New York City Housing Projects Are About to Get a Lot More Dangerous

Projects in Morrisania

This one isn’t even on De Blasio, but call it a head start on De Blasio time. Instead it’s on Barack Obama.

While housing projects in New York City are still often violence prone, they’re not nearly as bad as they used to be before Giuliani cleaned them up. And the most important thing he did there was get criminals out of public housing. So while public housing is still bad, it’s more likely to host senior citizens and less likely to host drug dealers these days.

But fortunately Obama put a stop to that. The first step is bringing in the ex-cons direct from prison.

The New York City Housing Authority will ease its ban on recently released prisoners and allow some of them to live in public housing as part of a pilot program set to start next month.

Public housing nationwide has been off-limits to many people with criminal records and, in New York, residents can be barred for up to six years depending on the nature of their offenses. But two years ago the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development began urging public housing agencies to relax admission policies in an effort to help people released from prison reunite with their families.

The New York City Housing Authority, landlord to more than 400,000 residents, will be one of the first public housing agencies in the nation to test lifting the restrictions. The program will, over the two-year pilot period, place 150 former inmates in public housing and provide social services to help them find jobs and meet other requirements.

“We’re hoping we’ll see fathers and mothers reunited with their children, or parents who are reunited with their children and grandchildren and need their support because they’re aging parents,” said Nora Reissig, the director of family services for the Housing Authority.

If they select the right 150, which they probably will, the path will be paved to ending restrictions and we’ll see housing projects turn into felon housing again. To some degree they still are, with criminals living with their girlfriends and parents and grandparents, but once the restrictions are down, then Fort Apache will be making a comeback.

 

  • Gee

    New York City will be the next Gaza. I wonder if the President will demand restraint when the rockets fly.

    • Drakken

      Burn baby burn! I’ll get the marshmallows.

  • Jakareh

    Marxists sympathize with criminals, whom they consider to be “class allies”. It’s people who work for a living—the “bourgeoisie” in their parlance—that they have a problem with. Marxists don’t believe an individual’s labor belongs to him or her but to the socialist state. By working for their own betterment, the bourgeois are committing thievery, therefore their victimization at the hands of thugs is, in the Marxist view, just and well-deserved.

    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago”, which is the greatest work of non-fiction in history, deals extensively with the question of Marxist ideology concerning criminals.

    • tagalog

      the “victimization of the bourgeoisie at the hands of thugs is, in the Marxist view, just and well-deserved.”

      As Stalin the bank robber put it, “Expropriating the expropriators.”

      That will surely bring about the true and just Classless Society.

      • objectivefactsmatter

        “That will surely bring about the true and just Classless Society.”

        “Classes” are good for society as long as upward mobility is possible.

  • Veracious_one

    People who voted for Obama are slowing learning not to expect him to help them out….but they would still support him, after all he is black….

  • nomoretraitors

    Good. They’re getting what they voted for

    • Habbgun

      But I’m not and most of the people who fund a slob like De Blasio intend to leave as soon as trendy becomes oh so five minutes ago. Maybe they’ll come to where you are and work their magic there.

  • mindRider

    The negative part of history shall repeat itself, it’s the positive that takes extraordinary effort, within four years of De Blasio New York will have slid down the criminal ladder again, thank you stupid voters.

  • MarilynA

    Public housing has been a cesspool for years. Bill Clinton’s Sec. of HEW, Donna Shalala, gave the New Black Panthers, once described as being Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam’s army, $16 million in one year to provide “security” and self esteem classes in public housing. I read that to mean she gave them the money to buy arms and a license to buy them wholesale, in addition to access for recruitment, to the most vulnerable members of our society, disaffected black youth

  • tagalog

    In my home state, they call such a program the Gateway Program. Gateway for the wolves to get easily right into the sheep fold, the fox to get into the hen house.

    • objectivefactsmatter

      AKA revolving door.

  • herb benty

    Progressives like to create more voters, and they admire chaos, revolution. People who are contented and peaceful don’t make good agitators, not the “Occupy” types Pelosi winks at. Criminals will help reverse Guilianni’s good work.

  • Pinky Stanseski

    Why do you hate convicted felons?

    • Elliott

      If you don’t hate convicted felons, you’d be quite happy to have them as your neighbours? Maybe rent out a room?

      • Pinky Stanseski

        Elliott, I would very happy to have them as my neighbors, etc. & I have testified as a character witness for a convicted felon to get a professional license years ago and fought & still fight to this very day for ban-the-box laws to be enacted nationwide, cause I believe a convicted felon has the same rights as everyone else in the United States of America!

        • objectivefactsmatter

          “…I believe a convicted felon has the same rights as everyone else in the United States of America!”

          Of course they do. A right to due process to see which other rights apply. If you’re saying that “pursuit of happiness” is unmitigated for all regardless of behavior, then you’re an anarchist.

          People must be held accountable for their behavior. These days, prison and jail sentences are always lighter with the understanding that some of the “reform” will be after release. Therefore they are still almost always under some of their sentence when released. They therefore do not have the rights that you imagine them to have.

          If you want to help people. that’s great. If you want to fight some delusional class war, take it somewhere else. People must be held accountable. That’s why we have our judicial system.

          • ziggy zoggy

            Ex felons are human. I’m not an ex felon but I have friends who are. The so called criminal justice system is crooked to the core and any man can be victimized by it.

            Seriously.

    • Jakareh

      I didn’t think you were serious. In fact, I read Elliott’s post and I thought, “Man, what a doofus! He didn’t get the sarcasm.” (Sorry, Elliott.) Since you are retarded (and no, I’m not about to stop using a perfectly good word), here’s why I don’t want felons around me: they commit felonies.

      • Pinky Stanseski

        I’m not retarded & prefer convicted felons as my neighbors & friends than those who are bigoted & those who hate anyone who is in any way different than they are.

        • objectivefactsmatter

          Retarded or not, you’ve failed to understand the legitimate concerns.

    • REDRUM777

      Pinko, I DO NOT believe there should be any prejudice toward “Convicted Felons”! I feel that once a person, female or male, receives a felony guilty verdict they should be strapped to the table and injected…no fuss…no muss. Be done with it and move on to the next perp! I beleive the crime rate will lower itself on it’s own. Look how much extra money we’ll have for parks and recreation: speaking of which, if a pedophile gets convicted, we should tie his/her hands to an overhead pipe and slowly bleed them to death (3 days).
      What do you think about that, Pinko? By the way, I actually have

      • ziggy zoggy

        Many Traffic violations are felonious. So are “failure to appear” cases. And “Child” support cases.

        Are you sure you want to bleed those people out?

      • kanenas101

        Be careful what you wish for.

        A lot of minor crimes are prosecuted as felonies now. It is a backdoor method of gun control.