When did public housing get so luxurious?

Question: Is it an effective use of space for PHA to build green, single family public housing with public funds?

As someone who works hard to afford my first single family home, which I bought just three years ago after renting apartments over my whole adult life - it bothers me to think that my tax dollars are going for single family homes with island kitchens and lawns when there are many more needy people who'd be happy (and warm) living in apartments that could have been built on the same space.

The idea with low-income housing is to give poor people a home while they work to improve their circumstances to the point where they can buy or rent a home of their own, that they can choose and modify to fit their needs and tastes - to participate in the American dream of home ownership.  Therefore, what does it say of a Public Housing Authority who builds homes that exceed the expectations of many non-section eight first-time home buyers?  If the public housing is better than what can be afforded otherwise, why would anyone leave public housing to open it up for the next needy family? 

Coming from New York, home of the high-rise housing project; I've seen many crime and public health problems involving public housing, but one has to recognize that a cluster of 10 to 20-floor apartment buildings puts a roof over far more heads than a cluster of 3-bedroom single family homes.  Isn't that the objective of public housing?

One has to wonder why our Public Housing Authority fails to see why that objective is so important when building properties with OUR MONEY. 

We have ONE WEEK left to show up in force and start taking a stand against Public Corruption

In the last three weeks, our city announced a plan to raise your property taxes for the third year in a row to make up for stunning acts of abuse and waste at the School District, City Council voted to retain the wasteful DROP fund (despite the voter uproar), and PHA may settle yet another one of Carl Greene's sexual harassment lawsuits (that were responsible for a federal takeover of PHA) for $500,000.

WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR TO CONTINUE IF WE WANT PHILADELPHIA TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE AS A WORLD-CLASS CITY!
It is VITAL to come out to next week's Citywide Forum on Public Integrity in FORCE to show the public watchdogs on stage and the members of the media in attendance that the citizens of Philadelphia WILL NOT BE SILENT VICTIMS TO the pervasive CULTURE OF CORRUPTION that has existed in Philadelphia for upwards of a century.

We simply cannot afford it any longer.

Please tell everyone you know - friends, family, neighborhood watch, religious groups, political groups, neighbors, etc. to join us at the forum to TAKE A STAND!

As the flyer describes, this will be the 1st time ever that non-political members of the Federal, State, and Local watchdog agencies will be on a panel explaining how public corruption is investigated, by whom, and how it is best reported. Then they will take questions from the audience.

Just look at the three panelists:

Harvey Rice, who was the state Safe Schools Advocate (until it was nixed by the budget) - who is now Deputy City Controller (auditing the missing money at the Sheriff's Office and School District, etc.),

Pat Blessington, a former municipal prosecutor who led the State Attorney General's Public Corruption Unit - who just got brought over by District Attorney Williams to set up a City Anti Corruption unit within the District Attorney's Office,  

...and last but not least - John Roberts, the FBI agent who was part of bringing down Vince Fumo and put the bug in Mayor John Street's Office.

Many of us here in Philly kind of except corruption as a way of life. I put the guys together to show us how we can put a huge dent in it, especially by organizing the community in a way that acts a a watchdog for the elected and senior appointed leaders we employ.   My only problem of late is that everyone tells me citizens don't want to come to a meeting in the summer, or when there's no election talk. That's what the thieves in City Hall are expecting. I want to prove them all wrong and show them that we the people do care by coming out in force!