GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Friday) Jeff Gahan fired NAHA's Bob Lane to promote David Duggins, but now it's time for voters to do some firing of their own at the ballot box.

Last week was so much fun, I did it again.

As a run-up to Decision 2019, again this week I delved into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five more days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the anchor-imbedded Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult.

I've already made the solid case for Mark Seabrook as mayor.

The case against Gahanism has so many chapters that it might be necessary to lob five additional informative and entertaining installments next week. After all, heaven knows we have enough raw material.

Following are this week's and last week's Rice Krispies MisTREATments:

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Friday) Slick Jeffie's hoarding of power and money is a very real threat to New Albany's future.

And this week's "please let there be a pink slip" chronicles:

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Monday) No more fear, Jeff. This isn't East Germany, and you're not the Stasi.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Tuesday) In 2015 roughly 14% of New Albany's eligible voters opted for the Anchor Deity, and they’re getting exactly what they deserve – good and hard.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Wednesday) When he seized NAHA, Slick Jeffie depicted himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he was more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Thursday) Slick Jeffie's car-centric street grid remains designed to maim and kill, and his clique doesn't give a damn.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Friday) Jeff Gahan fired NAHA's Bob Lane to promote David Duggins, but now it's time for voters to do some firing of their own at the ballot box.

Today we return to Gahan's 2017 public housing putsch, which remains the single greatest indicator of his fundamental unsuitability to serve New Albany as mayor.

At the time, several DemoDisneyDixiecrats were scandalized by Gahan's hostile takeover and concurring promise to demolish living spaces as a way of purging the city of poor people who have failed to budget properly and thus failed contribute their fair share to the Genius of the Floodplain's bulging campaign finance coffers (demolition is an effort that stalled yet stands to regain lost momentum if he succeeds in securing a third term).

Many of those who dissented have since groveled returned to the fold -- because ya know, the Re-Pubs are always worse. Some might even be in this photograph of protesters from early 2017.

Here's some eye candy.

Now for the words. As we know, NAHA director Lane was fired and Deputy Dawg Duggins brought aboard to make an experienced administrator's salary absent an iota of qualifications -- when he wasn't "joking" about Tasers and various other forms of physical violence -- but of course, the idea wasn't ever that Duggins actually would run NAHA (Tony Toran does THAT boring work) but instead wheel, deal and leverage properties like a Trump lackey to keep the special interest campaign donors pumping green lifeblood into Gahan's veins.

Mission accomplished ... unless you're a public housing resident.

---

March 16, 2017

Burger Chef and Jeff? No, it's TIF Man and Warren.

ON THE AVENUES: It's all so simple, says Jeff Gahan. Remove the impoverished, and voila! No more poverty!

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

It was another vintage week for home-wrecking and game-playing by the tittering, braying donkeys who populate Team Gahan's toxic bunker bullpen (surely they're possessed of a remarkable consistency, if nothing else noteworthy), but let's try to disregard the latest round of slapstick and self-parody, and look instead at the purported blueprint for a "balanced mix of public and subsidized housing."

It is revealed within the recent, artfully contrived Comprehensive Plan, a Disneyesque document written by many of the same malleable functionaries now fairly itching to seize the controls of their testosterone-charged bulldozers, which currently idle nervously for the signal to VAROOM.

Bullet points "a" and "b" are sufficiently vague as to be nonsensical.

We know from long, repetitive experience that the desired Gahanian context for terms like these can be summarized in a sentence.

City Hall encourages you to redistribute a percentage of your lucrative new contract to the Gahan for Life fund, and we can assist in extracting your wallet if mandatory tithing is a burden.

Furthermore, if the objective of public housing demolitions is to reduce density, improve the condition of surviving units and geographically distribute new construction (the latter is thoroughly dubious), why target Riverside Terrace for destruction?

Riverside's units are many blocks away from the densest concentration of public housing, and make up some of the NAHA’s newest and best maintained buildings.

Location, location ... LOCATION. Riverside Terrace has the misfortune of being situated within a healthily-lofted Duggins spitball of Loop Island Wetlands, which straddles the Greenway and is envisioned by city planners as potentially rivaling New York City’s Central Park in sheer, “Are you fucking kidding me or what?” grandeur.

They must be spiking the Kool-Aid with LSD.

Point "c" is an example of classic Gahanite circular reasoning. These "recommendations" are not to be found in the detailed program already devised by the professional, trained staff of the New Albany Housing Authority, but rather as stipulated in the form of demolition-friendly reductions forced on the NAHA by means of a daintily termed Memorandum of Understanding, a writ of annexation slated for approval by a board packed by the mayor with the usual servile sycophants, as fully intended to render the result Gahan has fixed in advance.

---

The scant slivers of meat on these otherwise bleached bones are to be found in points "d" and "e."

First comes the soothing panacea of "voucher-based units," which numerous local social service agencies already have publicly testified as being non-existent, at least in numbers sufficient to re-house public housing residents facing eviction.

Because Deaf Gahan and Donald Trump might be twins as it pertains to a genetic predisposition to ignore dissenting expertise, perhaps the testimony of an ordinary human being would be useful in making this fact clear.

Hmm.

Did Gahan even once bother speaking with any real people before pursuing his hygienic “reforms” on their behalf?

I'm one of those tenants with a Section 8 voucher. I've been trying to find a new place to live for over a year. Pickings are slim and coming up with the deposit on a limited income is nearly impossible. Now I'm afraid to let go of what I have, however unsuitable it is for my needs. Fortunately, I only have to be concerned about me. I don't have kids to bring into the mix. I can't imagine how much that situation would make you worry. You are very correct about low income folks being insecure about their housing, just as they are insecure about having enough food. I am a registered democrat and I do not support this administration and their agenda. This town smells fishy to me. From Breakwater to Housing Authority demolition and a few things in between. Maybe it's the river, maybe not...

Ah, yes. Speaking of the Breakwater, our flame-broiled but defiantly bocce-clad shining avatar of Gahan’s imagined “democratic” mission to bring pure top-shelf living to New Albany, we now must be reminded that luxury and affordability are not incompatible, at least on Fantasy Island.

e. When the City of New Albany is a partner in the development of housing through public incentives, a total of 8 percent of the units shall be affordable.

This empty promise should suffice for years of uproarious hilarity on the part of city officials observing it in the breach.

You’ll notice that this affordability component is applicable only to housing the city already has chosen to subsidize, implying that we’re not going to be having a discussion about this particular form of odious corporate welfare, either.

Moreover, an instructive example of what can go wrong in times of toothlessness is to be found across the mighty Ohio, where Greg Fischer, Gahan’s go-to manly man and political idol, has become the absolute master of gesture politics without content.

As Caitlin Bowling of Insider Louisville explains, a potential out-of-town recipient of public "incentive" largess is balking at the notion of an affordability component, insisting that if a mere 18 out of 272 luxury units are discounted, it simply can’t go forward with the project.

An out-of-town developer may back out of plans to build a $56 million luxury apartment complex in NuLu, according to the developer’s attorney, Jeffrey McKenzie, of Bingham Greenebaum Doll.

“Flournoy Cos. is frankly not able to go forward,” McKenzie said when addressing members of the Louisville Metro Council’s Labor and Economic Development Committee Tuesday afternoon. The council was set to vote on a tax incentive agreement between the city and Flournoy Cos. but instead tabled it.

The Georgia-based company has asked the city for just more than $5 million in potential tax incentives, and in return, city officials told Flournoy Cos. that it must include 18 workforce housing units in its development at 700 E. Main St. and 121 S. Clay St.

The workforce housing request is part of an initiative by Metro Council leaders to ensure that there is housing affordable to residents who earn 80 percent of the area median income for Jefferson County. Teachers and police officers are often given as examples of people who would benefit from workforce housing.

Flournoy Cos. previously agreed to rent 18 of its one-bedroom apartments at $947 per month, whereas a regular one-bedroom unit would go for $1,300 a month.

However, when McKenzie addressed the council committee Tuesday, he stated that the project can’t move forward if Flournoy Cos. is required to have the 18 cheaper apartments. Either that requirement would need to be eliminated, or the property owner, Service Welding & Machine Co., must agree to sell the properties on Main and Clay streets at a lower price.

Let’s hope Fischer goes full gesture. That'll show 'em.

---

You may recall that on Monday, there was to have been a pre-rigged housing board vote on the memorandum of annexation, but the measure was tabled.

Initial media reports implied cold feet on City Hall’s part, though soon enough a defensive press release was emitted, with Gahan making sure the world knew it was director Bob Lane’s illness and not his own agoraphobia to blame for the delay.

Concurrently, deputy dawg and down-low soothsayer Mike Hall covered for a typically absent Gahan here:

Mike Hall, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, said in an email, "The MOU recognizes that much of the public housing stock in New Albany is poorly located, does not reflect current thinking and best practices in housing assistance, and is not in good condition."

Principled opposition makes them testy, doesn’t it? The newspaper reporter released this overview, clarifying matters.

New Albany Housing Authority board pushes back reduction plan to April meeting, by Elizabeth Beilman (Cooking School Chronicle)

Executive Director asks for delay to prepare comments

NEW ALBANY —A plan to reduce the New Albany Housing Authority's stock has been pulled from tonight's board meeting agenda, at the request of Executive Director Bob Lane.

A vote on the plan, originally scheduled for 5:30 p.m., will now be held April 10. The 10-year plan initiated by New Albany city officials that would result in a reduction of more than half of the housing authority's stock and redevelopment and relocation of several others.

Lane, who has been on sick leave for the past two weeks because of emergency eye surgery, said he has not had the time to prepare his comments on the proposed plan. He expects to have a response ready to the city by March 24.

"The City of New Albany and the New Albany Housing Authority worked together for months to draft a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the future of public housing in New Albany," a city news release stated. "The City was hopeful that it would have been adopted tonight at 5:30 p.m. during the New Albany Housing Authority’s regularly scheduled meeting."

Alas, with dreary and numbing predictability the editorial board already had changed into water sports attire and jumped on Gahan’s wrecking ball bandwagon with a bizarrely worded essay about the need to smash things up right away … but please be careful and make sure the flying bricks don’t hurt anyone as they queue for the cattle cars?

Of course, all but one of the editorial board’s contributing members live outside New Albany; sole local Chris Morris is always ready to shine the shoes of elected officials, and it’s never clear whether Gahan is in Bill Hanson’s pocket, or the other way around.

Looking for the world’s worst topic sentence? Try this one:

There are too many public housing units in New Albany. Most would agree with that statement.

Really?

Doesn't it depend on how we define “too many” and “most”?

You won’t be surprised to learn that the editorial board proffers no evidence to support this opening bit of fawning hearsay fluffery, although weirdly and completely inadvertently – like your dog managing to catch the occasional car – the newspaper stumbles onto a point even if it can’t recognize what it is.

That’s because New Albany has absolutely no idea whether most, some or none of its residents agree, as this question hasn’t once been aired publicly, now or ever.

Rather, the entirety of public expertise on public housing  in New Albany remains stuck in a lily-white 1980s time warp, with decades of tall tales and folk “wisdom” emanating from the upstanding suburban folks, and sufficing for those pesky facts that Gahan and the editorial board duck as if they were rotten fruit.

It’s an abysmal information gap, and Gahan is exploiting it not so much in the sense of ethnic cleansing, but of low-income cleansing. Like generations of conclusion-jumpers before him, he has hitched the cart in front of the horse and declared that the overt existence of safety nets like public housing is the cause of unsightliness -- not the poverty, because he can't bring himself to admit that such a thing as poverty exists in his city, and so he's quite sure that if we stop treating symptoms, the disease will vanish, just like in one of his beloved Uncle Walt’s animated features.

And anyway, what good are poor people if they neither vote nor give often enough to Big Daddy’s campaign finance war chest?

Nick Vaughn said it best (and also elaborated on the problem):

The proposed plan spearheaded by Mayor Gahan would effectively demolish nearly half of the affordable housing units in New Albany in the hopes that low-income housing becomes less centralized. I am against this proposal and I am writing in the hopes that not only the Housing Authority and city officials see this, but also to help my fellow New Albanians become more aware of the growing crisis in our city called poverty.

In the end, amid the intellectual squalor, there is only one inexplicable development in this absurd and discouraging tale. Why didn’t Gahan name his demolition proposal The World’s Greatest Poverty Eradication Plan of 2017?

Wait -- I forgot another.

How can Gahan be considered a Democrat?

---

2019 Election Appendix

Election 2019: The buying and selling of a city, or our updated master list of 73 Gahan wheel-greasers, a veritable pornographic potpourri of pay-to-play.

These 30 free-spending special interest donors top Jeff Gahan's 2019 pay-to-play campaign finance windfall of $150,000 (so far).

CFA-4 Follies: OMG, just look at Gahan's huge pile of special interest donor cash flowing to out-of-towners.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Wednesday) When he seized NAHA, Slick Jeffie depicted himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he was more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

Last week was so much fun, let's do it again.

As a run-up to Decision 2019, I'm headed back into the ON THE AVENUES archive for five straight days of devastatingly persuasive arguments against four more years of the anchor-imbedded Gahan Family Values™ Personality Cult.

I've already made the case for Mark Seabrook as mayor.

Now let's return to the voluminous case against Gahanism in five informative and entertaining installments -- at least until next week, when I may decide to do it all again. Heaven knows we have enough raw material. Following are last week's hammer blows.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Monday) The Reisz Mahal luxury city hall, perhaps the signature Gahan boondoggle.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Tuesday) Gahan the faux historic preservationist demolishes the historic structure -- with abundant malice.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Wednesday) The shopping cart mayor's cartoonish veneer of a personality cult. Where do we tithe, Leader Dearest?

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Thursday) That Jeff Gahan has elevated people like David Duggins to positions of authority is reason enough to vote against the Genius of the Floodplain.

GIVE GAHAN THE BOOT: (Friday) Slick Jeffie's hoarding of power and money is a very real threat to New Albany's future.

And this week's pink slip chronicles:

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Monday) No more fear, Jeff. This isn't East Germany, and you're not the Stasi.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Tuesday) In 2015 roughly 14% of New Albany's eligible voters opted for the Anchor Deity, and they’re getting exactly what they deserve – good and hard.

GIVE GAHAN A PINK SLIP: (Wednesday) When he seized NAHA, Slick Jeffie depicted himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he was more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

Time and time again Gahan has displayed a propensity to spend whatever amount of money his current expression of self-deifying megalomania demands, deploying any and all subterfuges and machinations, as seized from whichever available honey pot that doesn't have the good sense to buy a one-way ticket to Birdseye.

More than two years after Supreme Leader's hostile takeover of public housing in New Albany, Occam's razor suggests the simplest answer to the question of why he did so remains the best: Follow the money.

Neither Gahan himself nor his stupefyingly overpaid NAHA colonial administrator David Duggins -- and don't get me started on the motley collection of fawning sycophants surrounding da bosses -- seized the housing authority out of tender concern for those in need of affordable housing.

One aspect of Gahan's public housing putsch was frankly racist offal thrown to the city's conservative Strom Thurmond cadre of white voters, who have tended to stick with the Democratic Party's vile political patronage machine, but now might be tempted to bolt to the GOP in Our Time of Trump.

And the other aspect? Gahan's goons sniffed an opportunity to leverage NAHA's land to bolster the pay-to-play prospects for the business of luxury residency elsewhere in the city. Poor people are in the way, and so not unlike the need to empty a trash can, they need to be hidden from view.

Nothing during 16 years of congenital lucre-bation has better revealed Gahan's amoral political depravity than his attack on NAHA.

Period.

---

February 2, 2017

ON THE AVENUES: A luxury-obsessed Jeff Gahan has packed a board and now seeks to break the New Albany Housing Authority. Can we impeach him yet?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Righteous anger is a breathtaking emotion when properly harnessed, but the problem for me is that writing is hard enough without feeling like planting a fist upside a fascist’s cheek, or even better, a soulless bureaucratic timeserver’s noggin.

I’m telling you this because today’s column has been inordinately difficult for me to write. It is based on many conversations and a fair amount of reading, and even then, the complexity has been daunting.

I may get a few of the details wrong, though not the gist. I believe a mockery of social justice is about to occur in New Albany, and that a mock Democratic mayor is primarily responsible. Here is the story as I see it.

---

Once upon a time, Leni Riefenstahl produced a Nazi propaganda film called Triumph of the Will. We begin this week with Jeff Gahan’s animated sequel, Triumph of the Shill, because at next week’s city council meeting, they’ll be asked to rubber-stamp an updated “City of New Albany and Unincorporated Two Mile Fringe Area Comprehensive Plan (Year 2036).”

This plan purports to be a blueprint of sorts for future decision-making, though I’m here to tell you that it reads like a Disney screenplay as drunkenly sketched by an unemployed Hollywood Hills hack, with the final template-driven boilerplate cut and pasted by the very same hired outside engineering contractor which employs the economic development director’s wife, producing a document incorporating the posturing of a typically unrepresentative steering committee filled with usual suspects (city employees, contractors, realtors and “economic development” functionaries from DNA and One Southern Indiana), to the complete exclusion of alternative points of view, thus leading to this conclusion:

The Comprehensive Plan reveals far more about what members of the city’s “leadership” caste think of themselves, today, than where the city will be in 20 years.

In mind-numbing lockstep with all previous steering committees, this one is populated by 50-plus-year-old white people, with not a twenty-something in sight in spite of the “many years from now” orientation, and of course neither African-Americans nor Latinos were invited to participate.

In short, the updated comprehensive plan is equal parts fiction, theater and suburban-weighted dreckscape. Reading through these sterling commitments to bedrock facets of urban life that have remained entirely alien to the plan’s authors, most of whom don’t live these tenets and wouldn’t recognize one if it wandered by mistake into their Olive Garden chain-haven and pulled up a chair, you become jaded remarkable quickly.

For instance, I saw a handful of references to bicycling, felt a surge of excitement, then realized that all it really means is the procurement of more spray paint to draw sharrows, the most useless of a city planner’s excuses to do absolutely nothing, declare victory, and gaze lovingly at holiday photos of the time share.

I wouldn’t have bothered trying to digest this chamber of commerce-inspired triumphalist drivel if not for a fascinating revelation buried within a predictably dull January 4 press release from City Hall detailing the forthcoming demolition of affordable public housing units.

New Albany Public Housing Plans Advancing

... As part of this process, along with the creation of an updated comprehensive plan for the city, recommendations have been made for a reduction in overall housing authority units. The new comprehensive plan calls for a reduction of units, along with a decentralization of current units in New Albany. The housing authority will soon begin demolition on 7 buildings, totaling 44 units, in the Parkview/Broadmeade neighborhood.

“This marks the beginning steps the City of New Albany and the New Albany Housing Authority will be taking to improve public housing. In conjunction with the comprehensive plan and the recommendation of CF Housing Group, we will reduce the density of public housing on HUD properties inside the city limits, improve existing public housing stock, and improve the quality of life for all residents,” stated Mayor Gahan.

Before I sketch the commencement of Gahan’s hostilities against the New Albany Housing Authority’s mandate to provide affordable housing in New Albany, which you will not be surprised to learn is understood far better by the NAHA than the G-A-H-A-N, please note that the passage above refers to recommendations in the Comprehensive Plan that are by no means legally binding, as plainly stated in the plan itself, and had not even been approved at the time of the press release’s writing.

But marvel at the pomposity of the raw cheek: Gahan writes his own Comprehensive Plan, and before it is so much as finalized, he’s already referring to it as though the document were Biblical, bearing force of law. Evidently this is a side effect of personality cults.

I’ll return to this Comprehensive Disneyfication Plan, and explain how the rush to approve it pertains to an accompanying push to eradicate the city’s affordable housing safety net. Since it’s hard to find a good starting point, let’s just dive into it.

---

Since 1937, in the aftermath of the catastrophic Ohio River flood, it has been the responsibility of the New Albany Housing Authority to provide affordable housing to residents of New Albany.

In essence, NAHA oversees affordable public housing for an economically challenged segment of the population that needs it most, in NAHA’s own housing units and through the Section 8 program, and including very many of what we might call the working poor.

Dig a little deeper, and you’ll see that NAHA’s work goes “beyond sticks and bricks.” It is a de facto social services agency, performing numerous functions that are not financed or prioritized by municipal government, whether out of ideology or indolence.

Yes, New Albany’s dense concentration of affordable public housing isn't always ideal, although this is a discussion that ranges beyond my intent today. I’ll merely point out that many social workers will tell you that if concentrated affordable public housing is administered capably, as ours is, there are benefits to such density for economically challenged residents.

Overall, I believe that the NAHA plays a difficult hand quite well, and has a track record to prove it. The NAHA also has displayed an awareness of the need to evolve, and has planned for various contingencies, but what we’re seeing now is this vision, as articulated by NAHA and its director, Bob Lane, colliding headlong with the growing megalomania of Gahan, whose emphasis on luxurious capital projects does not include reasoned consideration for affordable housing and social services.

And hasn’t ever. Some Democrat he is – or is not.

---

The CF Housing Group is yet another of the city’s top-dollar consultants from afar (Washington DC), presumably engaged because all the professional planners we keep on cushy retirement tracks aren’t able to handle the heavy lifting – or maybe they’re just insufficiently versed in the required chicanery.

Contrary to what City Hall would have you think, the CF Housing Group has not been hired to help implement long-term objectives pursued for many years by the NAHA, and unsurprisingly, the perennially confused and deferential Chris Morris got it wrong in his News and Tribune article of January 5, perhaps because the city’s press release of the previous day was as much of a lie as any told recently by Donald Trump.

New Albany Housing Authority tearing down 44 units; Work at Broadmeade/Parkview should take 60 days

Work on reducing the number of units at the Broadmeade/Parkview complex began in 2012 as part of a strategic plan, according to Bob Lane, executive director of the New Albany Housing Authority. The plan was to accomplish the following goals: Analyze the need for deeply affordable housing; insure that any housing owned or operated by NAHA met stringent HUD guidelines for the ability to maintain such housing in a climate of diminishing funding; and seek out options to deconcentrate housing as such options are available.

"We have been in the process to do this ... things wear out whether it's automobiles or apartments," Lane said. "These have served their purpose."

For a very long time, the NAHA has been doing exactly as Morris’s description implies, with a critical difference, one that separates the NAHA’s intent from Gahan’s: The NAHA has been seeking to replace these public housing units on a one for one basis by building a new unit for each one torn down, utilizing tax credits and grants to finance the turnover.

Conversely, it has been Gahan’s long-term desire, one stated so often to so many city residents that almost everyone in town has heard him say it at one time or another, to eliminate affordable public housing in general, and “The Project” specifically, this being a dog-whistle to signify poor people, whom Gahan would ship in rail cars to tent camps in Galena if the law allowed.

Or, if the CF Housing Group finds a way to circumvent the federal mandates.

It’s easy to imagine how Gahan might direct the subservient Building Commission to condemn affordable public housing units, demolish these structures, and then deny building permits to rebuild them, all for whatever contrived reason suits a Bud Light Lime at the Roadhouse.

And what of the actual people who live in public housing, who have no representation in any of this?

Some of them will occupy naturally recurring vacancies in NAHA housing. Others will go into Section 8 housing, which is marginally better than NA’s signature slumlord rental housing sector * – and by the way, the Comprehensive Plan makes frequent mention of rental property registration as a dreamboat panacea to reduce instances of slumlord abuse, but strangely, no reference is made to what we have been told would be a second phase of slumlord taming – namely, meaningful enforcement.

Perhaps by 2036?

Interestingly, just last year the NAHA succeeded in aligning stars and tax credits after literally years of effort, with the aim of taking down public housing units by Erni Avenue and Bono Road opposite the hospital, and replacing them with supportive housing – in short, housing with services for a population that is very difficult to house.

In order to do this, the NAHA needed three signatures, one each from Gahan, David “I want 500 units gone” Duggins and the utterly defeated Scott Wood. It got none of them. The project fell apart, and the mayor’s bluff was called.

As for any of Gahan’s claims about cooperation with the NAHA board, it must be understood that he’s done everything in his power to subvert its legal operation, primarily by withholding appointments – an abuse so flagrant that Rep. Ed Clere has been compelled to author legislation in the House that would forestall such chump maneuvers in the future.

First Gahan starved the NAHA’s board by sitting on so many appointments that the body has scarcely been able to muster a quorum. Now, with CF Housing’s evasive blitzkrieg apparently ready to unleash, Gahan has reversed field and packed the board with the same old usual sycophantic suspects – Irving Joshua, already one of the most powerful non-elected officials in the city owing to his Redevelopment Commission fiefdom; former city attorney Stan Robison; and shameless longtime administration rent boy Bob “Judas” Norwood.

In yet another insider appointment to the board, which hasn’t been well publicized, city engineer Larry Summers’ mother Kathy has been placed in an NAHA seat.

The Green Mouse was told that she devoted ample time during her first meeting to issuing glowing paeans to the mayor, whose predilection for nepotism is so pronounced that the only real wonder in this instance is that one of his teenage daughters didn’t get the appointment instead.

---

Next week the revamped Comprehensive Plan will be approved by city council in the form of a single-vote resolution.

On Monday, February 13, at a meeting of the reconstituted and sardine-packed NAHA board, there’ll be something tantamount to a Memorandum of Understanding, and it also probably will pass with the secured votes Gahan has added. This will be some manner of boilerplate resolve to reduce our dependence on affordable public housing, sans substantive details about implementation, and as always, the least well off will be the ones to bear the brunt of "reform."

(This pogrom will have been facilitated by people who pretend to be Democrats, and it you consider yourself one, my suggestion is to take a good, hard look in the mirror. You may well be mistaken, though there’s always time to recover).

In the real world, the debate about merits and demerits of affordable public housing is far more complicated than my efforts to write this column.

Want to scatter such housing? Fine, though trying to imagine a 6-plex in Silver Hills, or another perched among the Main Street median-enriched mansions is almost impossible. Can you imagine Bob Caesar and Greg Phipps going for it?

Almost inevitably, Jeff Gahan intends to deal with this unquestionable need for affordable public housing by privatizing it, and just as inevitably, this privatization will occur not from any weighing of options or earnestness in community dialogue, both of which terrify the agoraphobic Gahan, but by virtue of the acreage where the NAHA’s concentrated housing currently lies.

Those affordable public housing units along Beechwood? They’re smack in the way of projected luxurious gentrification near the shining edifice of Silver Street Park -- an objective included in the Comprehensive Plan.

The NAHA’s newest units are at Riverside Terrace, and soon they’ll be an impediment to projected luxurious gentrification stemming from the Moser Tannery/Loop Island Wetlands/Rear Market prioritization, also discussed in the Comprehensive Plan, and which Team Gahan seems to believe will be the second coming of Windsor Palace’s minutely tended gardens.

Last, though surely not least, “The Project” itself is situated between the hospital and the urban golf course, in an area long regarded by city planners as some of the city’s best potential redevelopment property -- if only those damned poor people would have the presence of mind to go somewhere else, though if they did, the exodus just might deprive State Street’s chain stores of a labor force, one currently within walkable distance of home.

---

Actually none of these factors account for the bulk of my anger.

Rather, at two junctures in Chapter Seven of the Comprehensive Plan, it is stated that in order to mollify community “concerns” over public housing, bureaucratic buzz phrases must be strung together in impenetrable, horridly written cadences, as designed to “newspeak” the reader into believing that City Hall is holding a forceps, when in fact it is a bulldozer, and in my view, these are among the most cowardly statements of sheer bullshit in Jeff Gahan’s long career of non-transparent underachievement.

Because: In citing community “concerns,” Gahan depicts himself as a wise, caped, fatherly hero, when in fact he’s more two-faced than Harvey Dent.

Yes, so his outrageous self-referential revisionism goes -- Gahan spots his pasty white suburban voters armed with pitchforks, intent on burning “The Project” to the ground, and so he courageously intercedes: “Not on my watch! We’re humane! We’ll take care, and be fair; erect a patina of legality and a sheen of respectability; reduce densities, and decentralize … and turn the temperature up incrementally, so the frogs won’t ever know they’re being boiled alive.”

Gahan might be fooling you, but not me. What’s going down with the NAHA is a travesty of social justice, and even if you’re okay with the idea of eliminating affordable public housing, be aware that the mayor’s methodology is hardly less malevolent than Trump’s.

When Gahan comes for the residents of these houses, for the sole reason that there are more profitable uses for their homes, will anyone be there to do something?

Because what you permit, you promote. I’ll be at the NAHA meeting on the 13th at 5:30 p.m. Consider joining me, and we’ll watch the minions. Someone should.

---

* In a highlighted passage inserted in the January update of the Comprehensive Plan ...

Future multi-family housing developments are strongly encouraged to include up to 8 percent of total units as affordable housing units. When the City of New Albany is a partner in the development of housing through public incentives, a total of 8 percent of the units shall be affordable.

Too late for Break Water, isn’t it?

Delusion, meet narcissism: Jeff Gahan denies the reality of homelessness while proposing to demolish affordable housing options.

There was a social media discussion last evening in which supporters of Jeff Gahan's "policy" (read: spasm) about homelessness -- i.e., commit acts of government-sanctioned violence against the community's most vulnerable first, and only THEN murmur softly about ways to "help" them -- suggested that it is the responsibility of this "policy's" critics to provide information and assistance to the victims of the mayor's violent acts.

Bluegill provides much needed perspective about the compassion of Gahan's demolition fetish.

Just to recap, here’s a newspaper article from 2016. Every single person quoted in it - agency and non-profit representatives, public employees, law enforcement - all said there was/is a homelessness problem in New Albany. Several said that the numbers of homeless people were quite noticeably increasing.

Jeff Gahan, as the lone exception, denied there was a homelessness problem in New Albany. This is the same mayor who also insists that we have far too many affordable public housing units and that he will demolish and not replace at least half of them.

How could anyone, in conjunction with the more recent housing camp demolition, read all that as compassionate? If they intend to be remotely rational about it, the “politicized” argument from Gahan supporters here isn’t about whether NAC should personally be providing or linking to resources. An actual argument would entail Gahan supporters explaining how years spent denying homelessness is a problem in New Albany *and* demolishing both homeless person constructed temporary housing and more permanent affordable public housing is good for people experiencing housing problems. It seems like we rarely if ever see those types of legitimate arguments.

Meanwhile, the primary Gahan strategy beyond pure denial seems to be directly focused on demolition.

The article to which he refers was referenced here on September 24, 2016: Jeff Gahan seldom speaks for the record, but when he does, he denies homelessness is a problem in New Gahania.

Six months later, Gahan staged a hostile takeover of the New Albany Housing Authority with the stated intent of demolishing half its units. This actually might be considered "compassionate" by prevailing Republican standards, except the mayor insists on referring to himself as a Democrat.

Is there a party standing in opposition to deranged and deluded narcissists like Gahan? If so, they have my vote. Here is the original News and Tribune article from 2016 by Aprile Rickert. At the time, a reader commented:

"Uh oh! A local reporter who dares fact check the Mayor's assertions? She interviewed six additional sources and checked two additional sets of data? And she found these additional sources contradicted the claims that New Albany's homelessness wasn't a problem for little citizens to worry about? A great example of how local newspapers really matter. My thanks to Ms. Rickert!"

---

SATURDAY SPOTLIGHT: New Albany Homeless population struggles to cope; local officials notice growing number of homeless

NEW ALBANY — Dwight Schmitt, longtime New Albany resident, said he considers himself homeless right now for the first time ever.

Schmitt, a Vietnam veteran, said he was arrested in early July and spent 68 days in jail when someone was discovered in his home using drugs. Schmitt, who said he doesn’t use drugs and didn’t know the person had them in his home, was originally charged with possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia and maintaining a common nuisance.

The first two charges were dismissed, he said, but the third remains because it was his home. While he was incarcerated, he lost that home, and his belongings are now being stored in a friend’s trailer.

He said he’s waiting for his $2,500 bail that he posted to be released, and his pension check to come in early October before he can think about trying to find a new place to live.

“But until then, I’m at-large,” he said of being without a place to live. “Different friends let me stay here and there for a night or two. I’ve been doing yard work. I do all I can to make a living. I’ll find some way to eat every day.”

Schmitt said he knows of 25-30 people at least who are traditionally “street” homeless in New Albany, and that’s just in one area of the city. Some people say the number of homeless are increasing in New Albany over the past few years.

DIFFERING VIEWS

Not everyone agrees on the scope of the problem.

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan’s office sent an email to the News and Tribune addressing queries about homelessnessin New Albany Gahan stated in the release that homelessness is not something to take lightly, but that is not a large issue in New Albany.

“Anytime someone is homeless without a safe place for the night, it’s a serious issue for those individuals,” the email states. “However, the data does not support an assertion that New Albany has a homeless problem.”

The Indiana Housing Community and Development Authority (IHCDA) reported that through point-in-time counts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), when homeless individuals are literally counted on the streets, Floyd County had 74 homeless counted in early 2016, alongside an estimated total population of 76,668 for 2015. This translates to .09 percent homeless in Floyd County as compared to 5,863 or .08 percent homeless in the state, according to IHCDA, which reports a 2 percent drop in homelessness in Indiana from 2014 to 2015.

Dawn Klemm, executive director of the recently formed Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana, said that since the point-in-time count is done nationally every late January, numbers may not reflect the actual situation.

“Basically what you’re saying is whoever you can count on the street is how we’re going to base what goes on in your community,” she said of the national statistics. “The majority of the [homeless] are not going to be on the street. They’re doubling up, they’re sleeping in cars. They’re not on the street in January because it’s cold.”

The City of New Albany has worked in recent years to provide safer and more affordable housing, the mayor’s email states, operating more than 1,100 homes through the New Albany Housing Authority — more than Charlestown, Clarksville and Jeffersonville combined.

The City has also initiated a rental registration program to ensure that the 40 percent rented homes in New Albany are regulated for safety, and endorsed Low Income Housing Tax Credit applications through the state for development and redevelopment of affordable housing.

HELPING THEM COPE

Still there are people without homes, and some Floyd County residents and organization directors say that number is rising.

Jesse Floyd, board president of the Tri-County Health Coalition of Southern Indiana, said that he’s never seen homeless numbers like he is now in New Albany, and he speaks from experience. He’s been with the organization 30 years.

Floyd said that he’s seen an uptick in the homeless population, especially over the past two years. Since January, he’s also noticed a growing segment of young men among the homeless population, something he said is new.

“The indigent population has grown as a whole,” he said. “When we started, there were very few people coming through. We would have one or two people coming through asking for help.”

The organization has a series of programs providing food and clothing, helping with taxes and other services for anyone who needs it, not just the homeless.

“Now the food pantry stays empty,” he said. “We used to not have too many homeless people that stand out like this, but they’re standing out. You can’t miss them. You’ll see them with their backpacks, just sitting everyplace they can. You’ll see them just roaming the street. Most of them, you can tell they’re just hot. Its awful warm outside.”

Although working with homeless people has always been part of Tri-County’s mission, the need appears greater now. Floyd said this summer, between five to six young homeless people, mainly men, have been coming into the office every day for free water, snacks and a place to cool off. They range in age from about 17 to 22 years old, he said.

“A lot of them that come in, they just want to talk,” he said. “They’ve been coming in and sitting and talking about why they’re on the streets, what they would like to change in their lives and how their home lives [were.]”

Melissa Merida, director of the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library, said the library regularly serves the homeless population.

“They utilize a lot of the services and it’s also a cool place in the summer and a warm place in the winter,” she said, adding that some people go in to read or use the computers and some just want to sit in a more comfortable place than outside. Over the past several weeks, she said they may have seen fewer people because the weather has been more mild.

She said the library helps where it can — it offers free computer use with an ID, free computer classes weekly to learn how to use basic Microsoft programs and a job and career center to help people get started on making and posting resumes and searching for jobs.

“Most of the homeless, they have some kind of income, but it’s not enough to afford housing in our area,” she said. “And since we don’t have a shelter or somewhere to help them kind of get back on their feet, that kinds of complicates things.”

GROWING CONCERN

Floyd County Sheriff Frank Loop said he’s seen an increase in homeless New Albany residents over the past five to 10 years.

“Where years ago we might see one or two, now it’s not uncommon that they’re all over the place,” Loop said.

Several factors are contributing to the growth, he said.

“I think the homeless population in Clark and Floyd counties has exploded because there is a homeless shelter in Louisville, there is a drug problem that’s bigger than it’s ever been and there’s is a walking bridge so they can easily walk from Louisville to Southern Indiana where before they could not.

“That’s why Clark County has a much bigger problem than Floyd does, because they’re walking across that bridge,” Loop said.

While New Albany doesn’t have a shelter, Jeffersonville does. Barb Anderson, director of Haven House, said around 26 percent of the shelter’s population is from Floyd County, with around 50 percent from Clark.

She said the county percentage fluctuates and has been as high as 35 to 40 percent from Floyd County before. Haven House has 80 beds on regular, non “white flag” nights. White flag status is called when the index is at or below 35 degrees or at or above 95 degrees and is considered an emergency situation. Then shelters and makeshift shelters allow for more people to come in.

“It depends on what night you’re here,” she said. “This is a pretty mobile region and [some] people are between Jeffersonville, Clarksville and New Albany and kind of burn their bridges in one city and go to another city.

“And finally when the bridges are burned in all the cities, they wind up here. So the picture is kind of jaded. They may be from New Albany but lived in Clarksville for the past two months or they’ve gone to Jeffersonville and lived with a cousin. So it takes a little while to even find out where they’re from.”

Anderson said she doesn’t think an added shelter in New Albany is the answer.

“No, I think they need affordable housing,” she said. “I’m not a fan of sheltering and I provide shelter, but I know what I am. I am a shelter for the homeless. And there shouldn’t be shelters. There are enough resources in our community and our country to have affordable housing for people. It’s a matter of desire and it’s a matter of building it. And that priority has not taken place.”

Marohn: "The core cognitive dissonance in our affordable housing conversation."

A short and insightful piece follows, in which Charles Marohn doesn't pretend to have all the answers.

As with many housing issues, I don’t have a clear three-step plan to make everything work for everyone. Similar to the latest college admissions scandal, it seems that at least part of the conversation needs to acknowledge that even if we truly believe in some vision for an ideal society—whether that includes ample affordable housing or fair college admissions standards or something else entirely—when it comes down to it, our vision for our personal happiness is often at odds with our theoretical utopia. Put another way, individually, we have a vested interest in one approach (rising prices and growth), but collectively, we express an interest in the opposite (broader affordability and housing stability).

In conclusion ...

If we first make that acknowledgement, we can start to discuss a transition between a housing market dominated by our current distorted craziness and one that is more responsive to human needs.

Making this or any other acknowledgement as a preface to a genuine discussion?

Whether it's about affordable housing, streets and roads or virtually any other civic topic in New Albany, City Hall typically doesn't do public acknowedgements, and accordingly, real public discussions seldom occur. We're not having these discussions because they are at odds with the secretive goals of the city's administration.

Perhaps this explains the 800-lb gorilla perched on the dresser during recent chats about the future redevelopment of Colonial Manor.

Noting that I'm very much in favor of the grassroots effort to define a future for the property, and also that the organizers of this effort have done incredible work in standing against the usual Jeff Gahan "fix is in" approach to public "input," there has been some dissonance involved quite beyond City Hall's childish petulance at not having its way.

Specifically, neighborhood activists have openly dismissed any notion of the Colonial Manor acreage being used for housing. I believe this owes to a number of assumptions, some valid (the New Albany Housing Authority's recent spending spree) and others not so much (density fears).

However, Gahan himself surely triggered the backlash when he lofted a short-lived trial balloon about housing in a comment to the Jeffersonville newspaper on March 12.

"We will encourage residential and mixed use. We know the city of New Albany needs all types of housing," Gahan said.

The grassroots reaction to this statement was to read the word "affordable" as an adjective preceding "residential"; to assume "affordable" was code for "public housing," and to object not only to affordable/public housing, but also any housing at all on the site -- how many speakers at last week's listening event referred to there being "too much" density already?

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day -- and, for once, Gahan wasn't full of flatulence when he mentioned the desirability of mixed use, including residential. Of course, the devil in those details center on the level of municipal subsidy to campaign donors, but still, it was not an outrageous statement to make.

Obviously Gahan said nothing about this potential residential use being "affordable," which would contradict his longstanding preference for "luxury" in all forms, but the spectre of NAHA scattered site housing was enough to produce pushback, and correspondingly, redevelopment director Josh Staten made sure everyone knew that NAHA wouldn't be a part of the Colonial Manor picture.

For the moment it's moot, with Gahan publicly pouting and his Democratic Party stooges whining on social media about their inability to cope in a world where city council takes its fiduciary responsibilities seriously and doesn't settle for the Phipps Rubber Stamp.

But I believe Marohn's piece adds depth to the Colonial Manor discussion -- and happily at least we're having a discussion, contrary to Gahan's pathological need to micro-manage any such process behind closed doors.

Who Benefits From Lower Housing Prices?, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

 ... I’m being brutally honest (and a little vulnerable) here in order to make a difficult point about another public issue that can quickly become personal: affordable housing. Because here’s another brutal truth: in our cities today, nobody in a position to seriously impact the affordability of housing ever benefits from housing prices becoming affordable. In fact, the opposite holds true: most every individual or organization in a position to lower housing prices would be harmed by such a result.

And:

A policy approach that lowers home prices is going to run into a lot of structural resistance. And that’s the core cognitive dissonance in our affordable housing conversation: we want housing to somehow become more affordable without prices actually going down. Stated another way, we want people to somehow be able to afford housing while housing itself remains largely unaffordable.

Berlin is doing something about public transportation, bicycling safety and housing.

Berlin is a special case; it's a place near and dear to my heart, a capital city, and boasts a population of 3.5 million. By comparison, the entire Louisville metropolitan area has a population of 1.3 million. 

By the way, there no longer is a wall in Berlin. The 30th anniversary of its removal falls later this year.

Here are three reports from Berlin about the city's efforts to improve the lives of its citizens over above cults of personality and "luxury" aquatic centers.

---

Berlin Will Spend €2 Billion Per Year to Improve Public Transit, by Feargus O'Sullivan (CityLab)

The German capital plans to make major investments to expand bus and rail networks, boost frequency, and get ahead of population growth. Are you jealous yet?

When it comes to public transit, you can’t accuse Berlin of holding back on cash.

This week, the city announced its transit masterplan for 2019 to 2023 (with a period of focus that actually extends to 2035), and a major overhaul of the city’s transit networks is in the cards. The funds allocated are generous, to say the least: Berlin is committing a remarkable €28.1 billion, or just under $32 billion, to transportation projects.

That huge investment won’t all come in one burst, of course, but will be spread out over the years between now and 2035. That still means a phenomenal €2 billion every year pumped into the system until 2035, a level of consistent investment that would make the average American public transit official weep with envy ...

---

Berlin’s brave bikers: The German capital wants drivers to stop killing cyclists (The Economist)

If the streets are safer, more people will pedal

 ... Berlin’s state government, a three-way Social-Democrat, Green and Left Party coalition, is promising a “transport revolution” to reduce the number of road deaths to zero. Last year 45 people died in traffic accidents in Berlin, 11 of them on bikes. (In London, a city nearly three times bigger, 10 cyclists were killed in 2017). In June Berlin passed a law to make driving less attractive. The aim is to turn the city into a sea of Lycra. “Privileging cars has to stop,” says Matthias Tang of Berlin’s department for transport and the environment.

Busy intersections are being redesigned for bikes. Some main roads are getting two-metre-wide cycle-paths that are separated from traffic by bollards, to stop motorists parking on bike-paths, a common outrage. Over 100km of bike-only highways into the city will be built, and secure bicycle storage set up at train stations. Officials say safer roads will encourage people to swap petrol for pedal-power, thereby reducing pollution and congestion ...

 ... Berlin’s population is growing and the economy is doing well. More workers mean that once-quiet streets are getting congested. Rising rents are pushing residents out of the centre, increasing the number of car-commuters and making trains and buses more crowded. More Berliners would no doubt like to get out and feel the breeze in their hair—if they were less worried about being mown down by motorists ...

---

Berlin Builds an Arsenal of Ideas to Stage a Housing Revolution, by Feargus O'Sullivan (CityLab)

The proposals might seem radical—from banning huge corporate landlords to freezing rents for five years—but polls show the public is ready for something dramatic.

As Berliners grow increasingly frustrated with rising rents, there’s a question making the rounds in local politics that could seriously shake things up: Should there be a limit to how much housing a landlord can own?

Following months of intense debate (and some action), the German capital is considering whether landlords with more than 3,000 units should be barred from operating in the city. Opinion polls show a majority of Berliners favor such a move, and activists are about to start preparations for a referendum on the subject. If voted through, the plan could give citizens the power to make Berlin’s biggest landlords break up their portfolios, in the hope that this could prevent galloping rent rises and provide tenants with better service ...

Forget the chain envy. What New Albany needs downtown is people living there, that's what. What's the plan, planners?

There will be a merchant meeting this Tuesday morning. Since I've criticized Develop New Albany in the past for failing the transparency test when publicizing such events, fairness dictates that I correct the record when the organization does better, and lately it has.

Are you a merchant in New Albany? Join us! Restaurant, retail, realtor, insurance, salon and all of the other amazing businesses we have... come be a part of the community. Guest speaker Todd Harrett from Axiom Financial Strategies Group of Wells Fargo advisors.

I'm feeling like a rant, and hoping someday there'll be speakers on topics pertaining to walkability, parking, safe streets and other issues grouped under a broader umbrella of urbanism.

Each day the downtown business environment is shaped by factors like these, and yet perhaps because both DNA and the organization's merchant meetings fall under City Hall's indirect control, they're seemingly off limits for discussion.

What about the importance of infill housing, defined as "compact housing in already urbanized land near transit, jobs, and services”?

It's numero uno.

Both at merchant meetings and during numerous on-line chats, the question is asked: What does downtown New Albany need?

Invariably the answers proffered on-line revolve around chain restaurants and various start-up business ideas that no one commenting is prepared to undertake themselves, while at merchant meetings, business people tend to sit quietly as community leaders tell them what's already been decided.

The point constantly is being missed, because what downtown needs is PEOPLE who are LIVING downtown, people who are the common denominator for all these restaurant wish lists, people can walk to have a burger and beer and not be the single occupant of an automobile for a trip from places like the corner of Daisy and Green Valley, where yet another development has been approved -- and yet again, without a way for residents to ride a bike to points downtown.

Unless you consider a sharrow symbol something other than a license for drivers to wax imperialistic.

Somehow, while a central government investing in highways and subsidizing oil companies constitutes ‘freedom,’ any local investment and sidewalks and bike lanes smacks of the communist takeover.”
-- Jeff Speck, Walkable City Rules

To me, there's one huge campaign issue next year, and that's how we go about encouraging infill and population density downtown. It's an effort that must include affordable housing, and a spanking new city hall doesn't fit this imperative ... sorry, Schoolmaster B.

As an aside, if we're going to continue thinking we'll be a destination for people living elsewhere, then it's time for local government to put skin in the game as it pertains to an organized and coherent marketing campaign. This would help.

It will strike some merchants in attendance Tuesday that I'm talking about politics, which makes them shuffle nervously.

In the sense that politics is about power, then yes, it's political, and the independent business persons investing in downtown up to this point have far more power than they know, owing precisely to the combined weight of their investments.

And the way for them to achieve a greater return on these investments is for there to be more people living downtown.

What's the genius mayor's plan for that, apart from demolishing public housing already in place?

Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places

LET THE FACTS SPEAK: "Landlords refused to even consider voucher holders, some candidly citing the low subsidies and their desire to cash in on a hot market."

Previously:

If local "progressives" aren't holding City Hall's feet to the fire about Housing Choice vouchers, are they really progressive?

We'll be reinforcing this point again and again as the 2019 primary draws closer, because at a time when the federal housing voucher program is only minimally effective, our Mayor Jeff Gahan, David Duggins and their hand-chosen takeover administrators at the New Albany Housing Authority continue to insist their plan to half-size public housing in our city is viable because those slated for displacement will be handed vouchers.

The real-world evidence differs rather dramatically from bunker dogma.

With Market Hot, Landlords Slam the Door on Section 8 Tenants, by Glenn Thrush (New York Times)

 ... For most of its existence, the main shortcoming of the Section 8 program, created in 1974 as an alternative to ghettoizing public housing projects, was its inability to keep up with demand. But the recent economic boom in Philadelphia, long one of the most affordable big cities in the Washington-to-Boston corridor, has led to rent increases even in poor and working-class neighborhoods, and many landlords are now refusing to accept the vouchers when they can get higher rents, without the bureaucratic red tape that plagues the program, on the open market.

A survey by the nonpartisan Urban Institute, commissioned by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and released in August, documented the problem in stark terms. It found that 67 percent of Philadelphia’s landlords refused to even consider voucher holders, some candidly citing the low subsidies and their desire to cash in on a hot market. The rejection rates were even higher in Fort Worth and Los Angeles, where three-quarters of landlords turned away Section 8 tenants.

Put at risk by these market forces is the future of a core federal housing program that now serves 2.2 million low-income families and was started with a simple goal: to enable those families to escape neighborhoods increasingly segregated along racial and economic lines for a place with decent housing and better schools, stores and transportation ...