They are already getting subsidized housing so why should they have to pay anything? Free housing for all! Free college for all! Free heroin for all!!

1 Free brain cells for you.

Isn't part of the issue that there is a long waiting lists for these homes?

So the question would have to be phrased in terms of how much of a right does someone who is unable to pay their modest rent to stay in a subsidized home over people on the waiting lists who also need housing and can pay?

It is easy to say "let's never evict anyone" but doesn't that harm those waiting for housing, who did not violate any of the terms?

3 By that reasoning what you are saying is we should make someone homeless over $50 so a person who can pay $50 rent has a place to live.

Seems to me the person who actually has $50 is $50 richer than the person who doesn't have $50. It may make sense to help the person who can pay, but the whole point of low-income housing is it's provided for people who can't pay. Circle talk gone wild.

@3. Yes, if the person won't pay the $50 let the next person in line have the apartment.

@4: Ok, but there is limited housing. So in the real world, it is a zero sum game, where if someone is in that apartment, another person can not be.

This is not free housing it is subsidized, and unlikely to be able to support freely housing everyone. If there is another project to freely house people, great, but this one is not it, and pretending that it is just is not going to solve any problems.

These housing advocates need to take a Fair Housing course so they better understand how landlords enforce the lease.
For example, if your rent (based on your income) is $50/ month, and your neighbor pays $400/ month (based on their income), would you like the tenant @ $50 to get 8 months behind in rent before they are evicted, while the neighbor is evicted after the first month? Both are $400 late. The landlord can't let one tenant slide for 8 months and not let ALL tenants slide for 8 months. That takes you into discrimination and can be against fair housing.
If the tenants moved out when they decide to stop paying rent, they wouldn't get evicted, wouldn't have attorney or legal fees and would likely get a good reference from a landlord that wasn't forced to evict them. All landlords hate evictions.
I don't understand how people think a NON-profit landlord is supposed to run an affordable building and make repairs when even at 100% occupancy and 0% late rent the property is likely in the red and being supplemented by other income sources (when they are available). So tenant rent is important, and so is evicting people who don't want to work with their landlord to pay the rent and follow the rules and be a decent neighbor.

I've managed low income housing since 2005 and I haven't evicted a tenant since 2010. That is 8 years without an eviction. I love my job and my tenants. They talk to me when they have hardships and we work out plans they can afford. It is based on mutual respect. Unless there was an emergency or they were in the hospital, if my tenant stopped paying rent and refused to work with me I would absolutely evict them and give the unit to someone that's been on my waiting list for 6+ years. Your $400 this month will replace your neighbors hot water heater next month. If you want low income housing and non-profit housing providers, and we all do, it takes everyone (tenants and staff) to make the community a safe, clean and affordable place to live.

Just because you were dumb enough to get pregnant (and do nothing about it until you dro0pped a kid) doesn't mean you deserve free housing for life.

THIS JUST IN: Seattle Housing Authority puts poor tenants out on street to applause of Trolls

NEXT UP: Trolls complain about City's growing homeless problem...

@12: the waiting list is not necessarily composed of homeless people.

I worked at SHA and performed many evictions. 100% of the time my team evicted tenants -- and what the "housing advocates" won't say or simply do not know -- the unit was either nearly completely destroyed, or condemned by health and safety standards as being uninhabitable (trash trash trash, insect infestations that the tenants won't help address, graffiti on everything [even kitchen cabinets and appliances], holes in doors, walls, etc. etc. etc.) SHA is a property owner and needs to protect it's assets. In my opinion, lease enforcement at SHA is far too lenient, and substantially more eventions should be performed. These "advocates" should spend a month or so with the housing inspectors to get a good feel for how public housing is being treated.

@14 but that's why the tenant didn't pay rent! There's a difference between offering everyone a temporary helping hand when they fall on difficult times but collecting that assistance should never be allowed to degenerate into a lifelong lifestyle. This is an example where the extreme left and extreme right are completely wrong and something that centrists should be able to solve.

@15:

For many SHA tenants it's not, and never has been, a "lifelong lifestyle". Given that many are elderly and disabled, they've been brought down to needing to live in publicly-assisted housing because, as they were no longer able to work due to age or disability, they simply couldn't afford to go anywhere else. Granted, it's been a good 20 years since I spent much time in SHA facilities as a home-care aid, but I don't imagine those circumstances have changed radically for most of the people living in them today.

@16: they haven't.

many public housing tenants are disabled or elderly. many are fresh immigrants with poor language skills and a boatload of children to raise. and those kids deserve a stable home.

i've met very few that i thought could hold down a job. none of them are going to be earning enough to pay $1500/month for a studio anytime soon.

housing authorities are doing God's work. they're not evicting tenants so they can raise rents.

If they get evicted by Housing Authority the tenant is doing something seriously wrong.

SHA lies. Building managers are allowed to bully and threaten tenants and refuse rent payments that were paid on time. There's a huge gap between written policy and management actions and no effective oversight.

For disabled individuals SHA housing is often the only affordable option. SHA should be made to function as well in reality as it does on paper.