noted that this will only help in states like California, Nevada, Florida, etc.  Which also happen to be states where the democrats are either hoping to save or pick up seats.  (Well they are planning in a lot of places but those are a few hot spots, coincidence?  Though they are targeting districts in lots of states so it may be just that.  However you can't help but notice that Harry Reid may lose and Obama announced in Nevada...)

So while researching this I came across a couple of interesting articles about (affordable) housing and homelessness.  (Interesting result from the article on affordable housing is that it costs $600k for the red tape and bureaucracy in San Fransisco to buy a house.  This is before you even buy the land.  Incredible.  It is under the 'Cost of "Right to Build"' section.)

Let me say the biggest problem with a lot of home related issues is that housing is propped up by the central government.  Basically through tax benefits.  I would really like it if there was a rent benefit.  You can deduct taxes and interest and I get to deduct my rent.  This is an area where the government should really equalize the playing field.

There is research to suggest that when people own a house they are more likely to take an interest in the area, upkeep their property, etc.  However this misses the fact that it forces a lot of people out of housing or forces them to borrow heavily to afford the house.  (This is like the minimum wage removing low-paying jobs.)  This is a very bad situation.  (Not to mention that government intervention into forcing banks to give more loans to lower income people was a contributing factor to the current crisis.)  Basically the housing isn't affordable in many of these states (which is why no one is buying the houses).  The biggest problem that the government doesn't realize is that whenever they give a grant of say $X to someone to buy a house, the seller just raises the cost by $X.  Additionally supply of houses and the demand for houses should be allowed to equalize.  Blargh.  I'll stop ranting about this and focus another posting on this specifically.

In regards to the homelessness portion of the problem, the biggest problem is that local governments outlaw various aspects of being homeless.  This causes the homeless people to have criminal records. 
All this does is cut off more opportunities for employment to these people.  This is a kind of negative re-enforcing loop where one problems leads to another until the person is in the situation they are in completely because of the situation they are in.  It should be noted the failed anti-drug policies of the United States cause the exact same problem.  While I do not want a druggie to be driving a semi on the interstate, does this mean they should be cut out of all jobs?  (Drug policy is a huge problem and will be the subject of many future posts.)

At the end of the day the money is only 1.5B.  I mean how much is a billion anymore?  The deficit is was 12T right now right?  So what is 1.5B.  I just wish that if they were going to bail out people like this that I would get my bailout.