I’m not sure about the breed, but it wasn’t a bichon frise, and I’m not entirely sure if it was a shih tzu maybe a scotty but it was a little white dog on the 1600 block of 5th St NW without a human around that I met up with on the way to work. It barked at me and walked away (south on the even side of the sidewalk) as I tried to approach it to look at it’s tinkling tags. I walked about 30 feet off my normal route before I turned around and gave up. I’m not going to mess with a dog that doesn’t want to be bothered with me.
Anyway, if that’s your dog, that’s where I last saw it.
Day: November 8, 2007
Musing thought: DC Should stay out of Real Estate
Not even going to touch the corruption in the Tax Office, but I wonder if a public tarring and feathering, or stocks with rotten tomatoes provided to DC citizens for throwing would be too good….
Anyway, one of the other things brought up in the BACA meeting on Monday was government seizure of property (houses) that were unabated nuisances. Someone pointed out that when the DC government then takes ownership of a property that doesn’t improve matters. The theory is that the city takes over the property and some competent 3rd party, usually a socially acceptable non-profit, will take over and fix up the property (because they usually need work), sell it or grant it to some deserving family, the end.
But the theory doesn’t always work. Sometimes the city just holds on to the property for-like-ever letting it rot from the inside out as vagrants or stray cats use it, occasionally coming by to mow the lawns. Or it does get into a partnership with a nonprofit, and some of them actually get to work and fix up the properties so they are fit for human habitation. And then there are others who can’t get their act together and the house just sits, and rots from the inside out. Or they take their sweet molasses in winter time to fix up the property. Also there is perfectly innocent crap that just happens, like running out of money.
Just selling it off offers no promises either. Buyers could just sit on property like investors have done and continue to do.
So the next time someone comes up with the brilliant idea that the city or government should take ownership of property, know that it sounds great in theory but in years of practice, sucks.
Ye shall know them by their works, or lack thereof.