Public housing in the United States is managed by federal, state, and local agencies to provide subsidized assistance to low-income households. Public housing at prices far below the market rate, allowing people to stay in a more convenient location than to move away from the city to look for lower rents. Now more and more available in a variety of settings and formats, initially public housing in the US consists mostly of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. The complex is operated by state and local housing authorities authorized and funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. More than 1.2 million households currently live in public housing with several types.
Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects , have a complicated and often cruel history in the United States. While the first decade of the project was built with higher construction standards and a wider range of revenue and the same applicant, over time, public housing is increasingly becoming the last housing in many cities. Some of the reasons have been cited for this negative trend including the failure of Congress to provide adequate funding, declining standards for occupancy, and mismanagement at the local level. Furthermore, housing projects have also seen greatly increased concentrated poverty in a community, leading to some negative externalities. Crime, drug use, and low educational performance are all broadly related to housing projects, particularly in urban areas.
As a result of various problems and reduced political support, many low-income housing properties built in the early years of the program have been destroyed. Beginning primarily in the 1970s the federal government turned to other approaches including project-based programs Part 8, Part 8 certificates, and Housing Options Voucher Program. In the 1990s the federal government accelerated the transformation of traditional public housing through the HOPE VI HUD Program. Hope Fund VI is used to undermine a depressed public housing project and replace it with a mixed community built in partnership with private partners. In 2012, Congress and HUD started a new program called Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. Under the demonstration program, eligible public housing properties will be rebuilt along with developers and private investors.
Video Public housing in the United States
Histori
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In the 19th and early 20th centuries, government involvement in housing for the poor was primarily in the field of law enforcement development, which required new buildings to meet certain standards for viable eligibility (eg proper ventilation), and forced masters land to make some modifications to an existing one. build stock. Photojournalist Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Life (1890) brought enough attention to the slum conditions of New York City, sparking renewed attention to housing conditions across the country.
Early tenement reform was primarily a philanthropic enterprise, with the Model Tenement constructed as early as the 1870s trying to use new architectural and management models to address the physical and social problems of slums. These efforts are limited by available resources, and early efforts are immediately directed to building code reform. The New York Tenement Act of 1895 and the Tenement Law of 1901 were early efforts to address building codes in New York City, which were later copied in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other American cities.
In 1910, the National Housing Association (NHA) was established to improve housing conditions in urban and suburban environments through better regulation enforcement and increased awareness. The NHA was founded by Lawrence Veiller, author of the Tenement House Law Model (1910), and consists of delegates from dozens of cities. Over time, the focus of the housing movement shifted from a focus on building typology appropriate to community development on a wider scale, and the NHA was dissolved in 1936.
The city of Milwaukee, under the socialist mayor Daniel Hoan, implemented the country's first public housing project, known as Rumah Taman, in 1923. This trial with a government-sponsored housing cooperative saw initial success, but was plagued by problems of land development and acquisition, and the board overseeing the project dismantled Gardens Home Corporation just two years after the construction of the house was completed.
Public Works Administration (PWA) Housing Division
Permanent, federally funded housing emerged in the United States as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Title II, Section 202 of the National Industrial Recovery Act, graduated on 16 June 1933, directing the Public Works Administration (PWA) to develop a program for "construction, reconstruction, alteration, or repair under public regulation or low cost control of housing and settlement projects slum... ". Led by the PWA Housing Division and headed by architect Robert Kohn, the Initial Program, the Limited Distribution aims to provide low-interest loans to public or private groups to fund the construction of low-income housing.
Too few qualified applicants step forward, and the Limited Dividend Program only finances seven housing projects nationwide. In the spring of 1934, PWA Administrator Harold Ickes directed the Housing Division to carry out the direct construction of public housing, a decisive step that would set a precedent for the 1937 Wagner-Steagall Housing Act, and a permanent public housing program in England. Union. Kohn resigned during the reorganization, and between 1934 and 1937 the Housing Division, now headed by Colonel Horatio B. Hackett, built fifty-two housing projects throughout the United States, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Atlanta Techwood House opened on 1 September 1936 and was the first of the fifty-two opened.
Based on Clarence Stein and Henry Wright's housing planning concepts, these fifty-two projects are architecturally integrated, consisting of one to four row houses and apartment buildings, arranged around open spaces, creating a traffic free playroom that defines community upgrades. Many of these projects were built on slums, but land acquisition proved difficult, leaving abandoned industrial sites and vacant lots of land. The first two Lexington projects are built on an abandoned horse race track. In the direction of Ickes, many of these projects are also segregated, designed and built for whites or African-Americans. Race is largely determined by the environment around the site, since the American occupancy patterns, both in the North and South, are very separate.
Out of the housing movement at the turn of the century, the 1930s also saw the creation of Home Owner Loan Company (HOLC), which refinanced loans to keep the housing market afloat. The National Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which uses only a small capital investment from the federal government to insure mortgages. The construction of a public housing project is therefore only one part of the federal housing effort during the Great Depression.
Housing Act 1937
In 1937, the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act replaced the temporary PWA Housing Division with a permanent and semi-autonomous agent to manage housing. The new US Housing Authority Housing Act of 1937 will operate with a strong effort on local efforts in locating and building housing and will place a limit on how much can be spent on each housing unit. The $ 5,000 limit is a highly contested feature of the bill because it would be a substantial reduction of the money spent on PWA housing and much less than those lobbying lobbies to get it.
Construction of housing projects dramatically accelerated under the new structure. In 1939 alone, 50,000 housing units were built - more than double the amount built during the entire PWA Housing Division tenure. Building on organizational and architectural precedents of the Housing Division, the USHA built housing in World War II development, supporting the production efforts of war and combating the housing shortages that occurred after the end of the war. In the 1960s, across the country, the housing authority became a major partner in urban renewal efforts, building new homes for those who fled through roads, hospitals and other public pursuits.
World War II era
As part of the mobilization of war, the whole community sprang up around factories producing military goods. In 1940, Congress authorized the US Housing Authority to build twenty public housing developments around these private companies to support the war effort. There is debate as to whether this should be a permanent residence, which advances the reformer's goal to build a larger public housing effort, or temporary shelter in line with the timeliness of the need. The Defense Housing Division was established in 1941 and will eventually build eight temporary housing developments, although many ended up as long-term housing after the war.
One of the most unusual US public housing initiatives is the development of subsidized middle class housing during the New Deal (1940-42) under the auspices of the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Employment Agency under the direction of Colonel Lawrence Westbrook. These eight projects were purchased by the population after the Second World War and in 2009 seven projects continued to operate as joint-stock companies owned by their residents. These projects are one of the few definitive success stories in the history of US public housing efforts.
During World War II, home construction dramatically declined as all efforts were directed at the War. When veterans return from abroad, they come to start a new life, often with family, and do so with funding from G.I. Bill to start a new mortgage. However, not enough stock of the house to accommodate the demand. As a result, President Truman created the Office of the Housing Expediter with an executive order on January 26, 1946, to be led by Wilson Wyatt. Through this office, the government intervened in the housing market largely through price controls and supply chain restrictions, despite political pressure from several factions to build housing directly. Efforts to move to focus exclusively on veterans housing, particularly subsidized materials for housing construction. However, after the 1946 election, President Truman believed that there was insufficient public support to continue restrictions on such materials and subsidies. The Veterans Emergency Housing Program ended in January 1947 by an executive order from President Truman.
Housing Act of 1949
With the Office of Expeditor Housing over, housing efforts moved to look at a new, comprehensive approach to addressing housing problems. The result was the Housing Act of 1949, which dramatically expanded the role of the federal government in both public and private housing. Part of Truman's Fair Deal, the Act covers three main areas: (1) It extends the Federal Housing Administration and federal involvement in mortgage insurance, (2) under Title I, it provides the authority and funds for slums and urban renewal, and (3) initiate the construction of a significant public housing program. Title II of the law states the purpose of "decent homes in an environment worthy of every American," and the law provides mortgage guarantees of $ 13 billion, $ 1.5 billion for rebuilding slums, and sets a construction goal of 810,000 general housing units.
After his journey, Truman told the press:
"[This legislation] opens up a decent home prospect in a healthy environment for low-income families living in squalor in slums.This equips the Federal Government, for the first time, in an effective way to assist cities in important tasks cleaning up slums and rebuilding damaged areas This legislation allows us to take a long step toward improving the welfare and happiness of millions of our citizens, lest we delay to achieve that high goal.
Housing in the 1960s
Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965
Dissatisfaction with Urban Renewal comes fairly quickly in the path of endorsing Title I and the 1949 Housing Act. The renewal of the city has become, for many cities, a way to get rid of disease, but not a solid vehicle to build new housing. For example, in the ten years after the bill was passed, 425,000 housing units were demolished under its aegis, but only 125,000 units were built. Between Title I and the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, all communities in poorer urban neighborhoods were destroyed to make way for modern development and transportation needs, often in Le Corbusier's 'Tower in the Park' style. Jane Jacobs famously describes new products as, "Low-income projects that become worse centers of crime, vandalism, and social despair than the slums they are supposed to replace.The middle-income housing projects that truly admire the stupidity and defamation, sealed to the buoyancy or vitality of urban life.The luxury housing projects that reduce their madness, or try, with vulgar rudeness... This is not rebuilding the city.
Some additional housing measures were adopted after 1949, changing the program in small ways, such as shifting ratios for elderly housing, but no major legislation changed the general housing mechanism until the 1965 Housing and Urban Development Act. this creates the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a cabinet-level institution to lead with housing. The Act also introduces leased subsidies for the first time, the beginning of a shift towards encouraging low-income private-built housing. Under this law, FHA will insure a nonprofit mortgage that will then build homes for low-income families. HUD can then provide subsidies to bridge the gap between the costs of these units and a certain percentage of household income.
The Housing Act of 1961 secretly introduced a program under Article 23 which allows local housing authorities to place people on their waiting lists in privately hired units through a voucher mechanism that covers the gap between households' ability to pay and rent market. This mechanism was repeatedly expanded in later legislation.
Housing Act of 1968
Responding to many emerging concerns about the construction of a new public housing, the 1968 Housing Act is trying to change the style of housing development, looking into Lake Ebenezer Park City model. The action prohibits the construction of tall buildings for families with children. The role of tall buildings has always provoked debate, but with the increasing levels of vandalism and emptiness and considerable concern about the concentration of poverty, this development is otherwise unsuitable for families. One of the most notable of these developments is the construction of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, Missouri, built in 1955 and 1956. This development posted 2,870 units in thirty-three tall buildings. In the late 1960s, the vacancy rate reached as high as 65%, and the project was destroyed between 1972 and 1975.
The law also impacts the home ownership market through FHA expansion. Ginnie Mae was originally set up to buy a public housing project at risk and resell it at market prices. In addition, Section 235 derives a mortgage subsidy by reducing the mortgage interest rate for low-income families to a level more comparable to the FHA mortgage. The program suffered high foreclosure rates and administrative scandals, and was dramatically reduced in 1974. The Section 236 program subsidizes debt services on private development which would then be offered at reduced tariffs for households below certain income limits.
Housing in the 1970s
Experimental Housing Allowance Program
The Housing Act of 1970 established the Experimental Housing Allowance Program (EHAP), a long investigation into the potential market effects of housing vouchers. Vouchers, initially introduced in 1965, were attempts to subsidize the demand for the housing market rather than the supply side by increasing the rent allowance until they were able to pay the market price. EHAP is designed to test three aspects of voucher impact:
- Request: Investigate user dynamics, including mobility, participation rates, rental rates, and housing standards.
- Supply: Monitor the market response to subsidies, ie whether it changes the price of construction or lease for the community, writes great.
- Administration: Check out several different approaches for organizing and managing the program.
In the end, the new law on housing vouchers does not await the conclusion of the experiment. When the program ended more than a decade later, it was found that the program had minimal impact on the surrounding rent, but had the potential to tighten the market for low-income housing, and the community needed additional units. Some therefore argue that public housing is the right model for cost and supply chain reasons, although vouchers do not seem to distort the local housing market much.
Home moratorium
In 1973, President Richard Nixon ceased funding for many housing projects amid concerns about a housing project built in the previous two decades. HUD Secretary George Romney stated that the moratorium would include all the money for Urban Renewal and Model Cities programs, all subsidized housing, and Section 235 and 236 funding. An intensive report was commissioned from the National Housing Policy Review to analyze and assess the role of the federal government in housing. This report, titled Housing in the Seventy was instrumental in drafting a new housing law the following year. In accordance with Nixon's market-based approach, as demonstrated by EHAP, Nixon also lifted the moratorium on the Section 23 voucher program at the end of September, allowing for 200,000 new households to be funded. The full moratorium was lifted in the summer of 1974, when Nixon faced an impeachment behind Watergate.
Housing and Community Development Act of 1974
The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 created the Housing Program Part 8 to encourage the private sector to build affordable homes. This kind of housing aid helps poor tenants by giving monthly subsidies to their landlords. This assistance can be 'project-based', which applies to certain properties, or 'renters based', which provides tenants with vouchers that they can use wherever vouchers are accepted. Tenant-based housing vouchers cover the gap between 25% of household income and establish a fair market rent. There are hardly any new projects based on the Section 8 housing that has been produced since 1983, but the tenant-based vouchers are now the main mechanism of assisted housing.
Another key feature of the Act is the creation of a Community Development Grants Fund (CDBG). Although not directly related to public housing, CDBG is a lump sum money, the amount determined by a population-focused formula, given to state and local governments for housing and community development work. The amount may be used as determined by the community, although the law also requires the development of a Housing Assistance Plan (HAP) that requires local communities to survey and catalog their available home supplies and determine the population most in need of assistance. This is submitted as part of the CDBG application.
Again in response to growing discontent with public housing, urban developers began looking for alternative forms of affordable and low-income housing. From this concern emerged the creation of a scattered-site housing program designed to place smaller, better-integrated public housing units in various environments. Widespread housing programs became popular in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since then, cities across the country have implemented such programs with varying degrees of success.
Housing in the 1980s-1990s
Changes to a small public housing program during the 1980s. Under the Reagan administration, the household contribution to Section 8 leases increased to 30% of household income and fair market rental rates were lowered. Public aid for housing efforts is reduced as part of a board cut package. In addition, emergency shelters for the homeless are expanded, and homeownership by low-income families is promoted to a greater extent.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act (NAHA), which encouraged the use of HOUSING funds for rental assistance. In his speech to his section, Bush said, "Although the Federal Government currently serves some 4.3 million low-income families, there are an additional 4 million families, most of them with very low incomes, whose housing needs are not yet met We must not divert aid from those who need it most. "
The next new era in public housing began in 1992 with the launch of the HOPE VI program. The HOPE VI fund is devoted to destroying low-quality public housing projects and replacing them with low-density development, often with mixed income. Funds include construction and demolition costs, tenant relocation costs, and subsidies for newly built units. HOPE VI has been the main vehicle for the construction of a new federal subsidized unit, but suffered considerable funding cuts in 2004 under President George W. Bush.
In 1998, the Housing and Residential Quality Responsibility Act (QHWRA) was endorsed and signed by President Bill Clinton. Following the welfare reform framework, QHWRA is developing a new program for transitioning families out of public housing, developing a home ownership model for Section 8, and expanding the HOPE VI program to replace public housing units.
Maps Public housing in the United States
Social issues
Poverty is concentrated
According to HUD's Residential Characteristic Report, the average annual income in 2013 for resident housing units is $ 13,730. The same report groups 68% of the population as Very Low Income, with the largest annual income group of $ 5,000 to $ 10,000, which contains 32% of the public housing population.
Trends showing an increase in geographic concentration of poverty became evident in the 1970s when middle and upper class residents vacated property in US cities. The urban renewal program leads to widespread slums, creating the need to accommodate those displaced by cleaning (Massey and Kanaiaupuni 1993). However, those in urban administrations, political organizations and suburban communities reject the creation of public housing units in the middle class and workers, leading to the construction of such units around the ghetto neighborhoods that have shown signs of poverty. Massey and Kanaiaupuni (1993) describe three sources of poverty concentrated in relation to public housing: income requirements that structurally create poverty areas, strengthen poverty patterns through the location of public housing units, and migration of the poor to public housing, this is relatively small compared to other sources.
A study of public housing in Columbus, Ohio, found that public housing has a different effect on the concentration of black poverty versus white poverty. The public housing effect on concentrated poverty is duplicated for blacks rather than whites. Further studies have found that public housing tends to concentrate those who struggle most economically to a certain area, further increasing the level of poverty.
A different study, conducted by Freeman (2003) at the national level, raises doubts over the theory that public housing units have an independent effect on poverty concentrations. The study found that while out-migration from non-poor and inward migration from poor people is associated with the creation of public housing, the association disappears with the introduction of statistical controls, suggesting that migration rates are caused by environmental characteristics alone rather than public housing units.
The concentrated poverty of the public housing units has an effect on the economy of the surrounding area, competing for space with middle-class housing. Due to social pathology incubated by public housing, Husock (2003) states that unit prices in nearby buildings are falling, reducing city revenue from property taxes and providing disincentives to high paying businesses to place themselves in the area. He further argues that the pathology caused by the concentration of poverty tends to spread to the surrounding environment, forcing local residents and businesses to move.
Freeman and Botein (2002) were more skeptical of a reduction in property values ​​after the construction of a public housing unit. In a meta-analysis of empirical studies, they hope to find that when public housing does not have a prominent architecture and its inhabitants are similar to those already in the environment, property values ​​will not fluctuate. However, the literature review did not yield a definite conclusion about the impact of public housing on property values, with only two studies that lacked methodological deficiencies that had mixed or no impact.
Others are skeptical of the concentrated poverty of public housing that causes social pathology, arguing that such characterization is the simplification of a series of far more complex social phenomena. According to Crump (2002), the term "concentrated poverty" was originally a spatial concept that is part of a much wider and more complex sociological description of poverty, but the spatial component then becomes an overarching metaphor for concentrated poverty and the cause of social pathology. surround it. Instead of spatial concentration becoming only part of the broad description of social pathology, Crump (2002) argues that the concept replaces a broad description, erroneously focusing on the physical concentration of poverty.
Racial segregation
The HUD's Location and Race of Public Reports in the United States found that the racial distribution of citizens in public housing units tends to be more homogeneous, with African Americans likely to occupy a poor and white minority environment occupies a more prosperous white environment. More than 40% of residents of public housing live in an environment where the majority are African-American, according to a HUD report. The report also states that racial segregation has declined over the last 20 years, but this problem still persists in many units. Segregation varies by type of house and metropolitan area, but the general trend is a clear separation between blacks and whites. The level of segregation increases with the growth rate of the black population, indicating that public housing policy is the response of white elites in government to isolate blacks to certain areas, away from high-cost business districts.
Separation in public housing is rooted in early developments and the activities of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), created by the Housing Act of 1934. FHA instituted practices that would seek to maintain a homogenous racial environment, even though this practice was beaten. by the Supreme Court in 1948 and banned by law in 1960. However, according to Gotham (2000), Section 235 of the 1968 Housing Act encourages white flights from the inner city, sells suburban property for whites and inner property cities to blacks, creating an environment that is racially isolated from others. Public housing units are often built in areas dominated by the poor and black, which reinforce racial and economic differences between environments.
A meta-analysis of public housing studies conducted by Freeman and Botein (2002) found that while the environment around the public housing units is disproportionately black, the creation of new public housing units is not associated with changes in the environmental racial composition. Very little evidence is found for a large number of racial transitions on a "white flight" scale.
McNulty and Holloway (2000) study the geographic intersections of public housing, races, and crimes to determine whether racial differences exist in crime rates when controlled for the proximity of public housing units. The study found that "race-crime relationships are geographically contingent, varying as a function of the distribution of public housing". This suggests that the focus on the institutional cause of crime in relation to race is more precise than focusing on cultural differences between races being the cause of different crime rates.
Health and safety
The public housing unit itself offers very little facilities for occupants, providing the minimum accommodation needed for life. The original words of the Housing Act of 1937 mean that units built with little effort to provide facilities are only marginally better than slums. The units have poor insulation, roof, electricity, and drains, are generally very small, and are built to use as few resources as possible. Turner et al. (2005) documented more physical damage, with underdeveloped improvements, vandalism, cockroaches, fungi, and other problems that created an environment generally unsafe for residents. A study in Boston showed that moisture and heating problems in public housing created concentrations of dust mites, fungi, and fungi, leading to asthma at a much higher rate than the national average.
Other studies are less negative in their assessment of living conditions in public housing units, indicating only marginal differences caused by public housing units. Studies by Fertig and Reingold (2007) conclude that from a large list of possible health effects, public housing units only seem to affect the level of domestic violence, with only mixed effects, overall maternal health status, and the likelihood of mothers being overweight..
Crime is also a big problem in public housing, with surveys showing a large number of drug-related crimes and shootings. Potential causes include inefficient management, causing troubled residents to stay in the unit, and inadequate policing and security. Public housing units are much more vulnerable to murder than comparable environments, which Griffiths and Tita (2009) argue are the effects of social isolation within the unit. All these killings tend to be localized within a public housing unit rather than in the vicinity.
Satisfaction with one's living environment is another variable influenced by public housing. Residents of public housing units and voucher holders are more likely to express higher satisfaction with their current residence than low-income tenants who do not receive government assistance. However, the study also concluded that residents of public housing units and voucher holders are more likely to express lower satisfaction with the environment in which they live compared to low-income tenants. This suggests that while public housing accommodation is better than comparable options, the surrounding environment is less desirable and has not been improved by government assistance.
Education
Another concern about public housing is the availability of quality education for children living in public housing units in areas with concentrated poverty. In a student achievement study in New York City, Schwartz et al. (2010) found that children living in public housing units were worse on standardized tests than others who went to the same or comparable school. Furthermore, the study found that resources from schools serving different populations in the city were more or less the same.
Other studies have denied this result, stating that public housing has no unique effect on student achievement. In a study for the National Economic Research Bureau, Jacob (2003) found that children who had moved from public housing due to demolition in Chicago fared no better and were no worse at school and often continued to attend the same school as before before dismantling. However, among older children (14 years or older), drop-out rates increased by 4.4% after discharge, although this effect was not seen in younger children.
A separate study conducted by Newman and Harkness (2000) yielded findings similar to Jacob (2003). It concludes that public housing has no independent effect on the level of educational attainment. In contrast, variations in educational attainment are associated with poor economic status and family characteristics. In addition, the study found very little difference between public education attainment versus private subsidized housing development.
More positive educational outcomes have been noted in other analyzes. A study by Currie and Yelowitz (1999) found that families living in public housing were less likely to experience density in their units. Children living in public housing 11% were less likely to be held back in class, suggesting that public housing can help low-income students. The 2011 report from the Center for Housing Policy argues for a stable and affordable housing benefit in terms of education. Reasons for such educational benefits include less sporadic moves, community support, stress reduction from overcrowding, less health hazards, provision of after-school programs, and reduction of homelessness.
Public perception
Some of the negative stereotypes associated with public housing create difficulties in developing new units. Tighe (2010) reviews many of the literature on the perception of public housing and discovers five major public issues: lack of maintenance, crime expectations, housing rejection as leaflets, property depletion, and physical discomfort. While the reality of certain aspects may differ from perceptions, such perceptions are strong enough to promote strong opposition to public housing programs.
In a separate study, Freeman and Botein (2002) found four key areas of public concern regarding public housing: property values ​​reduction, racial transition, concentrated poverty, and increased crime. The study concludes that these concerns are only guaranteed under certain circumstances, and in varying degrees. While negative consequences have the potential to occur with the construction of public housing, there are almost equal opportunities from public housing that have the opposite effect of creating a positive impact in the environment.
Alternate model
Housing scattered
"Spread-sites" or "spreading sites" refers to forms of housing where publicly funded, affordable, low-density units are scattered across diverse, middle-class neighborhoods. This could be a single unit scattered across towns or groups of family units.
The scattered housing location can also be managed by private non-profit organizations using a permanent and supportive housing model, where special barriers to low-income housing individuals or families are discussed in regular visits with case managers. In New York City, the Spreading Site Apartment Program provides municipal contracts for not-for-profit from the HIV/AIDS Services Administration under the Human Resources Administration of New York City. Also, the Scattered Site is one of two models, the other being the Congregate, which is used in the New York/New York residential agreement between New York City and New York State.
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Housing units scattered at the site were originally constructed as an alternative form of public housing designed to prevent the concentration of poverty associated with more traditional high density units. The class case-the benchmark action that led to the popularization of the scattered-site model was Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority in 1969. Much of the motivation for the trial and lawsuit came from concerns about the segregation of housing. It is believed that the placement of public housing facilities in primarily black environments perpetuated the settlement of segregation. The lawsuit was finally settled with a verdict mandating that the Chicago Housing Authority redistributes public housing to a non-black environment. US District Court Judge Richard B. Austin mandated that three public housing units be built in white areas (less than 30% black) for every single unit built in black areas (over 30% black).
This percentage has declined since then and various programs have been developed across the United States. While some programs have seen great success, others have difficulty obtaining the land needed for construction and in maintaining new units. Eligibility requirements, generally based on income and household size, are common in the program. In Dakota County, Minnesota, for example, eligibility ranges from a maximum of $ 51,550 for two up to $ 85,050 for 8-10 people.
The eligibility requirements are designed to ensure that those most in need receive first aid and that concerns about housing discrimination do not extend to the public housing sector.
Public policies and implications
Widespread housing programs are generally run by municipal or local government authorities. They are intended to increase the availability of affordable housing and improve the quality of low-income housing, while avoiding problems associated with concentrated subsidized housing. Many units are scattered in locations built to be similar in appearance to other houses in the neighborhood to somewhat cover the financial stability of the tenant and reduce the stigma associated with public housing.
A very worrisome issue with regard to the implementation of scattered location programs is where to build these housing units and how to get support from the community. The frequent concerns of community members include a potential decline in the retail price of their homes, the deterioration of environmental safety due to the increasing crime rate. Thus, one of the main concerns with the relocation of site-spread tenants into the white, middle-class neighborhood is that residents will move elsewhere - a phenomenon known as white flights. To overcome this phenomenon, some programs place tenants in private apartments that do not look different from outside. Despite these efforts, many members of the white, predominantly middle-class neighborhood struggle to keep public housing away from their communities.
American sociologist William Julius Wilson has proposed that centralizing low-income housing in impoverished areas may restrict tenant access to social opportunities. Thus, some scattered site programs are now moving tenants in a middle-class suburban neighborhood, hoping that immersion in social networks with greater financial stability will increase their social chances. However, this strategy may not necessarily prove to be effective, especially in terms of increasing employment. When placed in the same economic environment means, studies show that low-income residents use neighbors as a social resource less often when life is scattered throughout the environment than when living in small groups within the environment.
There are also concerns related to the financial burden that these programs have on the state. Housing scattered on site does not provide better living conditions for the tenants than the concentrated traditional housing if the unit is not properly maintained. There is a question as to whether public facilities scattered in places are more expensive to manage because spreading throughout the city makes maintenance more difficult.
Voucher
The housing voucher, now one of the main methods of delivery of subsidized housing in the United States, became a strong program in the United States with the issuance of the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act. The program, colloquially known as Section 8, currently helps more than 1.4 million households. Through a voucher system, direct payments to the host help qualified households in covering the gap between market rent rates and 30% of household income.
Hope VI
The Hope VI program, created in 1992, began in response to the physical damage of public housing units. The program rebuilds housing projects with an emphasis on mixed income development rather than projects that focus on poorer households in one area.
City program
Chicago
Class action lawsuit from Gautreaux v. CHA (1966) made Chicago the first city to mandate scattered housing as a way to separate the environment. Dorothy Gautreaux argues that the Chicago Housing Authority is discriminated against by race in its public housing policy. This case was brought to the Supreme Court when Hills v. Gautreaux and the 1976 ruling mandated housing scattered in places for people currently living in public housing in slums.
Since then, scattered housing has become a major part of public housing in Chicago. In 2000, the Chicago Housing Authority created a Transformation Plan designed to not only improve the structural aspects of public housing but also to "build and strengthen communities by integrating public housing and rights holders into greater social, economic and physical structures in Chicago. ". The goal is to have 25,000 new or renovated units, and these units can not be distinguished from the surrounding housing. While running a well-distributed public housing unit, greatly improving the quality of life of the tenants, abandoned and dilapidated units foster crime and perpetuate poverty. The Chicago Housing Authority began destroying unsafe units, but Plan for Transformation set aside $ 77 million to clean up non-destroyed sites in the process.
Houston
The Houston Housing Authority has created a Spread House Ownership Program to promote home ownership among those who will not be able to afford it. The program describes strict requirements based on 80% of Houston's regional median income. In 1987, the HHA received 336 properties throughout the city and has worked to clean up this property or sell it as a low-cost housing. In 2009, HHA has helped 172 families achieve home ownership through a scattered site program and with properties received in 1988.
Seattle
The Seattle Housing Authority created the Spread Sites program in 1978. The program to date has a total of 800 units ranging from duplex to multi-family. The program is currently in the process of "rearranging the portfolio," which requires a consecutive increase of over 200 units and ongoing efforts to distribute public housing in various neighborhoods throughout the city. In choosing location location, proximity to public facilities such as schools, parks, and transportation, is considered.
See also
- List of public housing developments in the United States
People:
- Harold Harby (1894-1978), Los Angeles, California, a member of the City Council whose diversion of opinion kills public housing in the city
General:
- Eviction in the United States
- Social programs in the United States
Footnote
Further reading
- Dizikes, Peter, "Chicago's hopes: An ambitious effort to help the urban poor by moving them out of the troubled housing projects has mixed results, the MIT study found", MIT News , MIT News Agency, March 3, 2011.
- Howard, Amy L. More Than Shelter: Activism and Community in San Francisco Public Housing. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
- HUD, "HUD History" (Website of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, January 10, 2012)
- Hunting, Bradford D., "Did 1937 US Housing Act as Pyrrhic Victory?" Journal of Planning History, vol. 4, no. 3 (2005): 195-221.
- Radford, Gail, "Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggle in the New Deal Era." Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
- Shester, Katharine L. "The Influence of the Local Economy of Public Housing in the United States, 1940-1970," Journal of Economic History vol. 73 (Dec. 2013), 978-1016.
- Vale, Lawrence J., "From Puritan to Project: Public Housing and Public Neighbors." Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 2000).
- Vale, Lawrence J., "Recapture the People's Housing: Half a Century of Struggle in the Three Public Regions." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
- Wurster, Catherine Bauer, "Modern Housing." Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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