Simi Valley Church protest gains media attention..

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Santa Barbara News Channel airs Simi Church protest

http://www.keyt.com/


We lined up in front of the Church, the opposition was minimal with goons presence as deterimental to their cause, as usual.

Signs showing Che and in Spanish, demanded rights, do their side no good.

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Ventura County Star's report of Church protest, many Fine American's in attendance, some who traveled long distances.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/

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This Article Hi-Lites what happens when you allow millions of illegals to invade your state, affordable/available housing is taken by illegals who will live several families to a house, our natural resources are devoured and our rates increase, you should see my water bill!

http://venturacountystar.com/news/2007/ ... conferees/

By Jenni Mintz (Contact)
Thursday, September 13, 2007


Chuck Kirman / Star staff Raphael Bostic, an associate professor at USC, speaks at the sixth annual Ventura County Housing Conference.
STORY TOOLS

Jim White of Ventura has seen firsthand how unaffordable housing can tear families apart geographically.

His daughter, who graduated from the University of Notre Dame, moved to Baltimore because she couldn't afford to live near home.

"We obviously need to build more affordable housing. ... We're losing these great minds to other communities in other states," said White, director of transportation and development at ARC of Ventura County.

Some economists expect home prices to tumble an additional 10 percent before the slumping housing market rebounds. That helps, White said, but it's still not enough for many first-time homebuyers.

The issue was one of the main topics Wednesday at "Boomer or Bust, Housing: the Changing Face of Ventura County," an all-day conference at the Courtyard by Marriott in Oxnard.

Dominated by service and retail sectors, Ventura County is facing slow growth and limited opportunities, leading to increasing inequality as income disparities widen, said Bill Watkins, executive director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. "We educate our kids, then send them to Arizona," he said.

The state's domestic migration is negative, as some Californians head to more affordable areas, namely Nevada, Arizona and Texas, Watkins said.

And the county's domestic migration is about to accelerate because of layoffs at Countrywide Financial Corp. That might be just the beginning: Watkins said he expects Calabasas-based Countrywide will be acquired by Bank of America and won't stay in the area.

A bimodal population — one comprised of wealthy, older people and young, struggling people — might not be sustainable in the long run, Watkins added.

The overall economy is healthy, except that jobs in the low-end sectors are being created faster than in the high end, while affordability continues to decline, comparing unfavorably to the country, state and other cities in Southern California, said Charles Maxey, dean of the school of business at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Most people who are able to buy a house spend much more of their incomes than the suggested 30 percent for mortgages, he said.

The median sales price for existing homes in Ventura County was $682,930 in July. To purchase a home at that price, a family would need a household income of $138,000 to afford a conventional 30-year mortgage, according to Dawn Dyer, president of Dyer Sheehan Group in Ventura. That's out of reach for a lot of people, given that Ventura County's median household income is $68,000 a year.

Even renting is tough. Ventura County's average rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $1,560 in July. To afford that comfortably, an annual income of $62,400 is needed — far beyond the salary from most low-end jobs, Dyer said.

On Wednesday, DataQuick Information Systems reported that the median for all new and existing homes and condominiums in Ventura County was $575,000 in August. (See story A1)

The more money spent on housing, the less is spent elsewhere, which has a multiplier effect — the dollar spent in the local economy often goes to another worker and is spent again, said Maxey, one of the housing conference panelists who spoke to a packed room of about 300 people.

The good news is that Ventura County has preserved a great deal of its land, and can still make choices about land use, density and affordability, Maxey said.

Other good news for the housing industry might come next week.

If the Federal Reserve Board cuts interest rates aggressively Tuesday, the market should regain its legs, which are a little wobbly right now, said panelist Raphael Bostic, interim associate director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate and associate professor in the School of Policy, Planning and Development.

Many industry analysts believe that policy will play a big role in when the market bounces back.

"Finding a way to buy time through stimulus policy might help to limit the extent of the deterioration in the market," Bostic said. "There are very strong pressures on the Fed to cut rates, which makes a rate cut very likely."

If the Fed doesn't cut rates, it will be a real hit to consumer confidence, which is trending downward and expected to decline more because of the lending industry's credit crisis, he said. That could deepen the distress for an already vulnerable economy.

The gross domestic product's growth, which for years has been fairly healthy — in the 3.5 percent to 4 percent range — has slowed to about 2 percent. This decline indicates "clouds on the horizon" and that it's going to be a challenge to maintain job growth and the standard of living, Bostic said.

Job growth has ground to a halt and is trending straight down, he said. Even as job creation has slowed, the unemployment rate has not changed much. Fewer jobs being added to the work force suggest that there aren't as many people trying to work, which speaks to the collective psyche on what people think about the economy, Bostic said.

Meanwhile, productivity growth, which has been strong and steady for years, has contracted considerably in the past year and is trending down to almost zero percent, he said.

Despite the gloom in the labor market, Bostic said the economy is in a position to grow in the long term — as long as productivity remains high.

On the Net:

www.vchome.org

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Bump the protest was an important event and brought fantastic media coverage, Ventura/ Santa Barbara counties are ripe for activism! Citizen's need to know that there is an alternative to moving!

If the working class American's continue to be forced out of California, all that will be left is the poor and their elitist slave owners, perfect combo for a Socialist govt. That is what the La Raza, Laluc and all of the orgs. aiding and abetting illegals want. FIGHT BACK!