I found this news story about a legendary person in my town whom I've mentioned before. I give the author credit: he talks about the fact that this guy fills a need.

I've mention this before: slum tenants need a place to live. My 2 cents is that is why my fair town hasn't fully shut him down ... yet. Anyway, it's an interesting read.

biz417.com/companies/small-businesses/417-rentals-chris-gatley/

I read the article. That same situation exists in my town too. There is no easy solution to the problems associated with low income tenants. We have rental house inspections here but the slumlords know the loopholes in the system and they continue to operate just like Chris Gatley does.

Plenty,

In my town, I can show you 10 houses where people live in horrible substandard conditions. If the city ever inspected these these houses, the houses would be condemned and the low income residents would become homeless that very day. I am aware of detached garages where people live without any water or power. And our city turns a blind eye towards this only because no one is complaining about it. It is what it is.

Good conversations so far. Keep 'em coming!

Here's an interesting consideration: why are housing being condemned if the alternative of living on the street is worse? Basically, the Govt hath decreed what your minimum standard of living must be. So many square feet. Hot water provided by a water heater. So many windows per room. Must have a closet or it can't be a bedroom. Etc.

I am an amateur Historian by training (Bachelors Degree in History) and reading (over 300 books in my personal library...countless online sources). The houses being condemned today would have been considered luxurious in my grandparents time. They lived on a farm house with a single cast iron wood stove. They didn't have electricity until the 1940s. No indoor plumbing until the 1950s. Their house that my family raised 7 generations in successfully would be bulldozed if it existed inside city limits today.

A wiser than me person said, "Affordable housing isn't impossible; it's illegal."

I do not wish to be like Mr. Gatley. The tenants he rents to are truly some of the most desperate. They often have multiple evictions, horrible credit, are unemployed on benefits or bounce from job to job, and have checked past littered with felonies. As the article points out, he's their last chance.

The day they close down his homes, there will be hundreds of people on the streets.

Regarding how he got so much money from banks, rumor on the streets is he was buddies with a high up loan officer who moved around to several different local banks. He'd make the loans and then move on and was never around to take heat from the bosses when the bills went unpaid.

Yes, I believe he was filling a need. It would be interesting to see what his downfall was. My guess either he snorted the proceeds or he outgrew his systems and ended up running his operation so poorly that it was losing money.

I do think some was over the line behaviors like toilets falling through the floor, holes in the floor from roofs leaking, and the like that any city should condemn the property for. But in general, many of the residents behavior is what results in roaches and holes in the wall. While the average American doesn't like to think about people living in these conditions, the reality is the only other option is homelessness. Most landlords wouldn't take them because of the trail of destruction in their wake. Having a housing department issue citations is ignoring the real problem.

first off filing BK does not allow the person off the hook. You can't use BK to stop paying your mortgage.

Where is it that the low income people stopped paying rent to keep the property's afloat? Where does it mention how the courts allowed none payers to stay for free? Where does it show the tax man didn't over tax him?

With 400+ houses and that many mortgages he needs income.

It was funny to hear the toilet fell through-- but of course no mention of the fat A that was sitting on it or the one who refused to tell the owner.

These STORY's are sad-- but we don't have all the hubbub.

I was thinking along the same lines as Sid. Today's minimum standards are luxury for someone 100 years ago, even less.

My great aunt was married during WW2. She and Undle Richard moved into a home on his family farm that he was building as he went. They had electric, because he put it in, but the well was a shallow, hand-dug well with a manual pump for a long time, into the 1980's in fact. When my Great Grandpa passed away in 1992, he left her $5000 to have a well pump put in and they finally ran water into the house. Before that, they pumped it in the yard, and brought buckets in. If you used the toilet in the house, you flushed by pouring a bucket of water into the toilet. It was better than when I was a kid.... in 1976 they still had an outhouse!

Similarly, my great grandmother on a different side of the family finally moved to town in 1974. Until then, she had an out house about 50 yds from the home, and a manual pump well right out the front door. I believe she had electric, but not much of it, just an overhead light in each room I believe. Baths were in the kitchen in the wash tub with water heated on the gas stove. The propane man came monthly to top off the tank.

Even in the 1980s my grandma, living in St Louis City didn't have central heat. The old town house she owned (bought as a 4-family flat during WW2, built early in the 1900's I think) had a gas stove in the middle room of the shot gun apartments. The front room had no separate source of heat, the middle room had the gas stove, the back room was the kitchen.

Those buildings would never qualify for living in today, even though they provided the basics and were considered luxury to the folks just off the farm. No closets, no central heat and air, clawfoot tubs, but they raised families in them. Grandma moved out in the early 1990's.

They were hardy farm folks, who had huge gardens, canned hundreds of quarts of veggies every summer, and saved bread bags to re-use. They fed anyone who needed it, and did without over and over.

Here is the thoughts that come to mind after reading this story: a hands on highly skilled landlord with a good paying day job, who is willing to work evenings and weekends and not be paid for his labor is required to keep the low end house in habitable condition.

Obviously, such an individual can only manage/maintain a limited number of houses.

Whenever a company grows beyond what a owner operator described above can handle, they are on the road to failure. When you have to pay tradesmen to maintain the houses, you soon find that the rents won’t cover maintenance, repair, management and debt service. This is where 417 rental soon found themselves. They tried to cover their problems by growth, trying to be big enough to afford to pay tradesmen to maintain and managers to manage.

There is always this option which I like A LOT!

This was in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco , TX Nov 18, 2010...

Put me in charge . . .

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem," consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND WHILE you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes.. that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.

Rick, I have heard of that op ed before and totally agree. And not just a problem in the USA. I watch the series on youtube "Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away."

They had a Somali immigrant, apparently well educated, been in the UK for 9 years with 2 young children and was working only 8 hours a WEEK! The show kind of was doing a bleeding heart slant but I was saying why the heck doesn't she work full time for crying out loud??? I was a single parent for 2 decades and I worked not less than 50 hours a week providing for them.

Rick-

That sounds harsh.

Based on the article, the housing agencies in Springfield will be busy for quite a while.

Plenty, I empathize with both you and with your renters who don't use the dishwasher.

Empathizing with your tenants, I rarely use the dishwasher. I can wash dishes in the sink and be done with the dishes in a fraction of the time the dishwasher takes to run. And I don't have to make decisions on what to put in the dishwasher. (My inherited dishware is not stripped, my plastic ware is not melted, my glass and plastic glasses which have never been put in a dishwasher are not etched, and I have money in my pocket by not having to buy replacements of those items just to use the dishwasher.) And I don't have to listen to a dishwasher run for an hour or two each cycle (noise pollution), or worry about leaving the dishwasher running when leaving the house in case it leaks or malfunctions. I find my life improved by rarely using the dishwasher, even though some perceive me as living in the stone age. I am fortunate that one place has a dishwasher that has not had any problems from not being used for long periods.

Empathizing with you wanting to avoid a dishwasher failing from lack of use, appliances should be designed better. I did find this tip online that you can pass along to your tenants for the care and maintenance of dishwashers without using them. Of course, check with your dishwasher's manufacturer.

Here is the tip copied verbatim: