HOPE VI and the deconcentration of poverty

From Despair to Hope: Hope VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America's Cities

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 65-81

  Polikoff, Alexander ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 79960848620     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
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References (57)

1. "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action", Office of Planning and Research, U. S. Department of Labor (March 1965). The report argued that it was not just the lack of jobs and other institutional factors but rather fatherlessness and other social pathologies tracing back to slavery and discrimination that were fueling the rise in minority urban neighborhoods dominated by single mothers and their children, and it maintained that efforts to address black-white inequality had to address the breakdown of the "Negro family." In the wake of vigorous-some would say erroneous-criticism that the report placed too much blame for then current conditions on blacks, leaving white racism and institutions off the hook, the report was essentially shelved by the Johnson administration.
2. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (University of Chicago Press, 1987).
3. Among the many discussions of the history of the creation of the nation's black ghettos, see Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 (Cambridge University Press, 1983);
4. Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Harvard University Press, 1993);
5. Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).
6. See, for example, Jorge Casuso and Robert Blau, "Fear Lives in CHA's Taylor Homes", Chicago Tribune, June 18, 1989;
7. "Taylor Homes' Terrorized Children", Chicago Tribune, July 1, 1989. Casuso and Blau noted that exact figures for current residents were hard to come by but that there were 18, 670 residents at the last count, in 1985.
8. Rick Kogan, "The Education of Miss Kelly; In the Shadow of the Projects, 'The Best Kids in the World, '" Chicago Tribune Magazine, April 18, 1999. It is not clear from the article when the data were tabulated, but a reference to census tract poverty data suggests 1990.
9. Within the larger ghetto-creating context, specific public housing policies-for example, giving preference for admission to the neediest families-contributed to making public housing the housing of last resort for poor urban black families. For one discussion of these policies, see "Racial Desegregation and Income Deconcentration in Public Housing", Cara Hendrickson, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy 9 (Winter 2002).
10. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies 1993 Appropriations Act, P. L. 102-389 (October 6, 1992);
11. Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, P. L. 102-550 (October 28, 1992).
12. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies 1996 Appropriations Act, P. L. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321-269.
13. Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998, P. L. 105-276, 112 Stat. 2581 (October 21, 1998).
14. U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Urban Policy Brief 1 (September 1994).
15. Hills v. Gautreaux, 425 U. S. 284 (1976).
16. The Department of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies 1992 Appropriations Act (Public Law 102-139), which was enacted October 28, 1991, included a $20 million appropriation
17. (Stat. 745) for a demonstration program.
18. That program was authorized as the Moving to Opportunity Demonstration in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 (Public Law 102-550 Section 181).
19. David S. Broder, "For the Urban Poor, a Change of Venue", Washington Post, June 8, 1994.
20. U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "Further Information for Development of Proposals for FY 1995 HOPE VI Implementation Grants (1995)", pp. 6-7.
21. See Mindy Turbov and Valerie Piper, "HOPE VI and Mixed-Finance Redevelopments: A Catalyst for Neighborhood Renewal", a discussion paper prepared for the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, September 2005. A few years later, particularly in the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998, other changes in public housing rules-for example, repealing federal preferences-further helped housing authorities move toward lessening concentrations of poverty.
22. Over fiscal years 1993 to 1995, a total of thirty-four HOPE VI implementation grants were awarded. For the median income across the grant sites, see Linda B. Fosburg, Susan J. Popkin, and Gretchen P. Locke, An Historical and Baseline Assessment of HOPE VI, vol. 1, Cross-Site Report (U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, July 1996), pp. 1-25.
23. Mary Joel Holin and others, "Interim Assessment of the HOPE VI Program: Cross-Site Report", prepared by Abt Associates for the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, September 19, 2003, pp. 43-44 (www.abtassociates.com/reports/20030-RETASK-XSITE-03.pdf).
24. Although there are no comprehensive national data on the extent to which the mix of unit types mixes income levels, the HOPE VI interim assessment found that of five mixedunit HOPE VI sites studied, three had a sufficiently broad range of incomes to be called truly mixed-income and a fourth came very close to that standard. See Holin and others, "Interim Assessment of the HOPE VI Program: Cross-Site Report", p. 43.
25. Poverty rates of the HOPE VI sites prior to redevelopment were extreme, according to several studies. Susan J. Popkin and others, "A Decade of HOPE VI: Research Findings and Policy Challenges" (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, May 2004), p. 9.
26. Poverty rate declines in nine of twelve early HOPE VI sites were identified in Holin and others, "Interim Assessment of the HOPE VI Program: Cross-Site Report", pp. 114, 119, 124
27. fourteen of twenty 1996 grant year HOPE VI neighborhoods were cited for declining poverty rates in General Accounting Office, "Public Housing: HOPE VI Resident Issues and Changes in Neighborhoods Surrounding Grant Sites", Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U. S. Senate, November 2003, p. 25 (www.gao.gov/new.items/d04109.pdf [October 1, 2008]).
28. Susan J. Popkin and others, "A Decade of HOPE VI", p. 22.
29. See General Accounting Office, "Public Housing: HOPE VI Resident Issues and Changes in Neighborhoods Surrounding Grant Sites", p. 3;
30. Larry F. Buron and others, "HOPE VI Resident Tracking Study: A Snapshot of the Current Living Situation of Original Residents from Eight Sites" (Washington: Urban Institute, November 1, 2002) (www.urban.org/url. cfm?ID=410591 [October 1, 2008]), p. ii.
31. Not all displaced families are moved through Section 8. An even larger number is expected to move to other traditional public housing developments. These may still be distressed places, especially if they receive an influx of relocating problem-plagued HOPE VI families. See Barbara Sard and Leah Staub, "House Bill Makes Significant Improvements in 'HOPE VI' Public Housing Revitalization Program" (Washington: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, revised January 30, 2008) (www.cbpp. org/1-16-08hous.pdf [October 1, 2008]), p. 7: "Concentrating households with multiple problems in traditional developments can quickly create the same sorts of problems as those in their previous developments. As a result, families' living conditions can actually worsen after they are relocated." One of the failures of HOPE VI administration is that HUD has not required data to be kept on exactly where displaced families go, so it is not possible to say precisely how many families have moved to traditional (100 percent) public housing and how many into private housing under Section 8. Nor has HUD required data to be kept on the characteristics of the recipient Section 8 neighborhoods.
32. Buron and others, "HOPE VI Resident Tracking Study: A Snapshot of the Current Living Situation of Original Residents from Eight Sites".
33. Susan J. Popkin and others, "HOPE VI Panel Study: Baseline Report" (Washington: Urban Institute, September 1, 2002) (www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=410590 [October 1, 2008]). The panel study is discussed in detail by Susan J. Popkin and Mary K Cunningham in chapter 11 of this volume.
34. Susan J. Popkin and others, The Hidden War: Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago (Rutgers University Press, 2000).
35. For a discussion of initiatives to help families take full advantage of new and better locations, see Xavier de Souza Briggs and Margery Austin Turner, "Assisted Housing Mobility and the Success of Low-Income Minority Families: Lessons for Policy, Practice, and Future Research", Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy 1, no. 1(2006), p. 25 (www.law.northwestern. edu/journals/njlsp).
36. Thomas P. Sullivan, "Independent Monitor's Report No. 5 to the Chicago Housing Authority and the Central Advisory Council", January 8, 2003, pp. 23-24. Page 24 of the report cites a study of 1, 000 relocated families that found that the "overwhelming majority" lived in areas where the poverty level was not much different from that of the communities that they had come from and that close to 80 percent of the relocated families had moved to census tracts that were more than 90 percent African American. The monitor's report is available from Business and Professional People for the Public Interest of Chicago.
37. Sard and Staub, "House Bill Makes Significant Improvements in 'HOPE VI' Public Housing Revitalization Program", p. 8.
38. Seattle Housing Authority, "New Holly Redevelopment Plan: Relocation Results" (www.seattlehousing.org/Development/newholly/relocat.html [October 1, 2008]). The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods characterizes "non-minority concentrations areas" as those where the representation of any minority group is not more than 10 percent higher than the citywide average.
39. Sard and Staub, "House Bill Makes Significant Improvements in 'HOPE VI' Public Housing Revitalization Program", pp. 6-8.
40. Edward G. Goetz, Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 2003), p. 253.
41. See Alexander Polikoff, Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghetto (Northwestern University Press, 2006), pp. 369-89.
42. Popkin and others, "A Decade of HOPE VI", p. 8.
43. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid.
44. Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, "2006 ISAT Reading and Math Scores in Chicago and the Rest of the State", June 1007, pp. 6, 11-13.
45. Robert J. Sampson, Patrick Sharkey, and Stephen W. Raudenbush, "Durable Effects of Concentrated Disadvantage on Verbal Ability among African-American Children", National Academy of Sciences, 2007 (www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0710189104 [October 1, 2008]).
46. James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Dial Press, 1963).
47. Kenneth B. Clark, Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).
48. Polikoff, Waiting for Gautreaux, pp. 336-47.
49. Sard and Staub, "House Bill Makes Significant Improvements in 'HOPE VI' Public Housing Revitalization Program."
50. Susan J. Popkin, "Race and Public Housing Transformation in the United States", paper presented at Symposium on Housing, Neighborhoods, and Communities in the U. K. and U. S., Urban Institute, Washington, June 2004.
51. For a description and discussion of the MTO interim results, see Polikoff, Waiting for Gautreaux, pp. 272-78.
52. Elizabeth Julian, "An Unfinished Agenda", Shelterforce (Winter 2007), p. 23.
53. See Briggs and Turner, "Assisted Housing Mobility and the Success of Low-Income Minority Families, "
54. Philip Tegeler, "Connecting Families to Opportunity: The Next Generation of Housing Mobility Policy", in All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Inequitable Time, edited by Brian Smedley and Alan Jenkins (New York: New Press, 2007). Mobility programs have long been described as enhancing choice and providing options. They do that, but Briggs and Turner and Tegeler describe and rightly propose an enhanced post-move case management system that would make it clear that the choice is not between one location and another but between one way of life and another. Some elements of such a program-financial literacy, security deposit assistance, and two years of some post-move services-are included in a housing mobility program in Baltimore operated by Quadel Consulting Corporation. The program resulted from a court order in a public housing desegregation case, Thompson v. HUD. At the end of 2007, some 1, 100 families had moved from public housing and other inner-city areas of Baltimore to higher-opportunity areas in the city and surrounding region. Job training, driver education, and automobile purchase services are now being tested with the support of several national and local foundations. Health and educational counseling programs are to be added in 2008-09.
55. A Brookings Institution analysis of changes in the geographic distribution of low-income workers between 1999 and 2005 found that "trends suggest that the decline in concentrated poverty that occurred during the 1990s may be reversing over the course of this decade." Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube, "Reversal of Fortune: A New Look at Concentrated Poverty in the 2000s", Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program, August 2008 (www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2008/08-concentrated-poverty- kneebone/concentrated-poverty.pdf [October 1, 2008]), p. 1.
56. Polikoff, Waiting for Gautreaux, pp. 338-39. The statistics do not, of course, capture the qualitative worsening of ghetto conditions following the entrance of crack cocaine on the inner-city stage in the early 1980s.
57. In "America's Murder Mystery", The Atlantic (July-August 2008), contributing editor Hanna Rosin attributes burgeoning crime in a number of Memphis, Tennessee, neighborhoods to recently arrived voucher families displaced by public housing redevelopment. The "noble" antipoverty experiment that Memphis had initiated with the demolition of its first public housing project in 1997 is said to be "bringing the city down. " The data supporting her thesis are far from clear. It does appear that many if not most Section 8 families moved to predominantly black neighborhoods of relatively high poverty and that the moving families received little pre- and virtually no post-move counseling. The article therefore makes a strong case-probably not Rosin's intention-for state-of-the art mobility counseling.