Section 8 housing a big problem! But not the
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9/12/2006
Section 8 housing is the name given to government subsidized rental housing for families in lower income brackets. It is of course desirable to have some of this type housing in every community however; Antioch in particular, and other East Contra Costa County cities are being used unconsciously as a dumping ground for the rest of the county's share of this type housing. East County has 60% of Contra Costa County's section 8 housing as opposed to West Contra Costa County's 40% share.
There are few quicker ways to destroy the look and cohesiveness (ultimately the home values) of a neighborhood, than to inject several section 8 rentals into a small geographical area. I have a registered sex offender located a couple blocks away from me. Virtually every intersection of any size has one or more sets of black tire circle marks from the low lifers that have nothing better to do than pay back the community that is accommodating them by disturbing the peace, endangering the inhabitants and leaving their trail of tire markings like the animals they are. A home was riddled with bullets a couple of blocks from me. It was occupied by section 8 renters.
Antioch is a mid-sized city operating under hick-town quality leadership mentality. Growth here and in neighboring cities has been not handled properly, consistently, equitably or even sanely. Housing developers are not handled uniformly, leaving some housing tracts with double the tax rates due to the additional "Mello-Roos" taxes added on each home for fifteen years, with other tracts (most now) not having Mello-Roos taxes added on to pay for development infrastructure. The net affect of this unevenly shared tax burden is that I will have a harder time selling my home for the same price as a comparable home just down the street. Then too, when referendums are held to gain public support such as was done recently with a landscape measure, backing is virtually impossible to obtain due to many tax payers being rightfully angered at the inequities of existing taxation.
Antioch has also become a dumping ground for minority and low income students utilizing our schools from as far away as Richmond (easy to understand why). Some have used friend's or relatives local addresses to make themselves appear legitimate. For this and other socio-economic reasons, it is not uncommon to find more than one family living in a single family residence. Four or five cars continually parked in front of a single home, spill
James | Antioch, CA