American News Project: 'HUD's Affordable Housing Project'

Source:American News Project- public housing in America.

"As the Obama Administration plans to implement their recently signed $787 billion rescue plan, one of the areas they will immediately be forced to confront is the ongoing housing crisis.  The stimulus gives the Department of Housing and Urban Development $13.6 billion to address the needs of low-income families across the country. Experts say it's a good start, but new HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan is facing an enormous task, as he attempts to overhaul an agency that is facing years of neglect and mounting debt." 

From the American News Project

To me people living in public housing is just one step away from what I would call at least being level 4 Poverty. Level 4 poverty to me would be homeless people, people who can't afford a place to live and live on the streets or sometimes stay in a homeless shelter. Level 4 to me would be the worst level in poverty, the best being low-income workers. 

Some low-income workers live in public housing, others live in low-rent apartments in rough neighborhoods. A woman in this video said that she basically has lived most of her life in public housing. To me that just evidence of how much the War on Poverty has failed in America. That we would allow as a country for this to happen and not do anything or anything that would actually move these people out of poverty and into private affordable housing. 

To actually reduce poverty in America, that gets to things like  education and job placement so these people can get the skills that they need in order to get a good job and become self-sufficient. What we could've been doing the last forty plus years in public housing is helping these people get the skills that they need in order to get a good job, whether they are already working or not. Because a lot of these people are low-skilled. They either only have high school diploma's, but not college or vocational or didn't even finish high school. And we should've been sending these people back to school, including community college so they can get the skills that they need in order to get a good job and be self- sufficient. 

But thats just one failure in public housing which was part of the so-called Great Society legislation of the mid and late 1960s. The main failure gets to how it was designed and is very fundamental. The Federal Government figured that they could take essentially a community of low-income, low-skilled people and basically force them to live together in these run down public housing projects in rough neighborhoods. And left them there in these bad neighborhoods to raise their kids and send them to bad schools. Where they remained low-income and low-skilled. 

What we should've been doing all along and what we should be doing today is reforming public housing not only in a way that would empower the residents of public housing to finish school and further their education. So they can get a job that can support themselves and their families and become self- sufficient. And be able to pay for their own home or pay for the rent of their home on their own. 

But instead of creating more ghettos through government of all things, what we should be doing is integrate public housing residents into middle class communities. So these people can live in better communities and send their kids to better schools and find better jobs, etc, s well as living in safer communities. 

And then we need to get the Federal Government as well as state and local governments out of the business of public housing. And let them be there to regulate, but give the power to the people and let them run public housing. Turn it into a semi-private, non-profit community housing service. With each state and local government having their own chapters, but where private sector to an extent would run them. 

And these public housing projects could be paid for by the residents up to a point and then by their employers for the people who work. And Unemployment or Welfare or Disability Insurance for the people who don't work. 

Public Housing has succeeded in the sense that its prevented millions of people from having to be homeless. And perhaps all that it was designed for and to that extent it's been a success. But if the goal is to actually move people out of poverty and not just sustain them, then we need some serious reforms in public housing and are other public assistance programs.