This article in the Star talks about poor people living in half-million dollar houses funded by our tax dollars.

There is now some suggestion that these houses be sold and the families moved to regular low-income housing, and apparently there is opposition to this plan.

To this I ask… what do we owe these people? Why should they be living in better places than I am when I'm working for a living and earning my keep?

To quote Margaret Greaves:

"I'm uncomfortable with the idea of low-income people only living in areas where the housing costs less,'' she says.

How does that make any sense? Of COURSE low income people live where the housing costs less. They have low incomes! That's all they can afford!

I'm sure I'd be perfectly happy living in a house on the Bridal Path, but as it turns out, I can't afford it. So I don't live there.

Professor Ernie Lightman says this:

"If the goal is to let people live as normally as possible, then it's clear the more integrated a community the better,'' he says, noting that, like Allen, most people wouldn't have been aware the families on Ellerbeck St. were in social housing.

Is that our goal? Are we trying to put poor people on easy street, living off the backs of the rest of us? I would have thought the goal would be to give them the bare necessities required to live and the opportunity to better their situations through hard work and a little ambition.

Now I know that our social programs fail in that respect in many places, but that's not the topic of discussion here.

That being the case though, shouldn't these properties be sold and the money spent toward helping all the poor, rather than putting up a select few in tax-funded luxury homes?

Wouldn't the money be better spent improving the schools and community programmes in poor ares so poor tax-leaching kids have a better chance at growing up to be something other than poor tax-leaching adults?

I'd be curious to know how long the people who live in these places have been there.

At the very least, give them a 5 year term and then kick them back to the projects. That way, we can give them a taste of the good life with the opportunity to improve themselves and then, if they don't take advantage of it, we can give the same shot to someone else.

Otherwise, what motivation is there for these people to go off on their own? If they earn a living but can then only afford a low-rent apartment, why would they ever move?