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Public housing was established to provide acceptable, low-cost, safe rental housing for low-income families, older persons, and the disabled. Later they were stigmatized by crime, drugs, extreme poverty, violence, segregation, and government neglect.
Initially, minorities comprised about one-fourth to over one-third of public housing residents, rising to a level of over 60% by 1978. From 1950 - 1980, high-density public housing units were built, mainly for African-Americans. At the same time, middle income home ownership rose, facilitated by federal financing. It increased the rate from 30% in 1930 to over double that in 1960.
From 1934 - 1968, 98% of federal loans went to whites, the result of segregation, discriminatory laws and practices in both northern and southern states.
In 1974, the Housing and Community Development Act effectively ended public housing construction and began the Housing Choice Voucher Program (called Section 8) for project and tenant-based rental subsidies, the former for specific housing developments, the latter for individuals to choose private housing from landlords willing to accept vouchers.
Section 8 shifted funding from public to private hands. In 1986, the Tax Reform Act established the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC), provided to developers to build affordable housing.
In 1989, Congress appointed a National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing to evaluate its condition nationally. It found most units well maintained and managed but a growing number in "the most distressed and notorious urban developments in the nation, where crime, poverty, unemployment, and dependency were solidly entrenched."
Based on the Committee's recommendations, HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) was established in 1992 to revitalize public housing, end low-income family concentrations, and create sustainable communities by replacing large numbers of public housing units. As a result, lower density, mixed-income developments were built, including public and private units, and responsibility shifted from Washington to communities and the private sector.
Federal housing policy achieved a high home ownership rate but also decreased the public housing supply, now at 1.2 million units, far below needed amounts, to promote private ownership at the expense of the nation's poor who could only afford fraudulent subprime mortgages causing many to default and be foreclosed since late 2007.
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