Survival of the Weakest
As a former landlord, this bothers me. There’s a story in the Times about a disabled man about to get evicted because he was a lousy tenant.
Seems the law protects disabled people from eviction. Apparently you cannot evict someone who is disabled unless, according to our (insert sarcasm HERE) local paper of record “unless they pose a threat to others”. So you don’t have to pay rent and you can stay? You can pay late? You can trash the place? Harass your landlord? As long as no one worries about their safety around you, your landlord has to let you live there while he or she pays the mortgage?
Hell, this makes the whole debate over whether to teach Darwin in the schools moot. We’re breeding survival of the fittest out of the species, so in a few hundred years there won’t be anything to teach.
I can feel some of you getting indignant. Whatever. It’s not my responsibility to take care of ANYONE but me, Mad Dog, and Scrubfy. Hell, I won’t even feed the kittens that have made my yard their home. But wait, they all have six toes, so maybe they’re disabled. Does that mean I have a legal obligation to feed them and let them stay or that I’m criminally negligent if I don’t?
Look, it’s not that I don’t have empathy for people with obvious disabilities. But somewhere this has gotten out of hand; who’s to say that landlord is in a better position to pay that guy’s portion of the mortgage on the apartments along with maitenance and utilities than that guy? I would argue that the owner of the building may actually be less advantaged. It also bothers me that we have a disability for everything. Ok, yes, if you read the story you learn he’s deaf and blind. So was Helen Keller. I’m pretty sure the Fair Housing laws didn’t exist to help her. She didn’t have the option of leaning on anyone but her family and friends. Oh, and herself.
And I’m willing to bet that if they didn’t exist now, this guy would find a way to make it, too.
