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Comment by monero-xmr | Hacker News Reader

The problem is public housing is maintained poorly. People generally beat rentals to shit and public housing is beat up even worse. The maintenance workers are union and can’t get fired, so they work at a leisurely pace. The admin are union and can’t get fired so their office is a mess and they respond slowly.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/10/metro/residents-in-corruption-...

Bad tenants in privately owned rentals get kicked out. In public housing they just make things terrible for their neighbors.

Without the profit motive, rental property becomes dilapidated quickly. I think the real solution for public housing is to make it rent-to-own for the tenants so they actually care. Otherwise it just goes to shit.

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While I do not think my old public housing, not in the US though, looked great, it definately wasn't the helpless mess you describe even by a long shot. I think this is a different problem than you describe. Poor maintenance only results if profit is the motive and no penalties are applied.

> The problem is public housing is maintained poorly. People generally beat rentals to shit and public housing is beat up even worse. The maintenance workers are union and can’t get fired, so they work at a leisurely pace. The admin are union and can’t get fired so their office is a mess and they respond slowly.

In my dreams I would hire full time staff and significantly incentivize timely work with cold, hard cash bonuses.

> Bad tenants in privately owned rentals get kicked out. In public housing they just make things terrible for their neighbors.

I guess in this fantasy, I own all of the buildings so it isn't really "public" housing. I guess I would have the option of doing something about bad tenants. Rent-to-own is a pretty good idea.

Your fantasy works great for normal people who for reasons can't afford a house but overall treat things well. It doesn't work for someone who has mental issues which sometimes turn violent. (often hard drugs are a root cause - but there are some born this way through no fault of anyone.) I don't know what to do about those but it is a real problem.

In the past society put them in institutions, but that has been out since the 1960s or before - for good reason. Institutions invite by nature invite the staff to abuse the people. Homeless is better than institutions were (even including cases of someone freezing to death). From what I know of prisons I can tell you we have not solved this human nature problem and so I cannot support going back to institutions.

Yes, that is a separate problem for which I don't think there are any easy answers.

> The maintenance workers are union and can’t get fired, so they work at a leisurely pace. The admin are union and can’t get fired so their office is a mess and they respond slowly.

The story you linked has little to do with unions. Are unions really the issue?

I've seen a lot of buildings where repairs didn't get done. Their maintenance and admin staff weren't public employees or unionized. They were just regular people. A mix of jaded, bigoted, disorganized, and lazy people (and some kind ones!) without anything making them be better, because there's rarely any consequences for mistreating the poor. Bad behaviour left unchecked becomes the norm, especially when it saves a buck.

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