Report: Public Housing Works, When You Invest In It
Saturday 22 May 2010
(Photo: minusbaby / Flickr)
Earlier this week housing rights advocates from eight different cities met with Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) in Washington, D.C. to voice their opposition to a bill that they say would privatize the nation’s public housing and push what they see as alternatives.
Members from the Right to the City alliance, a national network of housing rights activists, claimed the Preservation, Enhancement, and Transformation Act (PERTA) — a bill sponsored by HUD and currently being considered by Congress — would make a dreary public housing landscape even worse by allocating $350 million toward building a project-based voucher system. Critics say a voucher system could leave what’s traditionally been a stable market for low-income renters vulnerable to the pitfalls of an unstable private market where rents often exceed $1,000.
The alliance also presented to Congress an extensive report on the state of public housing in eight cities around the country, including New York City, New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Using research comprised primarily by residents who live in public housing units in these cities, “We Call These Projects Home: Solving the Housing Crisis from the Group Up” found that, despite years of government disinvestment and negative media portrayals, public housing actually works when it’s invested in. What’s more:
- Between 1995-2008, roughly 200,000 public housing units were demolished.
- For every every ten low-income residents who qualify for public housing, only 3.5 units are available.
- From 2002 to 2008 public housing lost nearly $3 billion nationally in operating subsidies.
- Federal disinvestment leaves many units to go into disrepair.
“I know how badly people need public housing,” said Emma Harris, a member from San Francisco and a public housing resident. “Yet over 250,000 people are on the waitlists for public housing in the cities we studied. Our participants waited an average of six years to get into public housing. I was on a waitlist for 10 years. Congress must take immediate action to address this crisis by maintaining and expanding public housing.”
To that end, the alliance re-introduced its own solution: the Together We Care Act. Introduced by Rep. Velazquez last year, supporters say the act would create construction jobs for public housing residents and expand public housing by repealing a Reagan-era law that prohibits construction of new units.
“Millions of people are paying over half of their income for housing,” said Alexa Kasdan in a press release, Director of Research and Policy at the Urban Justice Center and one of the primary researchers for this report. “There is a desperate need for low-income housing that is not being met by the private housing market."
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Comments
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The only alternative to
Sat, 05/22/2010 - 16:26 — drosera (not verified)The only alternative to public housing administration I favor is cooperative governance. A housing co-op, supported by federal grants, could make lots of decisions about security, trash pick-up, maintenance, and more. I would hope that the architecture of public housing would move away from large, impersonal complexes to smaller units that permit residents to look out for each other.
Banks will only take an interest in privatizing public housing if taxpayers put out big money to entice them. Of course, much of that money will go into the pockets of the banksters. They are always there waiting, aren't they?--like leeches.
I am not crazy about public
Sun, 05/23/2010 - 22:04 — Anonymous (not verified)I am not crazy about public housing because it sticks everyone in a complex that is not designed that attractively, and is *public housing*.
It's kind of like Medicaid for health care, when everyone should be on Medicare and getting their health care together.
Why can't lower income persons be subsidized to live in ordinary housing alongside other classes of people? With more heterogenous communities?
Why should people, housed by the government, have to live in shitty or unattractive or set-aside and stigmatized conditions?
The thing that gets everyone on this -- and why it's hard to achieve -- is because so many Americans, left and right, are in on the housing market game -- whereupon, now, no one can get a reasonable home without 1/2 million dollars.
Don't you think we should tackling the source of that problem?
Or are you all worried about what might happen to the value of your house and who might be moving in next door?
Since I have spent the
Sun, 05/23/2010 - 22:55 — Anonymous (not verified)Since I have spent the majority of my adult life in "Public Housing", first as a working single parent, & now as a disabled sr citizen, I can identify with the comments made in the article. I've lived in the same apt since 1985 I am 1 of the lucky ones. The apt complex was sold sev yrs ago, & the new owner tried to evict 250 families from the complex. After going to the city & county for help-we were put on sec 8-& those who qualified under the new regulations-were allowed to stay w/sec 8 vouchers. The county is no longer giving out vouchers due to lack of funds. No waiting lists.
Nothing. People who find out your on sec 8 treat you like your on welfare & stealing from them (thru taxes). It has been that way since we moved in. My child's friends in grade school were not allowed to come over to play. I pray for those who now need help because there are no resources available. I've been blessed-I call this HUD apt home.
HUD, money laundering,
Mon, 05/24/2010 - 14:47 — Floresta (not verified)HUD, money laundering, millions of dollars missing, stolen, selling fixable and repairable properties for pennies on the dollar, (your dollars BTW)...check out the website of Catherine Austin Fitts, solari.com for a eyes wide open peak at true malfeasance... (she was an under secretary there and a whistle blower).
1. I support public
Mon, 05/24/2010 - 23:55 — Old Lady In The Shoe (not verified)1. I support public housing. Let me say that from the outset.
But may I offer as a solution .. rent control anyone? I do not qualify for section 8 -- though I don't want to live in public housing -- and, I don't know that I want an incentive to stay in public housing.
I'm a single parent with a teenager and we are squeezed into two rooms at a very high rent relative to our income. I also work at home a lot and my son needs space to study and do his thing. Like the lady above, we too, don't have people who want to come over -- not because we're in public housing, but because they all live in 1/2 million dollar homes, 1/4 million at the least -- and they just "don't like" or don't want their child playing with a friend in a tiny apartment with a single parent.
Their loss, right?
2. Back to the housing
Tue, 05/25/2010 - 00:00 — Old Lady in A Shoe (not verified)2.
Back to the housing problems, proliferated by home owners and their quest for the bigger and bigger bubble ..
I cannot find an affordable two bedroom to rent, like, a small house or cottage with a tiny yard. Let alone a decent apartment.
There are some available, but I just do not like the neighborhoods/locations and I don't want to live in these cinder box apartment complexes where everything is cut out of a mold.
I just think we should have more renting choices as human beings.
3. The developers and home
Tue, 05/25/2010 - 00:02 — Old Lady in a Shoe (not verified)3.
The developers and home owners are ruining life for all of us.
As for HUD, that's probably true about the corruption and waste of money. Why they're continuing Medicaid instead of opening up Medicare, if you want to get into the kind of group mentality that keeps things going -- mentality in terms of an entire system that's fostered just as much by the people weeping about how the taxpayers have to pay for it. After all, God Forbid, for example, that everyone get the same health care (with the taxpayer paying for it). Who would want that morally do that, indeed, and when it might even cost the taxpayer less (at least the average taxpayer!) .. and besides, then you'd never know who was getting government assistance -- and part of the point in giving government assistance is humiliating people, right? And making sure everyone else knows they're financially a burden on the responsible members of society. So it goes with housing, too... Must section people off and make it as public as possible .. the poverty and burden that is ..
Shoe Livers' Conclusion.. I
Tue, 05/25/2010 - 00:03 — Old Lady in a Shoe (not verified)Shoe Livers' Conclusion..
I have looked into getting HUD house, but for some reason, there's never anything available .. I was beginning to wonder who gets these damn houses? .. they're out there charging for lists, too .. though I understand there are some (that are available) that were seized, but, belonged to crack dealers. Great option, right, so appealing. Yeah, if I'm like a ghost buster ..
No, national or state rent control would be better. Where that stands about the same chance as Medicare. Because the people who hate the people who are a burden on the taxpayer need someone to hate and see as a burden.
But you know why the left can't do anything worth anything anymore? Because they all own houses that are worth a lot of money, and, they want them to be worth even more. They've been beaten, body, spirit, mind, and soul -- by real estate.
Oh - let me add - to those
Tue, 05/25/2010 - 00:12 — Old Lady in a Shoe (not verified)Oh - let me add - to those complaining about what the taxpayers is burdened with ..
Because of your housing bubble that keeps going up and up so you can make money with your real estate "investments" --
not only do we pay higher and higher rents --
but someone like me and my teenager -- cannot survive any more without food stamps -- although we don't qualify for section 8.
So, you see, you are paying for that, dears, because you want to keep making money with your real estate and so much of my income goes into rent that we don't have enough money of our own to eat.
That's a message to the liberals too. With big houses , campaigning for Obama, but don't want their darling in a tiny yucky apartment playing with the child of a single parent.
Oh - and last (but not
Tue, 05/25/2010 - 00:14 — Old Lady in a Shoe (not verified)Oh - and last (but not least) - we don't want to play in your big old houses either.