A federal program moving disadvantaged people from city to suburb is causing “tensions” according to the New York Times.
[T]he Section 8 federal housing voucher program, thousands of poor, urban and often African-American residents have left hardscrabble neighborhoods in the nation’s largest cities and resettled in the suburbs. … But there is little doubt that cultural shock waves have followed the migration. Social and racial tensions between newcomers and their neighbors have increased, forcing suburban communities … to re-evaluate their civic identities along with their methods of dealing with the new residents.
Read the whole harrowing tale of race, class, and the mortgage meltdown here. Housing policy buffs will remember the old federal 235-236 program of the 60s and 70s which aimed to increase suburban homeownership among the poor and disadvantaged. Result: thousand of familes lost their homes because of the bungling of the program, a good deal of it criminal. Makes you wonder whether housing policy is really designed to “solve” these problems after all?
August 11th, 2008 at 11:17 am
It’s a nasty circle. Not only do the people on the voucher program lose their homes, but the landlords who are renting to the individuals with the vouchers can’t be guaranteed that their costs are going to be met every month… putting even more people in financial crisis.