Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 14, 1992 TAG: 9201140342
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HOMEOWNERS AND HOUSING SUBSIDIES
EVIDENCE abounds that, in America, middle-class resentment against the poor is growing. All those homeless people - why don't they just go away?A particular source of irritation seems to be the perception that so many tax dollars go to poor people. The facts might get in the way of such resentment.
Consider housing subsidies.
Every year the federal government bestows on this nation $113 billion in housing benefits. Guess where the lion's share goes - to public-housing projects, to rental subsidies? Guess again.
According to a recent report of the Twentieth Century Fund, 69 percent of that $113 billion goes to people who already own houses.
About $40 billion annually is gained through mortgage interest deductions. Homeowners get another $14 billion a year through deferred capital gains on home sales. Then there's $11.5 billion in property-tax deductions, and more than $12 billion in other federal subsidies for homeowners. Vacation homes, incredibly, remain deductible.
The federal government spends, by contrast, about $2 billion on public housing. The total outlay for subsidized rental housing for the poor amounts to $16 billion. (In 1980, that figure was $35 billion.)
So who's on the public dole here?
By one calculation, families earning more than $53,000 - the top fifth of Americans in terms of income - receive 58 percent of federal housing benefits and subsidies. The bottom fifth receive only 13 percent.
Meanwhile, the waiting lines at homeless shelters this winter are long and getting longer. The number of low-income renters, often just a paycheck away from homelessness, continues to rise steadily - even as the number of places cheap enough for them to rent continues to decline.
And not just the poor are suffering. Millions of hard-working young American families, often with both spouses employed, find the first down payment on a house too high a hurdle. Home ownership has declined in the past decade for the first time since the Great Depression.
The housing situation, like so many other situations in this country, shows a widening chasm between haves and have-nots. And the government does little to close the gap. On the contrary: Americans with incomes over $200,000 benefit from some $5 billion in homeowner deductions every year! Federal housing benefits amount to an upside-down policy of alms for the rich and middle classes.
Resentment may be understandable. But, please, spare the poor.