I am dealing with a company trying to build a Section 42 apartment complex (233 units) near my single-family rental homes (many of my homes are in the same neighborhood). They are trying to get the zoning for it. For those of you who don’t know, this is low income housing, but different from Section 8. I am very concerned about this bringing crime into the neighborhood and lowering property values.

Has anyone else had to deal with this, and how to fight it? Is there any hope of keeping crime out of this thing? One of my tenants already said he will leave if they build this (a good tenant I’ve had for 3 yrs). My tenants live in my SF homes because they don’t like apartments, let alone low income apartments!

It would be better to build a condominium building then rent out where over time the entire building would be a condominium. Unfortunately the idle hand is the devils workshop where there are always going to be more problems with lower income as many do not work where illegal drugs maybe a problem. Consider building a building which is energy efficient where each rental unit has it own heating, hot water and air conditioning unit. Low energy use is the future as no one knows where utility bills will be in future. Also do not forget to have water separately metered as well. Unpaid utilities and unpaid rent go hand in hand together so the process of elimination begins by screening out problem tenants. With all the utilities separate the rent can be considerably lower then competing rental units. Governments can afford to operate buildings that lose over $100,000 per year on a small building where private operators can not. Let the government build operate energy inefficient buildings. In the province of Ontario most of the builders are building very few rentals as the rent control system made it not worthwhile. So with a building registered as a condo if the government gets nasty tenants get a letter in the mail if they want to stay they will own or leave.

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy , Cambridge, MA has a complex study that shows absolutely everyone from government to citizens are better off if they took the same funds and bought them all Mobile homes and gave them the deed. It is cheaper and it gives the citizens a hand up that lasts a lifetime.

The savings to OUR treasury is massive and has a better outcome.

I know you don't want to approach it from a NIMBY perspective, but honestly that IS your real motive. No one wants low-income housing or trailers in their back yard because it tends to decrease property values.

We talk here often about how no private builders are building low-income housing. There's no acceptable profit margin. So that leaves one entity who will build it: Govt. By the time there is financing for a 200+ unit low-income apartment, you can assume the local Govt has given some serious thought about it and they ARE going to build it.

So....what to do?

Find ANOTHER PLACE that is BETTER for that apartment. Don't just be a ruckus-raiser: have a solution that accomplishes the goal the city has already decided they want to accomplish and protects your property.

Feel free to make a fuss, but don't expect it to work. Again, the city WANTS this apartment. They've work on a lot to get it approved up to this point. It's going to take more than upset neighbors to stop them.

Time to change your game on that house. Good luck stopping them.

I agree with Roy.

There is no more reason to be worried about this project because it is section 42 than any other apartment project.

Section 42 is not subsidized housing from the tenants side like section 8. It is tax credits for the investors as long as they agree to keep rents at a certain level and have a certain percentage of their residents fall below a certain income level (county median I believe).

I would expect a new section 42 project to be led by seasoned investors who will have competent professional management in place.

Have to disagree with Roy. But just from my experience and all the places I have seen. Should not be hard to find stats that show the results of what happens.

I think nhsailmaker has a great idea. I often thought the best way was to give or rent out Kathrine trailer for them.

Would be able to help so many more people that need housing.

Great for low income older people. They dont care much about the size. Easier to clean and lower utilities. And these people need help. They cant go out and get a job. Much less a second job like others should.

The bottom line is this: low-income people, regardless of where they live, need to be managed by a competent higher authority. Giving low-income people a new MH and a Deed, without anyone over-seeing them, would be a disaster. Low-income people do not have the money (or the IQ) to maintain anything they own. And when their is no maintenance being done, we all know what happens next. This is how good neighborhoods change into bad ones.

I have Googled Section 42 housing. It is not government subsidised like the Section 8 program is. However, Section 42 rents are 'capped' which smells like government imposed 'rent control'.

You could protest, but remember it's not landlords that sway opinions, it's voters in their district. You must get the neighbors to do it.

Another option you have is to turn your neighborhood into an HOA and wall it in. Walls and borders work. It will improve your property values and separate you from the apartments.

If you have lots of homes in the HOA, you'll have lots of votes to make the HOA behave.

I've fought City Hall many times on these issues. No matter what was originally agreed upon, things will change for the worse. A private learning academy opened behind an apartment complex I own. There was to be no playground and behind my building was to be the faculty parking area.

Soon after they build the play area right behind my building. Instead of the school being opened to 250 students from 8 AM to 1 PM, they had three shifts of 400 students -- from 8 AM to 6 PM. The noise never stopped.