The photo you are looking at above was shot at 2603 Textile Drive in Greensboro just this morning. This is my neighborhood. After I wrote Remember Sonny Vestal on July 26, 2016 it was delayed but we knew it would come. To my knowledge the woman who rented the home never got back the $800 Vestal cheated her out of.
Thankfully, a nice lady took her and her little girl in just about a mile away. The young woman's problem is that she just doesn't know how to be poor. She grew up in an affluent neighborhood on the west side of town but circumstances changed for her family. What happened to her could happen to a lot of you.
This is the same address where Reginald Demarcus Wrenn was murdered in cold blood on November 3, 2012. Over a month later the liquor house that myself and neighbors had been complaining about for months was still operating there. The saddest part: Demarcus was the only sober person there. He had gone there only to pick up his brother and bring him home. When his brother got into a fight, Demarcus broke up the fight only to become a victim.
The piles will remain there for weeks, perhaps months, as they scatter to the winds and fill storm drains washing into nearby streams. Yes, Greensboro's storm drains empty into streams, not sewers.
And no one, not the men running the liquor house serving to underage drinkers, not Sonny Vestal who doesn't give a damn who rents his houses as long as the checks are on time, not the Greensboro Police Department who knew for months the liquor house was there, not the Greensboro City Council, or anyone else who had the power to do anything, believe they were in any way responsible for what went on there.
I promise you, when I am elected Mayor of Greensboro I will bear responsibility for everything that goes wrong in Greensboro-- even if it's not my fault. Why? Because that is the job of a leader.
Amazingly, the new bond package being pushed by Mayor Vaughan and Councilman Mike Barber, and apparently supported by the rest of the current City Council, consists of $9 Million Dollars to be given to slumlords like Sonny Vestal who cover our streets with trash both literally and figuratively, then expect you, Dear taxpayers, to pay the cost of hauling it all away.
Allow me to repeat:
Amazingly, the new bond package being pushed by Mayor Vaughan and Councilman Mike Barber, and apparently supported by the rest of the current City Council, consists of $9 Million Dollars to be given to slumlords like Sonny Vestal who cover our streets with trash both literally and figuratively, then expect you, Dear taxpayers, to pay the cost of hauling it all away.
But there is $1 Million to help people buy their own homes... provided the recipients earn over $50,000 a year.
I'll repeat that as well, this time with emphasis:
But there is $1 Million to help people buy their own homes... provided the recipients earn over $50,000 a year.
So what happened to helping the poor? Barber and Vaughan aren't helping the poor with their so-called "affordable housing" bond. They're giving all the money to people who already manage to fare for themselves already. This is exactly what happened with all the failed "affordable housing" programs of the 1950s, '60s and 1970s.
Why are we repeating what we know doesn't work?
Could it be because Nancy and Mike are in league with scum like Sonny Vestal?
I'm not saying yes or no to affordable housing. Not yet. I want to hear from you. What I am saying is this: If Greensboro taxpayers are going to pay for housing for poor people then why not give those homes to poor people rather than paying rich people to build homes to rent to poor people?
After all, we all know home ownership is the #1 means by which most families escape poverty and neighborhoods with higher percentages of owner-occupied homes suffer less crime and have higher property values, which in turn, generates more tax revenue for the City of Greensboro.
By the way, if you haven't heard already (I'm sure the News & Fishwrap will never tell you) I filed suit in Guilford County Superior Court yesterday against Mayor Vaughan, City Manager Jim Westmoreland and the City of Greensboro. I posted the suit here along with links to the suit as filed showing all the necessary stamps and signatures.
Update: For additional reading I recommend Evictions: A vicious cycle for people in poverty posted just this morning by the University of North Carolina.
In other words: Billy Jones is right again.
