Should I buy or should I rent? And should the feds help?
Hawaii is the least affordable state in the nation for renters, the reported April 21. But a New York Times published the same day said that in cities like Honolulu it makes more financial sense to rent a home rather than buy one.
The Times ranked Honolulu second on a list of metro areas having a high rent ratio, which is the cost of buying a house divided by the annual rent of a comparable property. That comes as some comfort to a guy like me shelling out big bucks to live in a Manoa studio.
At least I have a clean place to sleep at night. Researching homelessness in Hawaii for 天美视频 鈥 check it out here 鈥 I learned that lack of affordable housing is a major cause of homelessness. 鈥淒uh,鈥 you say. 鈥淭ry paying the rent if you鈥檝e lost your job,鈥 I counter.
Chew on this: An April 19 in the Times looks at the Obama administration鈥檚 Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing program, part of that $787 billion stimulus package passed in 2009. It鈥檚 unclear, the Times reports, how social service agencies should distribute the money, and to whom 鈥 the guy that鈥檚 living on the street, or the guy who was just laid off from his $75,000 job and stands a better chance of finding new work?
