Seattle woman lives in multi-million dollar home, whicle receiving welfare

[bara]

But if you are on public assistance then a million dollar home could still sell well enough to support you for a long long time even at a deflated price.... well assuming its already paid for.

If they are so bad off then a smaller house would be better anyway. Less taxes, lower upkeep etc.

[Andara Bledin]

If you have a million dollar home... why aren't you, say, renting rooms for income?

That's a more logical expectation than forcing them to move, which is a huge pain in the ass, and in most cases totally unreasonable.

^-.-^

[bara]

Yeah.. but then its a business and you stop getting public assistance.

[HYHYBT]

The way I see it no matter how they got the home or have the home if they are taking money that I can barely afford to pay in taxes to live a cushy lifestyle they should sell their house first buy a smaller cheaper one and then go for assistance.

Suppose, for the moment, that the property itself does not belong to them, but to a relative who owns two homes and is letting them use one of them for the time being?

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah.. but then its a business and you stop getting public assistance.

So? You'd make more renting the room than public assistance is going to give you, anyway, and a million dollar home is big enough that you could put in a couple of locking doors and keep the renters relegated to a small portion of the house.

^-.-^

[blas87]

I get people constantly yelling at me that I can't be broke since I have a "newer" car.

Um, I got the car when we were on non-stop overtime (I'm talking 20 hours or more per pay period) and could easily put down several thousand on that car and was making double payments per month.

Living on my own ain't cheap either, nor does it help that the landlord raises the rent every damn year, and renter's insurance went up over $20 this year.

[linguist]

So? You'd make more renting the room than public assistance is going to give you, anyway, and a million dollar home is big enough that you could put in a couple of locking doors and keep the renters relegated to a small portion of the house.

^-.-^

A million dollar home is likely located in a neighborhood with a strict HOA that that has rules against doing just that. I know my neighborhood is far more modest than that, but our HOA has such rules in place.

[jackfaire]

Suppose, for the moment, that the property itself does not belong to them, but to a relative who owns two homes and is letting them use one of them for the time being?

That's a different situation entirely then it isn't their resource. It isn't their's to sell.

I wouldn't begrudge people in a situation like that I have been put up in some nice homes before. My mom took me in after I left the service and let me live with her rent free for a couple of years until I got back on my feet.

Mine isn't a "grrrr rich people" It's a "grrr you have the means to support yourself but choose not to"

Family should help out good family. That's totally cool and yeah if it turns out that they didn't ever own the home and it's rather a family member that lets them live there to help them out okay then I am cool with that.

But if they don't own the home because they signed it over to a family member and are all, "See we have nothing" then that's offensive.

Also to the "hard to sell" arguments I would not be against them receiving benefits while their home is actively on the market but if they aren't even trying to sell the home then I hesitate to agree they deserve benefits.

I have pawned everything I owned in the past just to keep the rent paid and food in my daughter's mouth. I have little patience for people unwilling to do the same.

I think growing up on welfare colored my opinion of it. My family had a house only because my grandmother helped us buy it. It was a small house in not the greatest of neighborhoods and we all had to share bedrooms.

My parents went without luxury items because they felt food on the table was more important and relied more on their own incomes than they did on money from the tax payers staying off public assistance whenever they could.

I even saw my parents give to people less fortunate than us while we were struggling just to make ends meet.

So I am a bit biased when I hear that someone has what amounts to a big pile of money and still wants my tax dollars to help them out.

[AdminAssistant]

A million dollar home is likely located in a neighborhood with a strict HOA that that has rules against doing just that.

Forget HOAs. Zoning laws would prevent it. If you live in a neighborhood zoned for single-family residences, you can't rent out to multiple people.

[bara]

Regardless of home ownership:
From the article


'As if the million dollar home weren't enough, the supposedly low-income couple also gave money to various charities and traveled around the world to locales in Turkey, Tel Aviv and resort towns in Mexico, according to court records.'

If they have been globetrotting on public assistance I have a problem. Being broke myself, I can say its unlikely (not impossible) that anyone who is poor enough to get public assistance has enough left over to travel around the world and give to charity unless they are defrauding the system.

[bara]

Some new info.
http://www.king5.com/news/investigat...135210518.html

(so you dont have to clicky but feel free)

House is owned by chiropractor and the lady listed him as her landlord. Police beleive the couple to be married and thats what they were gathering evidence for.

[Mytical]

Honestly I was raised where you didn't take assistance unless things were REALLY grim. At one time we would rather live on the street then take anything from anybody that was not earned. We always had a shelter though, even if sometimes it was a leaky one.

One christmas, the place we were renting burned to the ground. We had nothing (the place did not have insurance)..and the neighborhood pitched in so we could have a christmas..and that sort of changed our outlook on things. That year I may have lost some special things, but what I got in return was priceless.

This is not a hovel they are living in, even at a loss it would be enough money to probably live a lifetime on for somebody like me. So, if it is theirs..I can't feel too much empathy for them, and I am a very empathetic person.

[Panacea]

But if you are on public assistance then a million dollar home could still sell well enough to support you for a long long time even at a deflated price.... well assuming its already paid for.

If they are so bad off then a smaller house would be better anyway. Less taxes, lower upkeep etc.

Only if you do a short sale, and the bank has to sign off on that if you have a mortgage. You can't sell a house with a mortgage for a pittance; the bank will foreclose first. You'll end up with no cash at all, and no house. This has been happening to people all over the country for the past four years.

However, many people have been moving from larger homes into smaller ones for exactly the reasons you cite. McMansions are less popular because they cost more to heat, more in taxes, more in general upkeep. Ranches, once despised, are becoming popular again because they are cheap to heat and maintain, and there's none of the tiresome up and down stairs (a prime reason why I bought a ranch over a 2 story house).

If you have a million dollar home... why aren't you, say, renting rooms for income?

HOA's or zoning laws might prevent you, as some noted. In a lower class neighborhood that wouldn't stop anyone from renting a room. Even in an upper class neighborhood, with things so tight for so many people, it might not. It depends on your neighbors willingness to turn a blind eye.

I get people constantly yelling at me that I can't be broke since I have a "newer" car.

Um, I got the car when we were on non-stop overtime (I'm talking 20 hours or more per pay period) and could easily put down several thousand on that car and was making double payments per month.

Living on my own ain't cheap either, nor does it help that the landlord raises the rent every damn year, and renter's insurance went up over $20 this year.

Rising rents are part of what prompted me to buy a home. It got to the point where it was as cheap or cheaper to pay a mortgage than rent, even with homeowners insurance (which is built into the monthly payment).

But your post highlights the difficulties many middle class families are facing. Yes, they have nice houses and cars. That doesn't mean they aren't having financial problems. If hubby or wife loses a job, or gets hours cut, then that really impacts the family budget. That's why you see people with nice cars hitting up the food banks. These aren't people who are scammers, not most of them. They're formerly middle class folks who've lost a major part of their income and need to use food banks to save money for the house payment.

Regardless of home ownership:
From the article


'As if the million dollar home weren't enough, the supposedly low-income couple also gave money to various charities and traveled around the world to locales in Turkey, Tel Aviv and resort towns in Mexico, according to court records.'

Thanks for reminding us of this. We got away from this point in the debate over what people should own while on public assistance.

Even poor people often donate to charities . . . they may not have much but are willing to help someone who is even worse off than them, or feel "paying it forward," is the right moral path in life.

But if you can afford to travel overseas on vacations, then you do not need to be on public assistance.

Some new info.
http://www.king5.com/news/investigat...135210518.html

(so you dont have to clicky but feel free)

House is owned by chiropractor and the lady listed him as her landlord. Police beleive the couple to be married and thats what they were gathering evidence for.

Thanks for the link. The article said "doctor" which could mean chiropractor; maybe you've seen another source of information. But if the allegations are true, it's definitely fraud.

Honestly I was raised where you didn't take assistance unless things were REALLY grim. At one time we would rather live on the street then take anything from anybody that was not earned. We always had a shelter though, even if sometimes it was a leaky one.

One christmas, the place we were renting burned to the ground. We had nothing (the place did not have insurance)..and the neighborhood pitched in so we could have a christmas..and that sort of changed our outlook on things. That year I may have lost some special things, but what I got in return was priceless.

This brings up another point that sometimes gets missed. As a culture, Americans are usually too prideful to ask for help. The myth of the self made man and the pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality overlooks the Elizabethean notion of charity and community that actually pervaded the colonial mindset. Rugged individualists, as a whole, did not survive. Collectivists survived. It was all about the community. That's why colonial justice was so harsh; if you ignored society's rules you were a weak link that put the entire community at risk.

So in that society, if you were having hard times the community would help you and support you with the expectation you would get back on your feet and do the same thing for them. The system didn't break down until cities got too large for cohesive communities where public shaming was an effective control tool for the collectivist community.

But the idea of helping out your neighbors has never really died. Stories like yours are common; when someone we know is hurt by something like a house fire, the community responds with an outpouring of support. This happened to one of my students last year. When her house burned and she lost everything, I went into a storage room and gave her a couple of uniforms that had been given to the department by graduating students (or left behind carelessly somewhere), along with extra textbooks given to us by book publishers as part of the review process. I didn't think twice about it.

Problem is, there is only so much communities can do for the less fortunate. This student of mine still has not been able to rebuild her house 18 months later because of ongoing fights with the insurance company and the bank. She gets a lot of moral support from her peers, but not much more . . . not because her peers don't want to help, but because they can't, not every day for so long.

That's why we have government assistance. Because there is only so much the individual or the community is willing or able to do.

But our myth of the self made man tends to make us look at those who ask for government help as weak in some way, which is really unfortunate.

[Andara Bledin]

But if you can afford to travel overseas on vacations, then you do not need to be on public assistance.

Records show they traveled, but the article doesn't say who paid or why they went. While vacationing is the most likely reason, it's not the only one.

But our myth of the self made man tends to make us look at those who ask for government help as weak in some way, which is really unfortunate.

This. You see it a lot everywhere, including here, where people will rush to judgement against those who accept monetary assistance prior to learning the full story regarding why.

Despite the fact that all indications point to less than 2% of all assistance recipients engaging in any form of fraud (possibly lower than 1%), the automatic assumption about any report seems to be that the recipient doesn't really need it and they're cheating the system, somehow.

^-.-^

[jackfaire]

But your post highlights the difficulties many middle class families are facing. Yes, they have nice houses and cars. That doesn't mean they aren't having financial problems. If hubby or wife loses a job, or gets hours cut, then that really impacts the family budget. That's why you see people with nice cars hitting up the food banks. These aren't people who are scammers, not most of them. They're formerly middle class folks who've lost a major part of their income and need to use food banks to save money for the house payment.

Yes but we aren't saying give up your nice cars and your nice home we are saying give up your luxurious car that is worth two nice cars and your house the same.

I wouldn't expect someone to sell their ranch style home as I wouldn't consider it to be luxurious home.

If I see someone drive for example a Toyota Camry to get food stamps then I have never thought much of it but when I saw someone drive away in a Lexus then yeah I wonder why the hell they need foodstamps.