I have rented apartments for the past 29 years in FL, VA, ME, NY, TX, and GA. In that time I have seen the best (TX) and the worst (NY) there is out there. There is a tendency, in my experience, that when people are given deteriorated stuff, suitable for the garbage bin, then they take no ownership, no pride, which then promotes even more deterioration. New stuff tends to be treated a little bit better. I think that one of the ways that govt can serve the poor is to co-op, in some way target their contributions, organizations involved in community projects.
I think that the leasing system is geared to weed out such abusers- people that trash an apartment will get a bad-recommendations, which is asked by the next landlord, and so maybe they can do it once, or twice but eventually no one will rent them shit. It is like credit and in fact nowdays leasing is also determined by your credit history. The same kind of protections are not there for the resident. You do not know what this person has done or will do to you in a time of need. If they have a problem, then YOU are asked for patience, but if if you have a problem, oh, there are fees for that. Like the House, they never lose. It is so unfair that they arbitrarily determine fees. Early termination? That will be three months rent.
But I guess that is veering off topic. I get what Faust is saying. Sometimes it seems that you can take the horse to the water but you cannot make the horse drink the water. But we really, really have to be careful and not lay blame on the poor. Society encourages segregation, based on color, based on class, sex, pick other categories if you like. Because of this opportunity sometimes falls on communities which, through systemic oppression, pass in the eyes of other as unwilling or incapable of profiting from the “charity” laid on them. Others cannot contemplate a new career- Can’t teach an old dog new tricks-- but this all depends on the valuations made by each person. Most of us value this religion of improving, and we look at another person’s life and find it wanting-- by our standards. A new career might pay the bills but it might not be what a person wants for herself for their own standards and reasons which we might not understand.
This is why I believe that community centers have to be able to listen to people and find out how the system can help individuals as much as they can do to the community. Not every government initiative will have a direct impact-- cause and effect easily defined-- but nonetheless improving healthcare, treating addiction, insisting on a GED, improving infrastructure, modernizing our penal code which is the source of sooooooooooo much poverty, all of these among others, would be the result of government action and could improve persistent poverty.