Convicted felon Rezko is always mentioned (with good reason) for his connection with Obama but there are others with close ties
to BO who also greatly benefitted from those contracts to provide development and management of low-income housing. Allison Davis, his son, Cullen Davis, and Valerie Jarrett all made a good deal of money from the privatization of subsidized housing while failing to adequately provide up-to-code apartments for Chicago's poor.

Allison Davis, who is the son of the first AA professor at the University of Chicago, is a former partner of the law firm that hired Obama and is a major fundraiser for him. He left his law firm in 1996 to pursue a career as a developer of low-income housing and his companies have received $100 million in subsidies. Davis even partnered with Rezko a few times. The apartments that Davis' companies managed were cited for a number of problems, especially plumbing woes that caused sewage to back up into some of the apartments. Cullen Davis is the head of Urban Property Advisors which managed a subsidized complex where a three-year-old boy was crushed to death by a rusted iron gate that fell on top of him.

Valerie Jarrett, the daughter of an AA professor at the U of C, is a senior advisor to Obama's campaign. She is the CEO of Habitat Co. which had contracts to manage some of the low-income housing in Chicago, including Grove Parc Plaza and a larger complex that was seized by the federal government in 2006 because of widespread problems. Jarrett is the person who hired Michelle as an aide to Mayor Daley back when she was still Michelle Robinson but was engaged to BO.

There is also Cecil Butler, a contributor to Obama's campaigns. A 2004 Chicago Reader article notes that Butler was given a state-backed $51 million loan to renovate low-income housing. From 1997 through 2004, Butler received $84 million in rent for these units, primarily from government subsidies. By 2004, he and his companies had been sued by the city at least 50 times for not keeping the apartments in proper shape.

While in the Illinois Senate, Obama sponsored legislation favorable to privatized development and management of public housing. The problems with the subsidized housing developed, renovated, and managed by people close to Obama was known by at least 2004 when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate but was (and is) ignored for the most part by the media outside of Chicago and by the Obots. Obama wants to take the Chicago approach to low-income housing and do it on a national basis. Can we say "bamboozle"?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/06/27/grim_proving_ground_for_obamas_housing_policy/
http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/041029/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-cha-gates-webaug23,0,1237274.story

old dem
 

Excellent points, old dem, and I've mentioned a few of them in the past. I speak of Rezko as a quick way of getting the point across, but Rezko was part of a larger chain.

If it's all right with you, I may republish what you've written here as part of a larger post.
 

I would be happy if you did. Thanks.

old dem
 

Did you not mean Biden "did NOT" in the last sentance or did I not get it?
 

I caught the end of the convention last night. It really felt like the end, forgetting the Invesco Field stuff. What a letdown, when Obama appeared. It was almost like people were leaving the building as he arrived. I didn't catch any cheering, maybe I missed it, but it seemed as though people were actually walking out on him.
 

I noticed those little white lies in Biden's speech, but I put it down to "the honeymoon period".
What else could he possibly say in that arena?

I have confidence in him, he won't cow-tow to Obama in the future - I'd bet on it. His presence on the ticket is one factor in this sorry debacle which convinced me to vote Democrat in November.
 

Thanks for the proofreading, guido.