When done properly, rehabbing a house, spending more than its value can be a good thing. It provides safe housing for decades, saves communities from blight, is a sound alternative/partner to Habitat for Humanity and that is where the rewards come in. However, rewarding contracts to folk who botch the job, don't guarantee their work, whose sloppy work is "approved" by the very group who should be insuring that the work is done correctly is insanity at its best. Continue to do the rehab; stop the INSANITY!! To construct even the a reasonable minimalist home would cost more than $35k, so the home value pre-rehab is not the issue. The issue is what do we have after spending that $35k?

Looks like something that somone without ties to city hall needs to investigate. Do they just draw client names out of a hat? Where do they find the wanna-be contractors? Who writes the checks? My inquiring mind wants to know.

Hey, there's more money where that came from, right? All you have to do is annex more neighborhoods and raise taxes. No prob.

This sort of communism at my expense needs to be stopped immediately. And if AC lets Lipscomb talk this way to the media or anyone, it's time to revisit AC's fitness for office.