A Lamebrained Idea
by James Glaser
June 18, 2009

A man by the name of Dan Kildee of Flint, Michigan, came up with the idea of razing whole sections of cities and returning them to nature. The idea is to bulldoze entire neighborhoods in order to shrink the size of cities.

Mr. Kildee told his idea to Barack Obama when he was on the campaign trail last year, and now the Obama administration is thinking of doing this in fifty American cities.

Yes, we have a glut of unsold homes in America that are keeping home prices falling. Obama and Washington think it is bad if houses cost less, so they want to get rid of a lot of them, which will mean the cost of those homes left will go up.

If you Google it, you will find there are about 750,000 homeless people in America, and there are 35.9 million Americans who live below the poverty line. Millions and millions of these people will never attain the American dream of owning their own home.

So, instead of bulldozing all these homes in 50 American cities, how about giving them away for free? Yeah, I know about all the problems these people will have, but I don't care. Give every American a shot at making it just one time. Most of these people will never make it in their own home, but some of them will. Maybe millions of them will.

I see nothing wrong with the price of every home going way down. Every man, woman , and child needs food, clothing, and shelter. Every day I see people in Tallahassee living on the streets. Yes, many of them would continue living on the streets, but some people, people who work one or more minimum wage jobs could have a much better life with a free home.

We have to ask ourselves, are we really a Christian nation, or is that just some sort of slogan? If the people who are given free homes wreck them or can't make enough to pay the utilities, then call in the bulldozer, but give them a chance.

Just think of all the homeless children in America who go to bed every night praying to God that their parents can get them a home some day.

Post Script:

In the Tallahassee paper, every week they show the mug shots of people arrested. Many are arrested for burglary of vacant buildings. Somebody told me that many of those people are homeless, and they break in to empty houses to live and sleep.

I lived in Northern Minnesota along the Canadian border for about 30 years. It is a rural area with a lot of poor people—people who worked their whole life in a minimum wage job. These people were good people, some smart, some not so smart, but people who never got a break. A lot of those people lived their whole adult life renting single wide mobile homes, and when they died, they had nothing to pass on.

There are people like that all over America. Hard working, good people, who never got the break that could lift them up, and just maybe lift up their future generations. I guess we have millions of homes that are sitting empty. Since we are the "land of opportunity" we should give some of those people a chance to get ahead. Don't bulldoze those homes, give them away.




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