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Ben Carson explains benefits of investing in 'Opportunity Zones' for areas facing economic challenges. The forum and distribution channel was the Roger Ailes-owned Fox News about a week ago - you might have missed it > Heads Up!
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson spoke on “The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton” in an interview that aired Sunday about proposed new regulations aimed at making it easier for investors to take advantage of tax breaks for investing in “Opportunity Zones” in low-income areas. By Frank Miles Published
“Policies have been pretty much aimed at putting people into programs,” Carson said, and now the Trump administration is trying to get poor Americans “out of the programs and self-sufficient.”
President Trump said last week that 8,700 neighborhoods across all 50 states and U.S. territories have received the Opportunity Zone designation and would be eligible for the federal tax incentives he's proposed.
Blogger Note: HUH? Last week?
Ooops! that was December 2017 in the Tax Credits and Jobs Act
“The entire island of Puerto Rico is an opportunity zone,” Carson said.Blogger Note: HUH? Last week?
Ooops! that was December 2017 in the Tax Credits and Jobs Act
“We are very concerned about the rural areas, too,” he added.
The new Opportunity Zones were set up to enable private investors to re-invest profits into designated areas.
“They are going to invest that money somewhere,” Carson said.
He noted private investors would do what they do because they “want to be successful.”
REF: https://www.foxnews.com/politics______________________________________________________________________________________ From BuzzFeed News
Ben Carson Wants To Evict Families With Undocumented Immigrants From Public Housing
Carson says the new rule will reduce long waitlists for public housing for citizens. Housing advocates say all it will do is split up families with mixed immigration status.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pushing a new policy to prevent undocumented family members of US citizens and documented immigrants from living with them in public housing.“Thanks to @realDonaldTrump's leadership, we are putting America's most vulnerable first. Our nation faces affordable housing challenges and hundreds of thousands of citizens are waiting for many years on waitlists to get housing assistance,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson wrote in a tweet on Thursday, announcing the administration’s proposed rule.
The proposed rule is part of a much broader Trump administration crackdown on immigration, including at HUD. As BuzzFeed News reported in December, the department has been quietly denying federal housing loans to DACA recipients. Two weeks ago, Carson testified at a Congressional hearing that he didn’t know why DACA recipients were being turned away for federally-backed mortgages.
Groups who work with landlords, housing authorities, and tenants say HUD’s new proposal is trying to address a problem that doesn’t exist when it comes to undocumented immigrants, while at the same time failing to address the very real public housing shortage.
“We’re very concerned about this, this is obviously part of the administration’s overall attack on immigrant families,” said Karlo Ng, supervising attorney at the National Housing Law Project. “There’s a lot of concern for families who are currently being assisted. This is going to add to the chaos for families who need crucial assistance. . . .
Ineligible household members do not receive a subsidy. In those cases, assistance is prorated to only cover eligible household members. As such, ‘mixed’ [immigration status] families pay higher rent, sometimes near market rate,” Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), said.
Low-income housing groups say that despite Carson’s rhetoric, the rule would make little or no dent in the severe national public housing shortage, which leaves millions of families on waitlists for affordable places to live. In some parts of the nation, like Miami and New York, the waitlist is years long and many families who would qualify can’t even get on the list.
Advocates and industry groups who spoke with BuzzFeed News also noted that the administration’s budget proposal for HUD, which was rejected by Congress, would have cut the agency’s budget and resources to provide more public housing assistance by close to 20%.
