Is “beneficent government” about to get slapped anew? Or perhaps we should rephrase that: Are taxpayers about to get spanked yet again?
We refer to a Tribune-Review story that details how the OwnPGH program will offer first-time low-income buyers assistance up to $90,000.
As the Trib notes:
“OwnPGH … in partnership with the city’s Housing Authority, will provide financial assistance to low-income, first-time homebuyers.
“The program will provide up to $90,000 to eligible homebuyers who make 80 percent of the area median income or less.
“OwnPGH will offer grants of up to $50,000 for eligible homeowners from the URA, using $15 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money.
“The Housing Authority also would offer a second, deferred mortgage of up to $40,000. It would require no regular payment from the borrower, carry a 0 percent interest rate and be forgiven at a rate of 10 percent of the original balance each year.
“Homeowners receiving assistance from OwnPGH who stay in the program for 10 years or more will have their second, deferred mortgages forgiven completely.”
“Why, hellfire,” says Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Just buy properties and give them to the intended population.”
And the Ph.D. economist has a few hardly inconsequential questions:
“Where is all the money coming from to do this?
“What happens if the owners can’t or refuse to make the mortgage payments or property tax payments?“
“Will there be any requirements to properly maintain the property and not trash it and walk away?”
“(H)ome ownership is more than just mortgage payments,” Haulk astutely reminds. In addition to those taxes, “there’s … insurance, maintenance, on the home, and on the yard or lawn, and utilities.”
Will these, too, have to be subsidized?
“How much house mortgage can a household with $45,000 or less in income really afford?” asks Haulk.
He notes how that $45,000 represents 80 percent of the area median household income of $56,000 referenced above.
The Trib reports that the official launch date for this program has not been announced.
“People who have never lived anywhere but public housing or cheap apartments have no concept of the responsibilities of home ownership,” Haulk cautions. “This has all the earmarks of being a gigantic failure.
“It will work for some,” the think tank scholar stipulates. “But it will overall be a disaster.”
One that human nature and past experiences keep instructing us.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
