Homocon

Thomas Sowell, a syndicated columnist and economic analyst with The Hoover Institution, questions whether most coastal homeowners would continue to build in harm's way if the government would cease its program of subsidized disaster relief. "Our hearts automatically go out to the people of Florida, who are being battered by a series of hurricanes in rapid succession," stated Sowell in response to the hurricanes of 2004, and then adds: "But we have brains as well as hearts -- and the time is long overdue to start using them."

His point is that hurricanes sweep through the coastal regions of Florida every year, and that every year, politicians take the opportunity to parade their compassion by showering the taxpayers' money across the places that have been struck -- but he wonders aloud what would happen if the flowing tax dollar spigot were shut off?

"First of all, not as many people would build homes in the path of . . . disaster," he says, and "those who did would buy insurance that covers the costs of the risks they choose to take."

Today's CNN article about the Laguna mudslides goes on to state: "The area has some of Southern California's most desirable real estate. The damaged homes generally sell for $2 million or more, residents said . . . (but) State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said most residents who lost their homes probably did not have insurance coverage for landslides -- something that insurers began eliminating more than a decade ago. Still, many residents said they hope to eventually return to the area."

So guess who's footing the bill for the rebuilding of the Laguna Beach properties, properties that were established in known and even recently documented disaster areas that no sane insurance carrier would cover at any type of easily affordable (emphasis on "easily") rate? Yep, you guessed it -- Mr. and Mrs. You-n-Me.

John Stossel famously exposed the compassion scam in a chapter of his book, Give Me A Break, in which he details how he built a beach house "with only a hundred feet of sand between him and the ocean" -- no insurer would touch the place, but the government (er, you and me, again) blithely picked up the cleanup and compensation tabs when his multi-million dollar house in the Hamptons was first flooded, then completely swept away in successive storms.

Sowell points out that "Even if most insurance companies are unwilling to insure people living in particularly vulnerable areas . . . there are always insurers who specialize in high risks -- and who charge correspondingly higher premiums" -- in other words, don't live in a high-risk area unless you can afford to pay the costs of the destruction that will more than likely follow.

Handing out taxpayer funded insurance for disaster-prone beach-front and coastal bluff property isn't compassion; it is, instead, a massive waste of taxpayer funds, with the added insult of providing incentives for people, who might otherwise have located elsewhere, to continue to build uninsurable homes in high-risk areas.

Geologist Orrin Pilkey of Duke University agrees that both disaster relief and federal flood insurance just encourage people to stay in harm's way: ""We've got to get around this 'sympathy at all costs' for people who are suffering from natural disasters," he said, and as if to prove his point, Wednesday's Laguna Beach landslide alone destroyed 17 homes while damaging 11 more.

As of 1999, total federal spending alone for disaster relief programs averaged about $3 billion per year, with roughly $600 million per year spent on housing assistance and direct assistance to individuals and families affected by natural disasters. The numbers are hundreds of millions of dollars higher today, not to mention the more recently authorized "pre-disaster mitigation funds" which dump even more taxpayer money into areas known to be prone to natural disasters.

"Any geologist could see that was a disaster waiting to happen," former state geologist John Slosson commented in regards to the fatal mud slides in Santa Monica in the 70's. "The homes should not have been built." Slosson also prepared a report in 1980 which argued that tract homes destroyed in the Harrison Canyon Debris Flows were mainly approved because lobbyists for the California Realtors Association, under increased demand from people seeking prime real estate with a view, put the thumbscrews on the city's Planning Commission and the county's Flood Control District.

"John Q. Public has always wanted to build when and where they wanted," said Ronnie Coleman, a former state fire marshal and member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission. "The difference is John Q. Public is now expecting the rest of John Q. Public to pick them up and pay for them."

So the next time our representatives start mentioning that they need to raise taxes because there's not enough funds for Homeland Security, increased border patrols, additional GI benefits or proper voter identification and registration procedures, perhaps we should politely remind them that subsidizing someone else's desire to build an at-risk home in Laguna Beach, Malibu and Santa Monica might not be the wisest use of our existing taxpayer funds.