The Predictable Failure Of The Public Housing “Fantasy Fix”

Here’s a mashup of the public/social housing “Fantasy Fix.” In the United Kingdom, so poorly have local councils and housing authorities been responding to tenant problems that the national government last year released a White Paper¹. It called for giving tenants immediate and meaningful attention and respect by responding to their problems. So, the appropriate authorities are told they must listen to tenant health and safety concerns about the substandard conditions existing in their homes.

Hop across the Atlantic to New York City where fully half of the America’s public housing residents live. The NYC public housing repair backlog has been examined and costed. It is no longer acceptable to blame the deterioration of public housing on the tenants themselves while ignoring their pleas for help. The city has public housing health and safety issues that will cost 40+ billion dollars to fix.

On both sides of the Atlantic we find legitimate public housing deterioration, and legitimate tenant concerns, with authorities actually acknowledging the problem.

But without substantial sums of money available immediately, who is doing these forced-to-be-acknowledged repairs? It is physically not possible for the same old maintenance labour force — even substantially augmented ones — to suddenly bend a sympathetic ear and arrive in timely fashion to actually assess or fix the problem.

Something’s got to give, and it does. Welcome to the world of the “Fantasy Fix,” where a little fiddling with the inspection data puts the problem to rest.

Remember when tenants were ignored for their slipshod bone idleness, which was the alleged source of needed health and safety repairs? Now we can blame maintenance workers. In such cases, social/public housing authorities can breath a sigh of relief. It’s still not their fault. Meanwhile, accused workers must be allowed the investigative evaluation to which they are entitled. . .  and the health and safety issues fester on.

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1. In the UK, White Papers discuss government thinking on how legislation is to be implemented. Ideas in White Papers may eventually show up as Policy Guidance, which comes with requirements for compliance and penalties for miscreants. Not all ideas in White Papers make it to Policy Guidance.