Housing and Urban Development PolicyPublic Housing

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Public Housing Policy
E151U Housing Urban Development Policy
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Public Housing Policy

• Public Housing Policy in America implemented
  the way it has over the last century has imposed
  contradictory pressures that are not well
  understood and lead to false understandings of
  how it operates today and how it can be improved.

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Background

• Public housing was never meant to warehouse the
  poor. It was meant to give working people a
  home during periods of national economic crises.

Pictures Source http//history1900s.about.com/lib
rary/photos/blygd40.htm
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World War I

• Housing for defense contractor workers
• United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet
  Corporation
• The United States Housing Corporation

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Great Depression

• Put people to work by doing construction and
  remove blight
• Public Works Administration (PWA)
• 22,000 units built
• majority built in the north and large cities
• most tenants were White and working (WWII
  stimulated the economy)

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Housing Act of 1937

• Set the Foundation for permanent public housing
• Allowed the creation of local public housing
  authorities that took over PWA housing

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Economic Efficiency of Public Housing

• Housing subsidies
• No new construction
• Stimulated demand too much for pre-existing low
  quality housing
• Conventional Public Ownership
• Construction spending put people to work
• New structures removed dilapidated buildings

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Housing Act of 1949

• Additional construction
• Limited to very low income
• Fewer units built than originally planned

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Economic Efficiency Argument falls apart--1950s
and 1960s

• No limit on price of land for public housing, but
  limit on cost per unit construction
• Result Politics determined location. Shoddy
  projects built
• Rents collected were linked to income of
  residents 30
• Result Not enough money to keep up the projects

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Racial Prejudice
Picture Source http//www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/d
epression/photoessay.htm
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1950s-1960s The Civil Rights Movement
Picture Source http//www.lucidcafe.com/library/9
6jan/king.html
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Policies Trigger Change

• Education Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
  U.S. Supreme Court (1954)
• separate is inherently unequal
• Domino effect whites flee, poor
  African-Americans concentrated in public housing
• Redevelopment 1) neighborhoods razed, more poor
  flee to public housing 2) the stigmatization of
  public housing

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Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority (1966)

• Class action suit charging racial segregation in
  Chicagos public housing (rights violations under
  Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the equal protection
  clause of the 14th Amendment)

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The Design Bungle Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project
Picture sources http//bacweb.the-bac.edu/michae
l.b.williams/Pruitt-Forum.html
http//www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/la/LA338-S01/groups/b/E
volution1.html
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What Went Wrong?

• Modernist Architecture (but administrative short
  cuts)
• Designed for art not function
• - No ownership or control of public areas
• - Disconnection between living and
  recreational spaces
• - No services/activities for young people
• - Downward spiral

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Devolution starting in the 1970s

• Federal government owned 1 million units in 1974
• Types
• -- 80 Conventional Public Housing
  Government Built, Government Run
• -- 20 Turnkey Private sector built,
  Government Run

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1980s and 1990s

• Budget cuts, new emphases
• -- Resident Management
• -- Home Ownership 1990 Act
• Encourages residents to buy their unit
• -- Private Market Deconcentration
  Section 8

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A Future for Public Housing?
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Residents of Public Housing

• Satisfaction
• Ambivalence