On January 8, 2001 Nick Christ, the chairman of the Community Advisory Group on Public Housing, published a report. It is amazing that Nick Christ is now pushing for additional affordable / subsidized housing. Here are excerpts of the report Nick Christ authored.
“The city also has a high percentage of rental assisted housing, including units managed by the Fall River Housing Authority (FHRA), which for the most part are in need of significant renovation and/or modernization.”
“…the report indicates that Fall River at 17.3% had one of the highest amounts of rental assisted housing (project based and tenant vouchers), as a percentage of total housing in 2000, in the Commonwealth.”
“…the current rent at older, multi-family properties can support appropriate income levels within 40% and 125% of median household income ($12,000 to $36,000), depending on the size of the unit, while still being within HUD’s standard of 30% for housing costs.”
“As such, the City has an excess supply of 2,000 to 3,0000 housing units in relation to the potential number of households that would qualify for rental assistance. This is because a supply of roughly 17,200 units exist at older, multi-family properties where rents are considered affordable for this income group.”
“it is clear that the city has one of the highest amounts of rental assisted housing (17.3%) within the Commonwealth”
“there is an oversupply of 2,000 to 3,000 private housing units which exceeds the potential local demand for affordable housing.”
“the high percentage of rental assisted housing has placed more demands on city services in the area of public safety and education”
Nick Christ’s committee made these recommendations: “Recommend to the Mayor of the City of Fall River, that the city develop an overall comprehensive housing strategy so as to effectively coordinate housing, economic development, education and city services and other public policy concerns.”
“Recommend to the Mayor of the City of Fall River that the Fall River Housing Authority and the City of Fall River place a moratorium on the issuance of new Section 8 vouchers and the construction of non-owner occupied low income housing units. In addition, the Fall River Housing Authority should work with the South Shore Housing Development Corporation to relocate some of the existing vouchers to the surrounding towns.”
Here is great recommendation that Christ made:
“Recommend to the Mayor of the City of Fall River the development of a cap and a reduction of total housing units allocated for rental assistance (i.e., project based and tenant vouchers) from the current 17.3% to a range of 12% - 15% through a reduction of tenant vouchers and a reduction of density in Pleasant View, Sunset Hill, Heritage Heights and Maple Gardens.”
So there was have Nick Christ saying we must reduce rental assistance and now he wants to increase rental assistance!!!
Community Advisory Meeting December 18, 2000 Minutes Nick Christ stated: “The Housing Authority takes the state money and rehabilitates these projects but the private sector gets hurt because people living in the old housing stock surrounding the projects moves to new housing stock. Mr. Christ mentioned that what happens is the surrounding neighborhood further deteriorates and valuations, i.e. tax dollars, which drive the city and makes it a viable place to live declines further.”
I guess Mr. Christ is not so concerned about the private tenements any longer.
-Courtesy of Tom Paine
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16 comments:
He actually said to reduce the number around Heritage Heights? What a joker! He pulled a complete 180! Can this man be trusted with the future of the city?
That's great work. I was compiling a similar piece as it is AMAZING that Nick, whom I respect, allows himslef to be used in this manner. That said, Alan Amaral and he are good business citizens, but I beleive that they both beleive this is the right project while those of us who have seen people in this community used as pawns (remember both vouched for Nick Fischer in September)it opens them up to the perception that they are now getting. Again, these two men are good citizens, have done much for charity and are counted on to support many groups through their personal donations. I can attest to thousands of dollars being given by them and or their companies or both. sadly however the lack of openness in FROED meetings, continued questions regarding their involvement with this project has overshapdwed all fo the true good they have performed in the city of fall river. It is very sad to see them ridiculed and made to be so leacherous when in fact they are btoh people who actually care about fall river but perhaps failed to see how their goal of making the city better, is not always consistent with their best judgement. So again, I do not think they handled this issue well at all. But also think they are much better people than what they are being made out to be and that they do care about Fall River. And yes, tboh have been stlawart supporters of the arts in the city and those like myslef who has been in this arts fight for a long time, think people should not allow all of their work to go unrecognized because this issue has been so poorly conducted.
Can you also vouch for how his wife got her Hack job? Seriously though, I have no real issue with Nick Christ, personally. By most accounts he's a nice enough and intelligent guy. But the thugs he works with continue to have their stink rub off on him. Time to find a better class of losers, Nick! And watch out for flying Sucker Punches!
I have no knowledge of his wife's position or how it came to be.
I think it would be really interesting however to list the positions of many of the wives or partners of the poltical insiders. I get the feeling this case would not be the only one.
Are we mixing things up at all? The Community Advisory Group on Public Housing that Mayor Lambert formed and that Nick Christ headed up hired RKG Associates to perform a study on the city's housing stock, a lot of what is quoted seems to be from that report. Then after RKG issued their report the Community Advisory Group issued an opinion/their own report to the Mayor. This was like back in 2000 or 2001 and I think FROED actually paid for the RKG report which may make it hard to get a copy of since they are "private" and who knows if you can get the report from the Community Advisory Group. I would think though that you would need both reports in front of you to make adequate claims about who said what, whether it was RKG saying it or Nick Christ's Community Housing group saying it and/or endorsing what RKG said. Would just be important to get all the facts straight before putting anything out there so that the blog haters don't come back and bite you in the ass.
Sorry anon, the quotes are from Nick Christ's committee, not the RKG report. Take a look at it, both the RKG and Nick's reports are public record.
I'd love to take a look at them and I'm glad you did have both of them in front of you Tom Paine, I just wanted to make sure. I am worried that we are all getting so blinded by our hate for Mayor Correia that we are getting off our game. I don't want you pulling a Steve Camara. Steve was either so blinded by his hate or his own ambition that he got played like a fiddle. It would be great if you could somehow get both the RKG report and the Community Advisory Group report up on one of the blogs that way people can see it in black and white and the other side can't spin it. Right now they can just say not to take your word for it or some crap like that, they can't say you are quoting the reports wrong or spinning if it is available for all of us to have right in front of us. A good idea no?
The RKG report is huge, and I do not know if it is available on disk. That question can be given to Ken Fiola. The advisory report is only 3 pages or so long, if Shamrock wants it that is not a problem. Plus one of the comments came from the minutes of the committee meeting. I did mention that.
As far as your comments about Steve Camara or any others, whatever they say they have to prove. All I can say that whatever I say I can prove.
As far as hatred for Correia, all I can say I do hate what he has done to the city of Fall River. His kangaroo court, his handling of the Fire Chief's position, any many other issues is a sign of incompetence, lack of governing skills, lack of managerial skills etc.
His backing of 64 Durfee st, when he himself said we should not warehouse people and was against additional subsidized housing housing, is a sign to me of a man that lacks integrity.
I agree with everything you have said Tom Paine but calling into a certain talk show host's radio program and screaming at people, surely we can do better. We need people with level heads to lead us not hotheads like Correia and Camara.
The only way Councilor Camara was going to be heard over those jerks Amaral and Herren was to raise his voice. Should he have just let them lie lie lie? And other than your attempt to post this message on every link on this blog, how is that relevant to this post?
I can't wait to hear what lie Herren is going to come up with today.
Nick Christ made a decision on a proposal that doesn't sit well with a lot of people. But his choice was simply to go with the Peabody bid or put it out for another bid. How can anyone reasonably think putting it back out to bid would result in anything different? That is, unless those who don't want Peabody would have preferred the RFP be written in a way to block Peabody. If that happened, how would that "cooked" process be any different than what Peabody opponents are alleging just happened? I wish it had gone differently and another solid bid more respectful of the arts overlay district would have come in. But it didn't. That is not Nick Christ's fault!
The project does not fit with what the Waterfront/Downtown plan calls for and it does not fit with what Nick Christ's housing report called for.
Think about it, FROED spent big bucks on the RKG report on housing. Why? If you are not going to follow it.
The state gave over $500,000 to the city for a Waterfront/Downtown plan. Why? If you are not going to follow it.
Several things could have been done.
1. Table it. We have the Master PLan coming out. Then the city should have created a "Vision Plan Committee". Give them 6 months. If this does not coincide with reports on the direction of the city, why go forward.
The RDA did not do their work.
On June 6, 2003 Fiola said on WSAR that the FROED and RDA would create a business plan for 64 Durfee st. I bet that did not happen
Bottom line, the Redevelopment Authority didn't do its job but using language like you did anon at 5:04 by calling people jerks is basically the same thing that Steve Camara did by suggesting that everyone was on the take. You hurt your cause and make yourself look like a "jerk" when you result to namecalling and making overexaggerated and ridiculous charges. I like Steve Camara but he isn't meant for the mayor's office as this most recent incident illustrated but go ahead and support him even though he is not going to win or go anywhere, it's a free country. I think people have realized we can do better than Bob Correia and will realize that we can do better than Steve Camara as a replacement.
It's funny, there are numerous possible mayoral candidates and I didn't hear any one of them endorsed through the RDA fiasco but you chose to infer that.
Also, I will vote for the best qualified candidate that can stand on their own and not just continue with the status quo.
Can someone also define acting "mayoral" ???
Acting Mayoral? Acting in a way other than Bob Correia or Steve Camara. Think of the way they act and now think of the opposite and that's acting mayoral. Acting mayoral includes not easily losing your temper and screaming at or over people or cutting off citizens when they try to speak. It also includes when you have a just and righteous argument that you make it without resorting to calling people names or implying that everyone is on the take because they don't see your point of view.
Hmm, well there are a lot of people in public office that act that way right now, FROED/RDA to name a few,.
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