Matt mentions Hanna Rosin's brilliant investigation into Section 8. Rosin, who I've never met, is a friend of the room, not only because of piece's like this but because of her marriage to fellow Wash CP alum David Plotz. But I digress. Essentially Rosin shows that Section 8, which was created to disperse poverty and destroy the projects as centralized castles of despair, has also dispersed criminals and caused crime to rise in suburbs and medium-sized cities. In response, Matt writes:
I'm not 100 percent sure where that leaves us. Housing vouchers still seem like a better idea than "the projects" for various reasons related to economic efficiency and choice. And as far as crime goes, we seem to mostly still know what we know -- higher wages for low-skill workers, higher educational attainment, the presence of more police officers patrolling the street, throwing enormous quantities of young men in prison, fewer drug addicts, and reductions in the amount of lead poisoning all seem to lower crime.
I agree with much of this, but there was a subtle point in Rosin's piece which I think deserves more attention--all black poor people aren't the same. The real problem is that the poor attract more than their share of violent crime. Perhaps the most heartbreaking portion of Rosin's article was where she showed how Section 8 basically was destabilizing poor/working class communities where people weren't rich, but were basically handling their business.
I came away from reading that piece disturbed on so many levels, and it probably didn't help that I'd just finished reading an equally skeptical book, The Promised Land, which looked at the War on Poverty. A couple things emerged from reading both those pieces.
1.) Problems bloom when you look at the black poor--or the poor of any color--as this big mass of people who can't do shit, and thus don't ask anything of them. It seems insane, to me, to hand-out Section 8 vouchers with little to no screening, and little to no follow-up by caseworkers. To turn large numbers of poor people on communities which are the least equipped to handle them (stable working class/poor black communities) just seems morally wrong.
2.) Our criminal justice shit is an absolute mess. Let me talk about the velvet glove first. We have to change our approach to nonviolent drug offenses. Jail sentences for marijuana have got to go, and maybe even for crack-cocaine. But here's the catch--we have to bring the hammer down on violent crime. There is an utterly depressing story about a kid who's basically doing the right thing and is set upon by some gang members because he won't join there outfit. Perhaps because of my own story, I empathized deeply with that kid. We have to learn that there is a difference between a guy selling a crack on the corner, and a guy who's harassing innocent people because they won't help him sell crack on the corner. I know that those two people are sometimes the same, and in that case bang them on the head for the violence, not for the sale. I have no problem with you moving your product on my corner. But you don't have the right to pull out guns and endanger the life of my son. I don't accept that one necessarily leads to the other.
3.) We are looking for a short-cut "magic bullet" approach to fighting poverty, which cost us nothing and ask virtually nothing of tax-payers. If you're going to relocate people out of the projects, you've got to have staff to track them. You've got to have rules. You've got to give them the support they need. Furthermore, you can't allow them all to move into otherwise stable working-class communities. Some of the more upper-income neighborhoods are going to have to carry some of the weight. And this has to be a partnership. Section 8 will likely now be targeted as another failed liberal social program. But it looks to me like lazy thinking, and lazier stewardship.
4.) The piece is a superior work of journalism, and I'll take it over 100 diatribes by "public intellectuals" who are only public if by public you mean "think tank" or "university. Writers who want to tackle race need to stop jacking off in the office, doing NPR interviews and go out and do some field-work.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I haven't read Rosin's article yet, though hopefully I'll get to it soon. But this was interesting to me:
It seems insane, to me, to hand-out Section 8 vouchers with little to no screening, and little to no follow-up by caseworkers. To turn large numbers of poor people on communities which are the least equipped to handle them (stable working class/poor black communities) just seems morally wrong.
This desire seems to run headlong into the (usually very admirable) efforts to fight homelessness. It seems like a particularly nasty case of lobby clash. I know that in Chicago at least, the city was under an injunction mandating them to find housing for anyone they displaced. Which means that the violent crackhead as much as the mom making minimum wage. If you have to find housing for everyone AND destroy the projects, you're pretty much forced to put destabilizing people into stable neighborhoods.
The other thing is, all the case management in the world won't stop violent crime from rising when you take lots of people out of pockets of concentrated poverty and plop them into middle class neighborhoods. This is the tiny kernel of rationality at the core of white flight back in the day (although it took a far back seat to "OMG MY DAUGHTER WILL DATE ONE OF 'THEM'"). But again, it's hard to see how you can ever avoid this if you want those pockets of concentrated, segregated poverty to end.
Finally, it sucks that this kind of "be tough on violent crime" idea has to be described as 'conservative' though. Is there any liberal who doesn't want that? The problem is that conservatives' "law and order" rhetoric almost specifically targets all of those victimless crimes (particularly drug use), and is very, very often racial code to justify ignoring minorities' legitimate complaints. But for decades now, it's been the Left that's been talking about being tough on violent crime, with more funding for cops, more funding for community policing, and better gun control laws.
Great, and very sad article. There are no easy answers any way you look at it. I'm in the minority among conservatives, but I think the "war on drugs" has created infinitely more misery and death than legalization ever would. Unfortunately I don't see this changing anytime soon.
What this article confirms is that it is not environment that creates character. And this has absolutely nothing to do with race. The breakdown of the two parent (and sadly I have to say two gender) family has created untold misery all over America. Whereas in solidly middle and upper class communities this may result is certain psychological and emotional maladies, in poor and lower class communities this tends to result in gang and criminal activity.
I would argue that this is what we get for the romanticized "sexual revolution". When selfish gratification becomes the be-all and end-all you are asking for trouble. Say what you want about abortion, but as soon as it became easy and legal to get rid of the "product of conception" the cultural connection between the massive responsibility of procreation and sex was severed.
The bottom line and unarguable fact is that the nuclear family is the foundation of civilization. The chances of my three children becoming solid citizens is much greater because they have solid parents. This doesn't mean it is impossible for broken families to produce such children, but it is just that much harder. As long as we have a culture that promotes the two-gender two-parent family as just another "lifestyle choice," the longer it will be until we get a handle on the destructive pathologies that plague us.
I don't know why it shocked so many academics that moving people from urban public housing out to the suburbs would move many of their problems with them.
I don't know why it shocked so many academics to realize that moving troubled people into borderline neighborhoods could push some neighborhoods past a tipping point of decline.
Actually, I think I do know. Too many academics can only “see” in quantitative statistics. And these statistics see income, not culture. These statistics see the aggregate, not the individual. And academics generally practice social NIMBYism. I’d bet that almost no academic in support of moving public housing residents actually had a Section 8 home in their block or even a Section 8 kid in their children’s school. Sure, most Section 8 people are probably great. But it only takes one bad family to screw up a block. And if it’s not your block, it’s a lot easier to support Section 8.
But I also see a silver lining in watching some “urban” problems move out to the suburbs. By dispersing some problems previously isolated in “inner city” neighborhoods, perhaps more people will have to care about solutions. Perhaps we can stop blaming cities for urban woes and provide some real solutions.
America’s cities aren’t to blame for America’s poor and cities shouldn’t be exclusively responsibility for the poor. America—all of America—should help the less fortunate. And America—all of America—should share the fiscal costs and the risks that go with the link between poverty, race, and crime.
As a city resident, I’m quite happy to pay more taxes to help the needy. And as a city resident, I’m also quite happy to see some of the needy move somewhere else.
That being said, I also think we should legalize drugs. Nothing so simple could do so much good. I’ve written about this. There’s more at www.copinthehood.com.
I like to consider myself a public intellectual and I teach in a university. But Ta-Nehisi, I’ve also done the field work. So is it OK if I do NPR interviews? (I won’t even ask about “jacking off in the office.”)
Actually, Mr. Coates, I couldn’t agree with you more.
I wrote about this more fully here http://amitavmisra.blogspot.com/2008/06/section-8-and-crime.html
But I don't think the case against vouchers is quite so open-and-shut as implied in the article-- the correlation in the article is clear, but the causation (Section 8 causes more crime) is absolutely not. An article in The Economist last May (linked from my post) pointed out that crime was up 10% in all suburbs, while it was significantly down in central cities. This is because poor people of all stripes (not just Section 8) have been moving into suburbs, while central cities have been getting richer. Since 1997 in Memphis unemployment appears to have risen significantly, and we know from many studies that unemployment rates and crime rates are linked. We know that crime and poverty are linked. So unemployment goes up and crime goes up. Crime hits poor neighborhoods which are different now because of the dispersal of Section 8 as well as larger demographic movements affecting the whole country. None of this tells me anything about whether Section 8 vouchers have been a failure-- the article didn't show us any controls for comparison (e.g., a city that had both vouchers and projects over the same period and a comparison of crime rates in each).
I also look skeptically at the anecdotes romanticizing the good old days in the projects. There is a tendency to mourn what is past, all the more so when you're still poor. It seems very unlikely to me that dispersed housing tenants are actually more likely (all things being equal, which, of course, they never are) to be victims of crime now than they were in the projects. Which is essentially the argument.
Also, vouchers are administered at the local level. You can't generalize about case management in Memphis vs. Atlanta or any other metro area; each local agency has its own people working under HUD guidelines. In my personal experience in Houston, agency administrators have been attentive and persistent in working for clients.
The academics and politicians only consider the benefit to the people in the free housing program. They don't consider the detrimental effects on the people in a decent neighborhood who are working and investing to try to improve their lot. A section 8 family recently moved in down the street, and it has been awful. My wife started looking at new houses the day after they moved in. I have worked on this house for 12 years, investing tens of thousands of dollars, and thousands of hours of work. I bought a neighboring house and rented it to a nice couple expecting their first child. I don't expect that they will renew their lease, and I don't blame them. Section 8 is helping one low-life irresponsible family, and it is hurting 3 or 4 decent, responsible families that are doing everything right ... working and investing.
Section 8 is a travesty. It is a shameful reward for irresponsible people at the expense of the responsible people.
Amifav wrote: "It seems very unlikely to me that dispersed housing tenants are actually more likely (all things being equal, which, of course, they never are) to be victims of crime now than they were in the projects. Which is essentially the argument."
What are you talking about? What kind of fantasy world are you living in?
I live in a nice neighborhood, that is generally quiet. People walk on the sidewalk with strollers, and kids walking to the lovely ice cream shop or church down the street. The Section 8 tenants walk down the middle of the street, swearing loudly. If they're not walking down the middle of the street, they are walking on the sidewalk with a large pit bull, which craps on our lawn. They are intimidating. They are destroying this neighborhood and bringing down property values.
A house two blocks away was rented as a section 8 property, to the great distress of everyone within blocks of the property. Eventually, there was a drive-by shooting, and the city was able to declare it a nuisance property and prevent rental of the house. Thank God.
You don't seem to have the slightest idea of the trauma that these gang families cause to neighboring families. You don't seem to care at all. Why don't you have a family from the projects move in next to you, and influence your children? We all want to provide the best for our children. You seem to want to hurt my children by moving criminals into my neighborhood, and I despise you for that!
Amifav wrote: "It seems very unlikely to me that dispersed housing tenants are actually more likely (all things being equal, which, of course, they never are) to be victims of crime now than they were in the projects. Which is essentially the argument."
What are you talking about? What kind of fantasy world are you living in?
I live in a nice neighborhood, that is generally quiet. People walk on the sidewalk with strollers, and kids walking to the lovely ice cream shop or church down the street. The Section 8 tenants walk down the middle of the street, swearing loudly. If they're not walking down the middle of the street, they are walking on the sidewalk with a large pit bull, which craps on our lawn. They are intimidating. They are destroying this neighborhood and bringing down property values.
A house two blocks away was rented as a section 8 property, to the great distress of everyone within blocks of the property. Eventually, there was a drive-by shooting, and the city was able to declare it a nuisance property and prevent rental of the house. Thank God.
You don't seem to have the slightest idea of the trauma that these gang families cause to neighboring families. You don't seem to care at all. Why don't you have a family from the projects move in next to you, and influence your children? We all want to provide the best for our children. You seem to want to hurt my children by moving criminals into my neighborhood, and I despise you for that!
Tom,
I appreciate your passion and it sounds like a tough situation in your neighborhood—there are bad apples in Section 8, as with anything else. I would put it on the landlord for either being irresponsible (in not screening his tenants) or unethical (in not putting them out after the first incident) or both. In any case, I empathize with where you are coming from, and I respect your commitment to your neighborhood—ultimately it’s the people in the neighborhood who make it what it is.
But I’m pretty familiar with Section 8. I went to school just blocks from my hometown projects, so I know about the so-called “influence” of Section 8 children. I rent to over 40 families on Section 8 or other subsidized housing (and many others who are not subsidized), and I deal with four different housing agencies on a regular basis. But all that background is irrelevant—because even if I had never met a poor person in my life, I can still read and think, and I should be able to express my opinion on a piece of journalism without being attacked personally. I may not be as articulate or persuasive as others, and I won’t battle to change your point of view. But please respect my right to have mine.
Now, in the spirit of Juneteenth, let’s honor peace and freedom and agree to disagree.
You have every right to express your opinion, and I certainly didn't intend or expect for you to stop expressing it. I was simply shocked that you focused on former residents of the projects being *victims of crime* in the neighborhoods where they are relocated. It seems obvious to me that the relocated Section 8 tenants are the perpetrators, not the victims.
In addition, crimes like rape and armed robbery are extremely traumatizing, life-changing crimes. I am a liberal, but I truly wish that the government would abolish the Section 8 program and most other hand-out programs. However well-intentioned, the programs reward irresponsible behavior and in my opinion even provide incentives for irresponsible behavior.
My wife went to a party last night. She heard: "Oh yeah, you live over by that Section 8 area where there was a drive-by shooting last year." It seems that the downward spiral has begun.
Folks like Amitav become multi-millionaires on the government pork barrel, while middle-class investors like me have their life's work ruined. We are nobodys to HUD. There are no measurements of the damage done to our neighborhoods. There is no consideration for the trauma of the crime inflicted upon us. I AM SOMEBODY TOO!
Tom,
That was unkind, and unnecessary. You can disagree with Amitav--indeed, I urge you to. But the part about becoming "multi-millionaires on the government pork barrel" is just mean, and it doesn't contribute anything to the actual argument. Let's stay civil guys.
Well, there are large amounts of money being made from Section 8. Do I have to pretend that everyone's motives are pure? We're talking about $16 Billion in government money.
Can't you understand why I am angry? My grandparents were driven out of their neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s by a government subsidy program. They lost their home and their neighborhood, which was scarred with boarded-up, burned-out buildings within a year. Now my neighborhood far out in the suburbs is threatened.
I'll repeat it, because my point just isn't getting across. No one is measuring or considering the damage that this program is doing to the lower middle-class residents of the destination neighborhoods. Our homes are our biggest investment, the equity we planned to use for college educations and retirement. The Section 8 program is wiping out that investment. Wouldn't you be angry (especially if you know that people are making a boatload of money from the injustice)?
Ta-Nehisi, thank you for the opportunity to present my opinion. I don't want to drive away any of your contributors, so this will be my last post.
I sympathize with Tom's point, and with earlier points made by Peter Moskos about overburdening working-class neighborhoods with the negative elements incubated in the projects. An interesting case to look at is Seattle, which has adopted a Fair Housing ordinance, originally passed in 1968 as a racial desegregation law, that has been amended to prohibit discrimination in "source of income", i.e. it is illegal for landlords to refuse to rent to Section 8 tenants or people who pay with their disability checks, etc. Of course with FMR requirements still in place, that doesn't make the entire city fair game for Section 8 vouchers, but it does even the playing field somewhat.
Seattle is also known for its approach to HOPE VI redevelopments where housing authorities, city officials, and legal services have been insistent on keeping a "1-to-1" ratio on public housing units demolished:units replaced. Most HOPE VI redevelopments lead to a net decrease in affordable housing units. That complicates the issue of flat-out blaming Section 8 vouchers for the migration of inner city maladies to the suburbs -- how much can you blame on the idea of poverty deconcentration, and how much can you blame on other structural factors such as the ever-declining stock of housing that is actually affordable to people trying to work their way upward?
Tom,
Wasn't asking you to leave. As you can see in the original post, I'm sympathetic. I just would ask that folks be civil.
T.
this reminds me of an effort Jews United For Justice tried in DC called the Yes In My Backyard Campaign collecting signatures of people in more affluent neighborhoods who wanted to see affordable housing built in their neighborhoods. Don't know if city council listened much, but a worthy campaign.
this reminds me of an effort Jews United For Justice tried in DC called the Yes In My Backyard Campaign collecting signatures of people in more affluent neighborhoods who wanted to see affordable housing built in their neighborhoods. Don't know if city council listened much, but a worthy campaign.