Brickbat: I Can't Hear You

Five years ago, officials in Tempe, Arizona, said they needed more housing for deaf senior citizens. So with the aid of $2.6 million from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Cardinal Capital Management and the Arizona Deaf Senior Citizens Coalition built a 75-room apartment building just for the elderly deaf. The apartments have lights that flash when the doorbell rings and other amenities designed for the hearing-impaired. But now HUD says the building it helped fund violates federal civil rights law because management markets it to and prefers to rent to deaf tenants. The agency has demanded that the owners take steps to make sure that 75 percent of residents of the building are not deaf.

Comments

[db]

Retired elderly bureaucrats should be housed exclusively in government provided housing that inflexibly and unreasoningly implements the worst policies they championed while in office.

[Snark Plissken]

Well that seems like a pretty dumb policy.

[db]

Look, the law cochlearly states that preferential treatment of a class of people in housing subsidies is unacceptable.

[Marshall Gill]

I heard what you did there.

[Rich]

You should be placed in stirrups, have anvils dropped on your head, and be pounded with hammers.

[Live Free or Diet]

Well that seems like a pretty dumb policy.

The FCC recently released an order that, among other things, orders the company I work for to charge a licensing fee of at least $75 for our relay service telephone. Before we entered the market our competition was charging as much as $600 for one of these phones.

[JeremyR]

Of course, the real solution is they will start requiring all homes and apartments to be equipped for the hearing impaired.

My mother used to go on and on about this deaf woman at work. She had a government hired interpreter, who would translate everything between the deaf lady and everyone else.

I can't even imagine that job....

[Ted S.]

Amd it will make housing more expensive, for which the solution will be another government program to omake housing more "affordable".

[Bean Counter]

Spellcheck...it's FREE!

[Scarecrow Repair]

So is lower case.

[Seamus]

If you like your current house, you can keep your current house. Unless, of course, it's a "substandard" house, meaning that, for example, it isn't equipped for the hearing impaired and those with other physical disabilities.

[DesigNate]

That house, you didn't build that.

[Doctor Whom]

The government hath given, and the government taketh away; blessed be the name of the government.

[PM]

Jesus fuck

[Swiss Servator, Burn B??gg!]

Central Services never makes a mistake!

/27b stroke 6

[JidaKida]

Can you hear me now?

http://www.PlanetAnon.tk

[Bean Counter]

OK....either this is one hell of a coincidence or the fuzzy logic circuits are getting really good.

[Doctor Whom]

The spambot has been making more sense than Tony for a while.

[Rich]

It's had a greater presence, too.

[Bean Counter]

Like that's a big accomplishment.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The split should be 50/50. Then they can alternate apartments: deaf - not deaf - deaf - not deaf. That way, the hearing geezers can blare Matlock at an ongawdly volume and not bother anyone. (I don't know what to do with the old blind farts. They can go pound salt.)

[Ted S.]

I don't know what to do with the old blind farts.

Stick them with the anosmic people.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Well then, where do the CIPA elderly go?

[Rich]

the anosmic people

Nice band name.

[SweatingGin]

WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?

[JW]

Government: We invented the centuple negative.

[Rich]

The agency has demanded that the owners take steps to make sure that 75 percent of residents of the building are not deaf.

No problemo. Democratcare covers pre-existing conditions such as deafness. *All* those geezers'll be hearing by this time next year.

[Jerryskids]

The agency has demanded that the owners take steps to make sure that 75 percent of residents of the building are not deaf.

Wait until the Fairness Police demand that the owners of all rental properties take steps to make sure that 25 percent of residents of all buildings are deaf. Beware of answering the door if it's two guys with no necks and pointied sticks.

[Rich]

"It's the LAW. Our hands are tied!"

[Auric Demonocles]

And those in the deaf community who don't like the idea of getting cochlear implants? Penaltax them until they do it anyway.

[Almanian!]

What?

[Auric Demonocles]

I can't hear the alt-text!

[Doctor Whom]

HUD funded it and then decided that it was illegal.

[anon]

To think that this is just a fucking microcosm of how governments routinely waste vast sums of taxpayer dollars...

I simply can't understand why anyone, anywhere would trust Government with anything.