Affordable Housing Christmas In The Long Shadow of Scrooge

The dark shadow of a tree invaded by mistletoe darkens the sky
mistletoed photo by Tom Clifton is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Parasitic mistletoe slowly throttles an oak tree to death. Beware the loving embrace of HUD.

Communities across the US are crowding towards the mistletoe for a chilly smooch with uncle HUD,1 celebrating the late Christmas for public housing in America (prezzies coming to all and sundry in March or April).

Meanwhile others are not in quite the same celebratory mood.

HUD-touted public private partnerships (PPPs) have proven completely inadequate for producing much needed truly affordable housing. And the ongoing, probably inevitable, failure of PPPs to provide that truly affordable housing has emphasized the importance of the nation’s rag-tag, much-neglected stock of deteriorating public housing.

Currently, while HUD is handing out repair and refurbishment billions in a belated Christmas, its overall policy towards public housing can best be described as ‘death by a thousand budget cuts.’

An airing of public housing woes in Washington D.C. features a community that might be expected to have an inside track on better treatment than others, close as it is to the corridors of federal power. But if DC’s public housing ‘advantages’ are anything to go by, heaven help the disadvantaged who are more remote from Washington.

Read more in The DC Line: At Hearing On The Future Of Public Housing In DC, More Questions Than Answers

Footnotes

  1. HUD — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

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