1999: free home, 2005: taken away by taxes?
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
This one from The Washington Post, headline is linked.
Burned by the Boom in N.Va. Real Estate
Soaring Property Taxes Overwhelm Habitat for Humanity Homeowners
By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 14, 2005; Page A01
Kesha James still remembers walking through the freshly painted rooms of her Habitat for Humanity house for the first time, making plans for the leather couch she would buy, and the piano and the canopied bed for her three little girls.
Today, the couch is still a dream. The living room is in ruins because of a plumbing leak she can't afford to fix. She took a second job and works seven days a week but is still afraid she might lose her house.
Her modest mortgage isn't the problem; it's rising property taxes that keep her up nights. Her little house in Alexandria has more than doubled in value since it was built in 1999 and is now worth a half-million dollars, forcing her monthly house payment, which includes real estate taxes, up from $515 to $954 in the past 18 months -- chiefly because of higher taxes.
"It's not fair. It doesn't make any sense," said James, 29, sitting at her cheerful kitchen table, her youngest daughter curled up in her arms. "Alexandria is my home. . . . I don't want to leave."
Asked when her last day off was, she can't remember.
Rising property values across the region have put the squeeze on taxpayers, but the bite has been especially acute for owners of Habitat for Humanity homes in Northern Virginia. In some areas, their homes have doubled and tripled in value in the past three years.
At least a dozen of the 47 Habitat homeowners in Northern Virginia pay more in property taxes and insurance than they do to pay off their mortgages, according to Karen Cleveland, executive director of the Northern Virginia arm of the housing nonprofit group. It is part of an international group that builds homes with volunteers and sells them to low-income buyers.
"The rising property taxes have truly made it almost impossible for them to stay in their homes," Cleveland said. "We're saying, 'Help us to make it appropriate so our homeowners are paying what is fair for them.' "
Soaring home values are also a growing concern for the owners of 19 Montgomery County Habitat for Humanity homes, most of them in Silver Spring and Rockville, program officials said. Tax caps and a five-year tax abatement program for new Habitat owners in the District have kept costs in the city and the Maryland suburbs from rising as steeply as they have in Virginia.
... more at linked article
Why do I post this article? Is it to pick on Habitat, a program started by a very liberal president, and try to point it out as a program that doesn't work? No.
Is it to try to point out that liberals are silly people that don't always follow through on their ideas and the later impacts that they have? Yes.
Habitat for Humanity is a great program. Some might consider a faith-based organization, given the Carter's claims that faith guides their lives. Regardless, it's a fine program, with a fine purpose, designed to help people to help themselves.
But... like many other similar programs started by liberals, it is creating new victims of the system that was designed by liberals to make sure that everyone "pays their fair share".
The subject of the article referenced above received a home that has doubled in value in just a few years. Thats great. This family should have, at a minimum, $250,000.00 in equity in their home. More if their mortgage payments have paid down some of the original debt. That should be a good thing. Helping this family get and keep such an asset should be a good thing.
But, on the other hand, people must pay their taxes. We can't let people not pay their fair share. Especially not people that have items of value, which is a symbol of wealth. So, in the name of fairness, we have property taxes that are set at levels that impact upon people that have homes of any real value. As a society, we assume that someone that lives in a half million dollar home is well off. We then ask them to pay their fair share. After all, they are "half millionaires", and must be able to pay for others less fortunate than themselves.
What happens though when the one who now has the assets is the one who was poor, and who is, by all accounts, still poor? How do we make the system right for them? Do we not ask them to pay taxes? In doing so, we must ask everyone else above them to pay much more. In the liberal world, that may seem fine. Just ask Clueless Old Liberals like Gene and friends. They'll gladly pass along higher tax bills to anyone that is in that wealthiest 5% (give or take, mostly take - as in taxes) of Americans. Except, you see, that 5% figure is a strange target. Depending upon where you live, that 5% or so may involve people that have seen their home values increase astronomically thanks to urban renewal efforts, or efforts of organizations like Habitat, where homes have been remodeled, refurbished, and now revalued. Instead of dingy slums (which we all hate and want gone) that were blights on the local environments, we have nice homes, with working families in them. Working families -- as pointed out in the article above -- that can't afford to keep the homes because the values have risen so quickly as to wind up inflating these people's taxes outside their reasonable range.
Yet, if citizens like me (and many others) demand lower taxes, and applaud cuts in wasteful duplicitious programs such as farm and dairy subsidies, we're told that won't work. That spending is still too much, those cuts aren't fair, and we really need more and higher taxes, especially on the rich. Rich people, with assets like half-million dollar homes. Right?
Please dear liberals, please keep going with your lunacy. Please give people a home one day and tax them out of it the next. It makes you look like idiots who are only interested in controlling purse strings so you can keep people dependent on your programs rather than letting the free market work with only a minimal amount of oversight and control.
Burned by the Boom in N.Va. Real Estate
Soaring Property Taxes Overwhelm Habitat for Humanity Homeowners
By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 14, 2005; Page A01
Kesha James still remembers walking through the freshly painted rooms of her Habitat for Humanity house for the first time, making plans for the leather couch she would buy, and the piano and the canopied bed for her three little girls.
Today, the couch is still a dream. The living room is in ruins because of a plumbing leak she can't afford to fix. She took a second job and works seven days a week but is still afraid she might lose her house.
Her modest mortgage isn't the problem; it's rising property taxes that keep her up nights. Her little house in Alexandria has more than doubled in value since it was built in 1999 and is now worth a half-million dollars, forcing her monthly house payment, which includes real estate taxes, up from $515 to $954 in the past 18 months -- chiefly because of higher taxes.
"It's not fair. It doesn't make any sense," said James, 29, sitting at her cheerful kitchen table, her youngest daughter curled up in her arms. "Alexandria is my home. . . . I don't want to leave."
Asked when her last day off was, she can't remember.
Rising property values across the region have put the squeeze on taxpayers, but the bite has been especially acute for owners of Habitat for Humanity homes in Northern Virginia. In some areas, their homes have doubled and tripled in value in the past three years.
At least a dozen of the 47 Habitat homeowners in Northern Virginia pay more in property taxes and insurance than they do to pay off their mortgages, according to Karen Cleveland, executive director of the Northern Virginia arm of the housing nonprofit group. It is part of an international group that builds homes with volunteers and sells them to low-income buyers.
"The rising property taxes have truly made it almost impossible for them to stay in their homes," Cleveland said. "We're saying, 'Help us to make it appropriate so our homeowners are paying what is fair for them.' "
Soaring home values are also a growing concern for the owners of 19 Montgomery County Habitat for Humanity homes, most of them in Silver Spring and Rockville, program officials said. Tax caps and a five-year tax abatement program for new Habitat owners in the District have kept costs in the city and the Maryland suburbs from rising as steeply as they have in Virginia.
... more at linked article
Why do I post this article? Is it to pick on Habitat, a program started by a very liberal president, and try to point it out as a program that doesn't work? No.
Is it to try to point out that liberals are silly people that don't always follow through on their ideas and the later impacts that they have? Yes.
Habitat for Humanity is a great program. Some might consider a faith-based organization, given the Carter's claims that faith guides their lives. Regardless, it's a fine program, with a fine purpose, designed to help people to help themselves.
But... like many other similar programs started by liberals, it is creating new victims of the system that was designed by liberals to make sure that everyone "pays their fair share".
The subject of the article referenced above received a home that has doubled in value in just a few years. Thats great. This family should have, at a minimum, $250,000.00 in equity in their home. More if their mortgage payments have paid down some of the original debt. That should be a good thing. Helping this family get and keep such an asset should be a good thing.
But, on the other hand, people must pay their taxes. We can't let people not pay their fair share. Especially not people that have items of value, which is a symbol of wealth. So, in the name of fairness, we have property taxes that are set at levels that impact upon people that have homes of any real value. As a society, we assume that someone that lives in a half million dollar home is well off. We then ask them to pay their fair share. After all, they are "half millionaires", and must be able to pay for others less fortunate than themselves.
What happens though when the one who now has the assets is the one who was poor, and who is, by all accounts, still poor? How do we make the system right for them? Do we not ask them to pay taxes? In doing so, we must ask everyone else above them to pay much more. In the liberal world, that may seem fine. Just ask Clueless Old Liberals like Gene and friends. They'll gladly pass along higher tax bills to anyone that is in that wealthiest 5% (give or take, mostly take - as in taxes) of Americans. Except, you see, that 5% figure is a strange target. Depending upon where you live, that 5% or so may involve people that have seen their home values increase astronomically thanks to urban renewal efforts, or efforts of organizations like Habitat, where homes have been remodeled, refurbished, and now revalued. Instead of dingy slums (which we all hate and want gone) that were blights on the local environments, we have nice homes, with working families in them. Working families -- as pointed out in the article above -- that can't afford to keep the homes because the values have risen so quickly as to wind up inflating these people's taxes outside their reasonable range.
Yet, if citizens like me (and many others) demand lower taxes, and applaud cuts in wasteful duplicitious programs such as farm and dairy subsidies, we're told that won't work. That spending is still too much, those cuts aren't fair, and we really need more and higher taxes, especially on the rich. Rich people, with assets like half-million dollar homes. Right?
Please dear liberals, please keep going with your lunacy. Please give people a home one day and tax them out of it the next. It makes you look like idiots who are only interested in controlling purse strings so you can keep people dependent on your programs rather than letting the free market work with only a minimal amount of oversight and control.