The Case for Truly Public Housing

[M II A II R II K]

The Case for Truly Public Housing


December 2022

By Susanne Schindler & Chris Moyer

Read More: https://placesjournal.org/article/th...&cn-reloaded=1

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The Housing Act of 1937 was passed to enable the state to do what the market has never shown any inclination to do, to build and operate “decent, safe, and sanitary dwellings for families of low income.” 5 Now, after decades of laws which have undercut that capacity, housing for people with low incomes continues to be produced, but largely through the private sector, and under the more general term “affordable housing.” The role of public authorities is mostly limited to oversight and administration and, sometimes, to land ownership.

- It is all the more remarkable that the Cambridge Housing Authority has been able to build and operate projects like Millers River, projects that outshine market-driven offerings in the quality of their architecture and the proficiency of their maintenance. — The Cambridge Housing Authority is no longer typical; today it is routinely praised as “sophisticated” and “high-performing.” 15 According to this year’s annual report, the authority now serves roughly 5,000 households in Cambridge, about one-tenth of the city’s households, and an additional 2,300 in neighboring cities. 16 The CHA is sought out by peer agencies as a consultant, advises HUD on new policies, and acts as a developer and manager for its own properties as well as for those of housing authorities in nearby towns.

- In addition to improving internal operations, the CHA sought to regain the trust of tenants. To this end, the authority realized that architecture could itself be a valuable asset, and so it prioritized the “comprehensive modernization” of its oldest properties, which were so poorly maintained and managed that potential residents who had been on waiting lists for years were reluctant to move in. — At Washington Elms, a low-rise complex constructed in 1942, the CHA proposed a renovation that would significantly reduce the number of units (from 324 to 175) in order to create larger apartments and a new community center. Realizing that the plan was controversial, the city consulted closely with tenants, even paying for their independent legal counsel.

- Another new strategy promoted by the reform board was strong public communication, and the CHA pursued this goal with energy and imagination. In 1976, three years after the threat of receivership, the authority published its first annual report in many years, which it released as an eight-page supplement to the local weekly newspaper. Not only did the report reach a far wider readership than it would have had it simply been filed in the records room in City Hall; it made the bold argument that public housing was an asset not just to residents but to all citizens. — Public housing was not just last-resort shelter for the poor but also a vital component of the city’s diversity was a crucial argument in the CHA’s bid for broad-based support.

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[jd3189]

We need a return to public housing, while reducing the problems associated with it in the past. Although, previous housing projects were destined to fail due to decreased funding shortly after implementation. The rate of poverty in this country was dramatically reduced during the Great Society legislation spearheaded by President LBJ.

The private sector is never going to provide “Affordable housing” on its own. It isn’t incentivize to do so. There has to be a mixture of public and private development to house those who will never be able to afford market rate housing with low wages.

Unless we are okay with more people going into homelessness or leaving major cities for cheaper opportunities, which often leads to a labor drain on the local economy, we need to consider smart, equitable ways to house people in our major metro areas.

[SFBruin]

Delete.

[muppet]

For decades living in the UK, the govt found out the hard way that providing crappy public housing, if at all, only results in greater costs to society down the line in destitution, crime, NHS bills (eg mental health, alcohol and drugs counselling). Nowadays public housing is much higher standards, not ghettoised separately and completely disguised within 'normal' housing, including luxury developments:

Before:




After: social housing is mixed with market ones




Homeless housing:



Retirement homes:




The unsaid thing is if you're elevating people to join the economic ladder, you're also getting new generations of consumers for the long run -an investment rather than one that drains the public purse for generations to come, via entrenched poverty, social problems and crime. The problem is under decades of Conservative stewardship, the govt successively made the pool of affordable housing ever smaller, thanks to right-to-buy schemes, though now assuaged by counter-schemes that impose price-freezing if selling on.

In short, social housing is an economic argument also, not just humanitarian.

I grew up in the 80s, at the height of free-market Thatcherism, after she laid waste to the country's working classes in a hope they'd be pushed (though not empowered) to elevate themselves from their own personal hellholes, wasn't pretty. By the time we grew up we were causing the highest rates of crime ever recorded in the country, back in the 90s and early 00s:

[SFBruin]

I think that this works, provided that the new housing is accessible to jobs and services.

[Nite]

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