Culture of Poverty
Can a Wall Street Exec Run NYC Public Housing?
Published May 24, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
(In case you couldn't tell, I'm catching up with my NY Times newsfeed this weekend.)
Interesting article on possible class conflicts between Mayor Bloomberg's choice to run the NYC Housing Authority, former Lehman Bros. exec, John Rhea, and the public housing residents he'll serve:
Asked on Wednesday why he decided to pursue a job in the public sector, Mr. Rhea started his answer with a joke. “Well,” he said, “obviously I’m not taking the job for the pay.” His salary will be $189,700, far short of what many of his fellow M.B.A.’s are making.
It was the sort of joke that got laughs in City Hall, but might not have gotten the same reaction at the Grant Houses or other complexes. The average annual household income among public housing tenants is $22,728, and 22,000 of the 173,000 households in the system receive some form of public assistance. Tenants said they worry that Mr. Rhea will be unable to connect with them.
Exactly.
Stimulus $$ Bypasses High-Poverty Neighborhoods
Published May 22, 2009 @ 11:10AM PT
Interesting piece in WaPo today about stimulus allocation for public housing improvements: Only high performing housing authorities have been awarded $$, in theory to prevent waste and misuse by those not meeting expectations. Seems reasonable enough.
But the case of the L.A. authority questions this calculation:
King said that larger housing authorities have a tougher job because they've had to make cuts in recent years while maintaining a massive, aging housing stock. The city's housing authority has about 7,000 units serving 21,000 people. The agency will still get $25 million regardless of how it fares with the competitive grants, but it has a backlog of capital needs that exceeds $500 million. He said the competitive grants could enable the city's housing authority to replace some complexes completely rather than remodel them.
What we can learn from The Soloist
Published May 18, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
I saw The Soloist last weekend and really enjoyed it. It got mixed reviews - from the critics and our fellow Twitterers (Tweeters?), but I think its weaknesses are highly instructive for those of us interested in anti-poverty, homeless services and social justice work.
For those who don't know, The Soloist is the story of the relationship between L.A. Times journalist Steve Lopez and homeless musical prodigy, Nathaniel Ayers, a former Julliard student who suffers from schizophrenia and has been living on the streets of Los Angeles for years, likely decades. They meet by chance in a downtown public park, and as Lopez pieces together Ayers's history and discovers his musical talents, he becomes overly invested in getting/letting Ayers's play music again and getting Ayers's off the street. The movie's biggest (and glaring) weakness is its emphasis on Lopez's personal growth, but I think that's the part that's insightful for many of us do-gooders. I also have to endorse any film that features permanent supportive housing.
Erasing the Decision-Makers
Published May 13, 2009 @ 12:59PM PT
Following up on Kate's terrific post from this morning, I'm reading this absolutely maddening article from The Times-Picayune about the impending mixed-income housing complexes that are replacing the projects, demolished last year. Absent entirely from this article are the decision-makers behind the demolition and redevelopment of the projects, whose proposal will reduce the # of deeply subsidized units from ~5k to fewer than 1,600. Check out the passive and/or anthropomorphic language journalist Katy Reckdahl uses:
New designs hope to avoid past problems in public housing complexes
Because we all know designs, when gathered around the board room table, are very focused on problem-solving. More inanity after the jump!
Policies that Make People Disappear
Published May 13, 2009 @ 05:47AM PT
I visited Chicago for the first time ever last week to participate in a panel about affordable housing in Chicago and New Orleans. The comparisons are striking and frightening.
In 1998, the Chicago Housing Authority embarked on its “Plan for Transformation,” a HOPE VI funded, ten-year plan designed to demolish traditional public housing and replace it with “mixed income” housing. According to the CHA website, the Plan “will improve the appearance, quality and culture of public housing in Chicago.” From a starting point of 38,000 units, the Plan calls for the demolition of 22,000 units and the replacement of 9,000 units, with an end count of 25,000 units.
Not surprisingly, there was resistance to the Plan. HOPE VI developments are notorious for permanently displacing residents. But I was particularly struck by one community organizer’s testimony from an older public housing resident who opposed the Plan. This gentleman had experienced urban renewal decades ago. He said that he opposed the demolition of public housing buildings because the buildings themselves remind others that people like him exist.
This observation was striking, and I thought of many examples of how post-Katrina policies have literally made people disappear.
In the Bronx, Green - and Beautiful! - Affordable Housing
Published May 12, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Disclosure: I profiled WHEDCO for a Ford Foundation-MIT environmental justice conference last year.
Yay! I love success stories, or promising stories:
Since March 10, Ms. Prince has been living in an apartment in the Intervale Green complex, on Intervale Avenue between Freeman Street and Louis Niñe Boulevard, an infamous strip of South Bronx urban blight (it served as backdrop for some of the most gruesome scenes in the movie “Fort Apache, the Bronx”)...The building, developed by the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, or Whedco, a Bronx nonprofit group, opened to qualified low-income residents in February, and has filled about a third of its 128 apartments...Designed with a large, glass-windowed lobby, two green roofs and a sculpture-filled courtyard, the development, tasteful, sparkling and eco-friendly, could give many cookie-cutter luxury buildings a run for their money.
The tone of this article from the NY Times is amusing: the author is like, what? Poor people can have luxury too? Wait a minute...Is this sensible social and economic policy?
At this scale, it certainly is. WHEDCO has an array of government, philanthropic and community-based partners, all of whom are looking to this construction as a potential model for future green affordable housing. It's when we decide if we want to take this effort to scale, will we put the necessary resources behind it - that's the question. Along with: what exactly do we mean by scale?
And not to mention: how do we balance form and function in affordable housing?
Leadership Vacuums in Detroit & New Orleans
Published May 09, 2009 @ 09:48AM PT
Detroit and New Orleans: Two struggling African-American cities with proud pasts and deeply uncertain futures. Now, in addition to their on-going challenges of high poverty and inequality and uneven economic development, both face mayoral contests. In Detroit, it seems no one cares. In New Orleans, most black residents and practically all white residents crow at Mayor Ray Nagin, "Good riddance!"
What's interesting about these two races is how questions of meeting the daily needs of residents matches up against the need for a guiding vision for the future of these two cities.
