Into the closets and out of the streets, but wait until November

Gosh, Fred, when I read the news of the preliminary group’s unanimous vote on this issue, I was pretty proud to be a member of NAR. I get your frustration at the years-long delay but I also get that taking such a stand in the wake of successful anti gay initiatives in many states and anti gay rhetoric in many communities is pretty progressive.

As for putting the issue before the Board for a final vote at a regularly scheduled meeting, I think that is strategically and politically wise. It prevents those who would object and gum up the works from protesting because of the process (to avoid coming out, so to speak, against the subject matter). Nobody can accuse the NAR of “taking away our rights” (yeah, our “right” to discriminate?)

As for Arizona, don’t taint all of us with the anti-brown brush. Some of us think the law is ill advised and are jaw-droppingly shocked at the public and private racist rhetoric and distortion of the truth (lies) about who actually causes violent crime in Arizona. I haven’t heard such racist rhetoric, openly stated, since 1957 after the Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court.

SB1070 as well as an initiative that was overwhelmingly approved by the AZ voters 2 years ago that would cause employers to lose their business licenses if they were found to have hired knowingly hired undocumented workers, both caused and are causing an exodus of Hispanics from the state, both undocumented and citizen members of their families. The effect, coming in tandem with the housing crisis and general economic meltdown has been devastating to commercial real estate investments — B- and C multifamily properties are running as much as 40% vacancies. The foreclosed homes have become a “shadow inventory” of rentals. The merchants who served those tenants near those multifamily properties have closed up shop; in the wake of business closings, of course, the owners of the retail centers where those merchants did business are devastated. And professionals such as insurance, physicians, sole practitioner, Spanish speaking attorneys have lost their businesses and moved out of small office properties.

And there were extended families who, knowing they couldn’t obtain loans without social security numbers, purchased homes with pooled cash, painstakingly saved from their marginal jobs or from individual investors who carried the paper. In fear of being arrested and sent back to their countries of origin they have left their homes vacant and, of course, those that are not bank or investor owned (with drive-by checks) subject to any sort of take over by criminal squatters.

People keep complaining about how much undocumented workers cost the government but the economic devastation brought on by the exodus is far worse. And the truth is, except for emergency medical care, public education and emergency services such as fire fighters, undocumented workers are not eligible for any city, county, state or federally funded programs. And if they use bogus social security cards to obtain jobs, the deductions are paid into social security but the undocumented workers will never see a penny of it. Nor will they ever be eligible for any income tax deductions such as the interest paid on the privately held mortgages

Frankly, I prefer a population of children of undocumented workers who become educated — ignorance and illiteracy is not good or safe for any of us. And I prefer a population of undocumented workers (and everyone) with access to preventive health care because there is a more expensive domino effect when a significant portion of the population is medically uncared for. Think about whole neighborhoods of children unvaccinated. Or workers who can’t read the warning labels on cleaning and agricultural products.