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CAT Tracks for May 21, 2017
THEATER OF THE ABSURD |
From yesterday's USA TODAY article:
Those numbers have been bandied about in previous stories from various sources...
...all without question.
However, upon further review...
...let's do the math.
Take $70 million (for building new housing) and divide that by say 200 ("to accommodate the 183 households requiring relocation")...
...and you get, drum roll please:
$350,000 per unit.
Damn, I know it would be "government work" (like those $10,000 toilet seats the federal government is known to buy), but, bears repeating:
DAYUM!
Hell, I can save the feds $100,000 right off the bat...
...use Riverlore as one of the units! Last I heard, a couple of years back, the City of Cairo was trying to sell it for ONLY $250,000...
...might even go cheaper now!
Hey, you know what, Ben Carson, let's negotiate...
...starting with the projected $7.6 million required for repairs...
...which if applied to the cost of 200 NEW units would be $38,000 each.
You could buy a lot of existing Cairo homes for that price! (I know that I would answer my door if that opportunity came knocking!!!) Or, if you didn't want to "run off" any current tax-paying residents, which WOULD be counterproductive, let's take that $7.6 million to Cape, Paducah, or wherever and see if we can make a bulk deal on some modular homes. Cairo certainly has the vacant lots...
...and the homes can be scattered about town so as to avoid the aversion to Cabrini–Green style projects (or Elmwood or McBride.)
So...
...why don't we quit tossing around absurd numbers to justify scattering (hushing?) the victims of local, state, and federal malfeasance so that everyone can "move on"...
...especially those further up the food chain, the money chain, who signed off on all the alleged dastardly deeds of the local yokels.
In fact, could fear that the small fish will "rat out" the bigger fish possibly explain why Senators Durbin and Duckworth can't get an answer out of HUD as to why no one has yet been held responsible for Cairo's public housing crisis.
Things that make you go: "Hmmm..."
Hey, HUD, want Cairo to shut up and go away?
Show us the money...
In a letter last month to the city’s school superintendent, Andrea Evers, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said a search for viable solutions to preserve affordable housing opportunities within Cairo came up empty. HUD estimates the two housing projects need $7.6 million in repairs and building new housing would cost about $70 million.
