In America, public housing history helps to bridge the gap between ‘don’t be cruel to the very poorest’ (accompanied by conservative eye rolling) and ‘help the poor lift themselves by their bootlaces’ (accompanied by progressive eye rolling).
Where did it come from, the 30% threshold of adjusted earned income that triggers eligibility for public housing? Is it an incentive for the very poor to stay very poor? Did it doom public housing to irreversible decay?
A recent National Review article steps carefully through the history of public housing to provide a background to HUD’s proposal which, on the surface at least, appears designed to drive tenants in public housing permanently onto the streets and a move to further destroy public housing.
While the superficial public perception of HUD’s proposal may be enough to prevent its passage through Congress, the underlying motives and suggestions for rehabilitation of moribund American public housing are worthy of some consideration. The author proposes a tweak to the current proposal that (in his view at least) could make all the difference for effective and self-sustaining public housing in the future.
Read more in the National Review: An Improvement to Ben Carson’s Public-Housing Proposal
