Obama's failed housing policy

While mainstream media continues to fawn over the new messiah of the left, Barrack Hussien Obama, the fact is the "best hope for change" really is nothing much more than just another two-bit Chicago politician. A good case in point is Obama's failed housing policy while a state senator in Illinois.

Obama, as a presidential candidate, has been promising to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund worth approximately $500 million a year to developers. The objective would be to build and manage more 'affordable housing'. This is just about the same approach that Obama sponsored while a state senator, an approach that has proven to be a dismal failure for the people who were supposed to benefit while being a success for several of Obama supporters and campaign donors.

CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

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While the residents of Grove Parc are suffering, many of the developers, friends and supporters of Barrack Hussien Obama, are doing fine, thank you.

Among those tied to Obama politically, personally, or professionally are:

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.

Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama's US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama's former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.

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Do us all a favor folks and start to ask Obama and his minions the hard questions rather than falling for the 'candidate of change' garbage. The job of President of the United States is arguably the most important job in the world. Whoever fills that job should be someone who has been fully honest with us, who has proven that they are what they claim to be and not just a repackaged windbag.