LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Policies designed to promote housing integration

• Anti-snob zoning laws: The Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal ActPublic Act 93-0595

• Fair Housing Laws (outlaw real estate agent “steering,” landlord discrimination)

• Urban Growth Boundaries, SmartGrowth and New Urbanism

• Housing Vouchers

• Hope VI

Readings on Urban Growth Boundaries, SmartGrowth and New Urbanism

• video (enter logon and password)• Jonathan Cohn "Losing Hope" The New Republic• New Urbanism

• Protecting Your Property From Stupid "Smart Growth" Socialistsby Edwin Feulner (May 8, 2005)

• Organized Theft: Sustainable Development, Smart Growth and Kelo by Tom DeWeese (July 3, 2005)

• Easy Money In California by Thomas Sowell (April 18, 2005)• San Mateo County and The Environmental Protection Rack

et by Thomas Sowell (May 30, 2005)

Location of Public Housing

• Public Housing projects:– At the discretion of local housing authorities.

• Most suburbs had no housing authorities• Those that did preferred housing for elderly and

disabled.

– (in Chicago) at the discretion of local aldermen• White aldermen refused• 1950s: CHA policies explicitly promoted segregated

projects.• Gautreaux decision overturns policy

– 1.2 million units (declining)– Federal government cost: $5.2 Billion

Public Housing problems

• In 1940s and 50s – for low income workers, often two parent families

• 1960s: targeted poorer, single parent families

• More high-rises

• Tenant rights protected: fewer restrictions on tenants

• Poor management and maintenance

• High crime, concentrated poverty

Privately owned public housing

• Nixon administration.

• Section 8 (tenants pay 30% of income).

• Owners have incentives to maintain property.

• Private owners have greater location choices.

– 1.3 million units– Federal cost: $5.3 Billion

Low Income Housing Tax Credit

• Tax Credits that developers of low income housing can sell on the private market.

• Involves much less bureaucracy. Private ownership, no federal rent subsidy.

• Less segregation: developments only partially low income(20% less than50% of median income;40% less than 60%)

– Federal Government cost $6 Billion– Funded 1.2 million units since 1986.

Housing Vouchers

• Reagan administration (Kemp, HUD)

• Gautreaux, (Chicago);

• Moving to Opportunity experiment

– 2.1 million authorized vouchers– Federal cost: $14.8 Billion

Adavantages of Vouchers

• Private ownership, better management

• Less costly than public projects

• Permits desegregation

• Some evidence suggests improvements in…

Results of Moving to Opportunity Experiment (Vouchers)

• Improvements in– personal safety– housing quality– mental health and obesity among adults– mental health, staying in school, delinquency,

and risky behavior among teenage girls.• Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration : Interim Impacts Evaluati

on (September 2003, 341 p.)

Disadvantages• Conservative:

– Still a welfare subsidy– Disrupts suburban communities– No time limits

• Liberal (sort of)– Disrupts original community

• William Simpson, A blueprint for `black flight'?

• Problems (other liberals):– Landlord discrimination (prohibited in some

states and cities, including Chicago).– Not enough vouchers, amount set too low– Doesn’t create new housing

Hope VI

• Tear down decaying projects.

• Offer some vouchers.

• Replace projects with mixed income housing.

• Clinton created the program, Bush opposes it.

• Jonathan Cohn "Losing Hope" The New Republic

• Susan Popkin, et. al., A Decade of HOPE VI

Readings

• William C. Apgar, Jr., Which Housing Policy is Best? Housing Policy Debate 9(2)

• John C. Weicher, Comment• Raymond J. Struyk, Comment • Moving to Opportunity experiment• Strengths and Weaknesses of the Housing

Voucher Program• Lan Deng, “Comparing the Effects of Housing

Vouchers and LIHTC..”