Not sure how many Europeans are aware of America's experience with "Section 8" housing? If not, you may want to familiarize yourself with the scheme, for it is coming to Greece and the EU.
Section 8 housing is a program that provides vouchers or rent subsidies for Americans on welfare or with low incomes. A person usually pays 30% of their income (zero if they have no income) for rent to a qualified landlord. The remaining rent (or in many cases all) is then paid to the landlord by the government. The noble but naive thought was that, by moving welfare recipients into middle class neighborhoods, the recipients would be integrated into a middle class lifestyle and away from the "ghettos". But liberal ideas like this never work out as intended. In reality, it has been a disaster for middle and working class American families. (I know because it was a campaign issue for me as a US congressional candidate).
In the city of Pittsburgh, once bright and vibrant communities made up of ethnic Italians, Poles, Slovaks, Germans, and Irish, suddenly became crime-ridden and havens for drug dealers. The working class saw their property values plummet and their way of life altered. People simply said enough and fled to the suburbs. The city of Pittsburgh experienced an exodus and many communities saw their tax base eroded. In short, the slums took over the neighborhoods. The only ones who benefited were the "slum lords" themselves, who still collected their "rents" from the government for beating down once bustling neighborhoods like "Polish Hill".
Greece's abysmal failure to secure the border has simply overwhelmed them. Instead of turning back economic migrants who have no business in Europe, they have cowardly allowed them to linger inside the border. This has put Europeans at great risk and created chaos for all, including the Greeks who have seen their neighborhoods trashed and taken over. There is no "humanity" shown to them, their lives have simply been turned upside down.
Now the big-thinking EU bureaucrats will provide Greece with the funds to provide "hotel vouchers" and "rent subsidies" for empty apartments to house the migrants. One wonders if Merkel and Co. are serious when they say the economic migrants must go home because this is certainly not the way to do so.
The biggest problem with this Section 8 housing is the effect on the working class families who are actually paying for their homes. Is it morally right to a family, who sacrificed their entire lives to provide a safe and good life for their kids, to live next door to someone who has no stake in the neighborhood, no skin in the game? It is very predictable what will happen and the vicious cycle of Section 8 housing will play out again, this time not in a "Little Italy" city in the States, but in once magnificent Greece.
It all comes back to securing the border and protecting your citizens first. Had the borders been shut and refugees denied illegal entrance from the start, the EU would not be a circus. The legitimate war refugees could have been vetted and screened outside the EU. Those who qualified for entrance would have found the path much easier. Even the legitimate war refugees are now being harassed by the other migrants from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. What a nonsense !
The EU, via Section 8 housing, is simply sending another message that economic migrants all over the world hear loud and clear: Just get to Europe and the EU taxpayer will provide. For EU citizens, well, you now have become just second class citizens in your own countries, all in the name of "EU values and humanity". What a shame it has come to this.
Good night and sleep well, for another 5-7000 will arrive tomorrow. It seems to never end. Who says membership has its benefits!
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