Public Housing in NYC

[NYCDOC]

Not that this is breaking news, but being out and about the city I've been frustrated by what I've seen with the NYC public housing projects and I thought I would make a few comments to maybe get a discussion going on this topic. First of all, as I am sure most people would agree, it is a failed system for the people who live in these projects. As Jane Jacobs pointed out, the projects create vast waste lands without any of the services or activities that makes the city streetscape vibrant. The solution of creating vast green spaces to cure the ills of the slums certainly has not been effective. Also, in my opinion public housing creates a disincentive to work. I was just looking at the NYC Public Housing Agencies website and it indicates that the average rent for people in traditional public housing arrangements is $336 per month! Now I understand the need for providing people in need with affordable places to live, but there should be some type of middle road. Average income in the projects according to NYCPHA is $20,000 this means that a person's total annual expenditure on rent would be less than 15% of their income, much less than what the majority of NYers pay. Most people in this city are struggling with the cost of rent and they have to make choices and work to increase their incomes, but public housing does not require a person to do either.

Once again, I don't think the system is fair to the people who live in less than desirable conditions and who loose the incentive to work and advance themselves and it is also not fair to the millions of middle class new yorkers who work extremely hard to make ends meet and do it without handouts.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts on the current system and ways to improve it going forward.

[lofter1]

Sounds like you're saying that rents in Public Housing should be increased by 200 - 300 % so that the folks who live there will be inclined to get better paying jobs and thereby pay rents in line with other NYers ...

The thought that someone in lower income brackets should pay same % of income towards housing as those in higher brackets seems nonsensical. Those in higher brackets have more cash for all sorts of uses, whereas lower income earners have less if any cash for many of the basics.

Maybe we should consider just shipping all the residents of Public Housing off to lower rent areas. What about West Virginia or South Dakota or Buffalo (the last option would keep those low earners within the state and thereby might get the move around all sorts of legal issues)? Then we can tear down those blocks and re-develop all the sites as luxury housing where rents start at $3500 / month for a 500 sf studio and go up from there (although we should be open to starting the lowest rents at a higher level to ensure that we get real hard working folks who earn lots of cash).

[Ninjahedge]

Go easy on him loft.

I agree that the % thing does not work. 20% of 20K is a lot less $$ than 20% of 60K. You can't buy enough FOOD to live on if youstart doing similar % for rent.

I do, however, believe that there should be some sort of feeling of contribution from the residents. This should not feel like a "Free ride" to them (or a cheap one) where everything is due/owed to them. I see the lack of respect that many (although certainly not a majority) of teh residents/ children have for what they have, and their destructive behavior.

How can you do something liek Habitat for Humanity that gets people involved with the construction, care and/or upkeep of their own places? Would turning these places into some form of co-op be a better way of doing it? A limited ownership taht would entitle them, after a time, to be able to sell i to someone who qualifies (albeit at a small price, there would have to be some way to arrange it so that the new ones coming in would pay a mortgage that would not be much more than rent).

How can we give these people a feeling that this is THEIR neighborhood and THEIR house so they have a bit more respect for it?

[kliq6]

For the most part people in the projects do get a free ride, as most of them are on public assistance as well and welfare pays there rent so there is no reason to raise the rent as it would just cost more money being taken from the welfare system.

The NYC housing projects probally were the single most stupid idea the city ever had.

[Schadenfrau]

Kill kill kill kill kill the poor.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Their free and easy lifestyle is a constant irritant to me. I can hardly concentrate.

Yes, I agree. They should all be killed.

[ZippyTheChimp]

For the most part people in the projects do get a free ride, as most of them are on public assistance as well

15.8% of NYC public housing residents receive public assistance.

[Ninjahedge]

Kill kill kill kill kill the poor.

It would cost too much money.

[kliq6]

Kill kill kill kill kill the poor.

I never said that and to imply that I ment to say that is incredibly irresponsible.

I was just making a point that in the end of the day the Housing System in NYC has been a failure and I would also counter most of the residents in them would agree.

[NYCDOC]

Loftier, I said several times in my post that I understand the need for public housing and I don't think I took the approach that we should ship poor people off to another place in the country. All I was trying to do was to have an honest discussion about a broken system. I don't think that you would disagree that it can be improved, right? That's all my intent is.

But since you raised it, I do think that we would be better off to knock down these symbols of a failed system like so many other cities have done and create a system that works better. Anyone know if other cities like Chicago have been successful since breaking up their projects?

Also, does anyone know if there is any limit on the amount of time that someone can stay in public housing? I think there should be or at the very least have an increasing contribution of rent that a person pays after staying in the system for a certain number of years. It seems to me that there should be some type of incentive to encourage upward mobility otherwise generation after generation will be stuck in public housing.

Another idea, does the city provide any type of financial education to people living in the projects so that they can improve their financial status? Because I think it is interesting to see how people choose to spend their money. My family was not well off when they first came to New York, but they made choices as how to make best use of limited resources and save for the future. In contrast, walking around the neighborhood surrounding the Amsterdam Houses last weekend for example, I saw everyone with a cell phone (adults and teenagers), parking lots full of cars (this is always mindblowing to me how the majority of Nyers don't have cars, but people in public housing are provided with parking by the city and have cars), and I know this is the exception to the rule but I saw a 40" Sony Bravia being delivered as well! I know these are all individual examples and that the majority of people are in need who live at these places so don't jump down my throat, but my point is that when people are not forced to make hard decisions and have a considerable expense lifted from their shoulders they probably do not make the best choices as how to spend their income and never get ahead in life. So I think another great thing would be to make sure in some form that education and oversight are provided.

[Schadenfrau]

My joke wasn't directed specifically at you, Kliq6. I understand that you don't actually want to murder impoverished people, but the way you're talking suggests that you'd like to see them publicly shamed and officially denounced.

And no, welfare does not "pay there rent."

[Punzie]

. . . As Jane Jacobs pointed out, the projects create vast waste lands without any of the services or activities that makes the city streetscape vibrant. ...
Jane Jacobs wrote so much, please post which publication you're citing.

[NYCDOC]

I was referencing Jacob's arguement in "The Death and Life of Great American Cities."

[kliq6]

My joke wasn't directed specifically at you, Kliq6. I understand that you don't actually want to murder impoverished people, but the way you're talking suggests that you'd like to see them publicly shamed and officially denounced.

And no, welfare does not "pay there rent."

No problem, just wanted to make that point known. However for some of them welfare does pay the rent, but who really cares in the end of the day. The overall problem is the system is a mess and needs fixing.

[Ninjahedge]

NYCD... I think the way our current system works, you are rewarded if you spend all you have.

You get any savings, any vestment, that is seen as capital and may make you unavailable for any additional help.

So why is it that we "reward" the people that are able to get out of debt and save some money by kicking them out? You would think that there would be some way to try to make it so that the transition was not a crock-filled moat (and no, I do not mean small jars of butter...).

But there isn't. We have a crap pile with no real way to get out without a GOOD head of steam built up first, and most would rather have a car and a plasma TV than a job/career and life that would NOT let them have this kind of thing, but make them work harder for what they have.

[NYCDOC]

I guess my reasoning makes the assumption that people have a certain level of respect for themselves and a hope to improve their lives and that of their children.

As far as your point of "punishing" people for saving and them kicking them out, I think the system would have to be designed to have points at which you would be faced with receiving less benefits. So for example like welfare benefits, after a certain period of time of receiving society's help then you should become ineligible. Or maybe a person would have to contribute a higher percentage of their income to their rent thereby have the state subsidies reduced. Because like you said Ninja, if not, then their is no reason not to spend and get alot of stuff you want and have society foot the bill for otherwise consumes the largest portion of most every other person's income - housing.

[pianoman11686]

Jane Jacobs wrote so much, please post which publication you're citing.

Actually, she was a fairly sparse writer.

About public housing in general: I agree with those who say that subsidizing all, or a significant portion of someone's housing costs, discourages efforts at economic self-improvement. I'm not saying it'd be wise to do away with it altogether, and all at once, but there must be a better mechanism to wean dependents off of the government's hand.

About housing costs in general: the very definition of being poor implies that you have little money for anything besides the very basics (food, shelter, clothing) and perhaps not even enough for that. I think that, for us to seriously consider how much of their income the poor should be spending on housing, we have to think of better ways to alleviate poverty itself.

[ablarc]

we have to think of better ways to alleviate poverty itself.
Alleviate, v.t.: to make easier to endure

That’s what we’ve been trying to do all these years. Welfare tries to alleviate poverty, public housing is meant to alleviate poverty.

But neither actually alleviates poverty; each makes it worse. Talk to someone on welfare about the humiliation the program subjects them to. And as for public housing: who in his right mind thinks there’s relief in living like human refuse in a cesspool with piss in the elevator?

In order to alleviate poverty we have to perpetuate it; otherwise there’s nothing to alleviate.

Our goal should not be to alleviate poverty. Our goal should be to eliminate poverty.

Before someone pipes up with “the poor ye have always”, bear in mind that in Luxembourg they have eradicated poverty completely. Everyone in that country is able to live a decent life.

We can do it too, but we have to want to do it. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

[lofter1]

... I think the system would have to be designed to have points at which you would be faced with receiving less benefits ... after a certain period of time of receiving society's help then you should become ineligible ...

OK .. So let's say they've gone through the period of receiving less and have now reached the point where they are ineligible. They are, most likely, now homeless (because they failed to meet the mark to stay in the housing and failed to acquire housing on their own) and are hungry (for the same reasons as the "free" housing thing didn't work out). They might be living on your doorstep on in your nearest subway station. They certainly aren't being fed or housed by private charities because those are now overwhelmed with the huge numbers of the New Needy.

So, what do we as a society do with the tired, poor, huddled masses NOW?

[NYCDOC]

Well, your arguement basically makes the assumption that the people living in public housing really are useless and incapable. What I am saying is that I think that these people are very capable to go out, work hard and earn ENOUGH to make ends meet. But the system doesn't ask it of them and therefore discourages them from doing so.

Even though I disagree with your broad statement that this population will end up homeless and hungry, I do agree that this would happen to some people, because while I do think most are capable of working there are people burdened with many issues that will lead them to break under the weight of heavy responsibility. This then falls into the realm of physical disabilities, psychiatric problems, and a range of other issues that are fixed through different means rather than checks for supporting housing.

[lofter1]

So tell us how to do it ^^^

You clearly think that there is some brilliant way to get us out of this mess. So what's the plan?

[ablarc]

So tell us how to do it ^^^

You clearly think that there is some brilliant way to get us out of this mess. So what's the plan?
More obvious than brilliant:

Income redistribution through a progressive income tax, steeply graduated at the top
Universal health care through a government plan
Double teacher salaries
Double the minimum wage
Stop wasting our tax money and manpower on losing wars
One year’s mandatory public service for all upon completion of their education (high school, college or graduate school)

Bet you can think of others.

[212]

^ I bet a lot of folks in public housing would make the trade for the ablarc plan. Would you, nycdoc and kliq?

[212]

I'd also add

Bonuses for teachers in poor school districts.

Right now it's the opposite -- on nearly every level, teachers are rewarded for moving elsewhere, to better-funded, nicer, safer schools. The resulting brain drain absolutely perpetuates poverty.

[Luca]

More obvious than brilliant:



Income redistribution through a progressive income tax, steeply graduated at the top



*** You'll rapidly lose most talent-intensive industries. It was tried in Britain and Sweden, among others. Not good results.



Universal health care through a government plan



*** Basically all euro countries have this. Still poor people, though. Hmmm.



Double teacher salaries



*** Teachers are not poor except by historically absurd or relativistic measures



Double the minimum wage



*** Beyond a very (VERY) low floor, the minimum wage decreases employment.



Stop wasting our tax money and manpower on losing wars



*** OK. You got that one.



One year’s mandatory public service for all upon completion of their education (high school, college or graduate school)



*** Been there, done that, got the (olive drab) t-shirt. Compulsive manpower always and everywhere = disgustingly wasted manpower / make-work / etc. The 'lump hypothesis' of labor does not attain except in rare exceptions.



Bet you can think of others.



Yup. Increase median productivity (another whole book there).



That won't eliminate poverty, though. In modern economies poverty (as in lack of access to basic housing, health care, food and personal possessions) is almost always the result of very poor, repeated personal choices that are difficult to eradicate completely even with unthinkable levels of compulsion.



Now, if you want to eliminate low(ish) relative income, good luck.



Next!

[Schadenfrau]

Well, your arguement basically makes the assumption that the people living in public housing really are useless and incapable. What I am saying is that I think that these people are very capable to go out, work hard and earn ENOUGH to make ends meet. But the system doesn't ask it of them and therefore discourages them from doing so.

I'm really alarmed by the assumption that an individual's lack of finances equals a useless and incapable person. NYCDOC, you yourself just posted that you can't afford school and are looking to transfer to a community college. Given the downward shift, are we to assume that you and your family are lazy bums who just can't earn ENOUGH to make ends meet?

I'd hope not, but you seem to enjoy passing judgment on the less fortunate.

[OmegaNYC]

go get 'em tiger!! ^^^

[krulltime]

The New York Sun has a controversial idea...


Paupers to Millionaires


New York Sun Editorial
May 15, 2007

The Manhattan landscape is being dynamically transformed by private developers. New residential towers are rising on the Upper East and West sides and downtown. The one exception is in the city's public housing projects, which look much as they did when they were built generations ago. Even the residents are pretty much the same — the New York City Housing Authority says the turnover rate in calendar year 2006 for its conventional public housing apartments was 3.62%, and one study showed that the average stay in public housing for a family is 17.7 years.

The New York Sun has long advocated selling off these buildings and the land they sit on to private owners. In an August 8, 2002, column in the Sun, J.P. Avlon had suggested opening up to private development some of the waterfront property along the East River between the Brooklyn Bridge and Houston Street that is now occupied by housing projects. And a December 13, 2002, editorial took a broader view, still.

"Across the country," we said, "far-sighted political leaders are destroying public housing projects. From the Pruitt-Igoe projects in 1972 in St. Louis, to the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago in 1998, to the New Brunswick Homes destroyed in New Jersey in August 2001, to the Christopher Columbus Homes in Newark in 1996 ... , the failed vision of governmentrun housing projects is being demolished in a puff of concrete dust. Everywhere, that is, but here in New York City, where instead of getting the city out of the housing business, Mayor Bloomberg wants to build more units."

Our 2002 suggestions went nowhere, though Prime Minister Thatcher helped ignite the British economy by selling "council flats." So we are now willing to revise our proposals. Never mind selling the public housing projects in Manhattan, or even in some of the more choice areas of Queens and Brooklyn. Why not just give the apartments away to the tenants who live there — and instantly make hundreds of thousands of poor New Yorkers into wealthy ones?

Given the low turnover, the long average stay, and the lack of the political will to sell the buildings, these tenants for all practical purposes own the apartments already. But they can't turn the value of a below-market-rate New York City apartment into capital that they can invest in starting a business, leave to their children, or use to buy a comfortable home elsewhere.

As our 2002 editorial noted, many of these housing projects are in prime neighborhoods, where nearby apartments are selling for millions of dollars. They are on East 28th Street, Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue, near Central Park West. Those along the East River in Manhattan feature the same views enjoyed by those in apartments Tishman Speyer is now renting in Stuyvesant Town starting at $3,675 for a two bedroom and $4,625 for a three-bedroom and by those in condominiums Donald Trump is selling at his World Tower for $10 million each.

What would public housing tenants do if given title to their units? They'd sell in a twinkling. It'd be like winning the lottery. The new owners would be free to improve the interiors of the units. And, unlike the current residents, they'd pay property taxes rather than consuming taxpayer subsidies.

Objections to this idea can be expected from two directions. Some will argue that it is too generous to the poor: What did a public housing resident do to deserve a $1 million giveaway? The answer to that objection is that there already is a $1 million giveaway to public housing tenants. The average monthly rent in a public housing project is $336. Compare that to the market-rate Stuyvesant Town rents, and the value of the subsidy to a publichousing tenant is an annual $48,000. Multiply that times the average stay of 17.7 years, and you are already talking about an $850,000 subsidy for each tenant family.

And that is assuming that Manhattan free-market rents won't grow faster than public housing rents, a questionable assumption. Taxpayers would get back tens of millions of dollars, maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars, in new tax revenues that could help lighten the burden that the city's existing taxpayers already bear. When public housing tenants sold, they'd pay the city and state real estate transfer taxes, and perhaps even capital gains taxes. Their real estate brokers would pay income tax on their commissions. The new owners would pay property taxes, and the craftsmen who renovate the kitchens and bathrooms in their apartments would pay income taxes.

Another objection can be expected from left-wingers who view it as a plot to get the poor out of New York, or out of Manhattan, or to reduce the amount of "affordable" housing in the city. Not so. Public housing tenants who chose not to sell their newly owned apartments would have every right to stay. If politicians wanted to, they could even use some of the tax revenue windfall from the sales to build more supportive housing elsewhere in the city for the elderly, the disabled, or the mentally ill, or to pay for vouchers for the poor that could be used to pay for market-rate housing. Or for down-payment assistance to create more new homeowners. That would direct housing assistance to those who really need it most, rather than those who make it through the years-long waiting list for a spot in a choice Manhattan housing project. It doesn't help those on the waiting list to keep the tenant population in the housing projects stagnant. And it's paternalistic for "advocates" of the poor to try to force a tenant to stay in Manhattan when the tenant himself would prefer to take the proceeds of his sale and move from Manhattan to a middle class suburb in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, where the cost of living is cheaper.

***

The idea of giving away these apartments isn't all that different from the land reform attempts led by the famous Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto. Mr. de Soto has focused on the developing world, but it may be that the plight of those in housing projects within America is similar to that of South American sharecroppers who lack formal title to their lands. The tenants of housing projects have assets — the right to a below-market rate apartment — but they lack capital that they can save, invest, or pass on to heirs. As the Web site of Mr. de Soto's Institute for Liberty and Democracy puts it, "the legal property system is in fact the hidden architecture that organizes the market in every Western nation — and the missing link for ensuring the rise of widespread legal entrepreneurship in every developing nation."

What most attracts us to this plan, though, is not strictly how it looks from the perspective of the well-to-do — a chance to lessen the tax burden — or how it looks to the poor — a chance to get rich. It is that it offers a chance to lessen the divide between rich and poor by transforming a whole class — about 200,000 residents of public housing in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens — from recipients of a government subsidy into self-sufficient middle-class Americans. And that it offers a chance to reclaim hundreds of buildings of housing projects on hundreds of acres of prime real estate in the city, land now locked in stagnation, that could be integrated with the surrounding neighborhoods and become part of the cycle of dynamism and improvement and transformation and building that makes New York City today such an exciting and vibrant place.


© 2007 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. (http://www.nysun.com/article/54504)

[krulltime]

More New York Sun Opinions...


Sell the Buildings, Too


BY HOWARD HUSOCK
June 5, 2007

New York City Housing Authority 's announcement that it would start to sell vacant land within the boundaries of its housing projects appears to signal the start of a new era in the city. It is, after all, an unprecedented step: historically, the Authority has been in the business of taking land — not selling it, and certainly not to private buyers, as planned.

But it's not clear whether or not the sale of parking and vacant lots in Chelsea and East New York in order to raise $50 million is anything more than a stop-gap to allow the creaky NYCHA machine to keep going for a while. Instead, it should be the start of a wholesale re-examination of the financially troubled public housing system.

For those who complain that New York lacks "affordable housing," it's important to understand that the city has more subsidized housing of all kinds — especially public housing owned by NYCHA — than any other city in the country, both in total numbers and per capita.

New York's 178,000 public housing units far outstrips that of runner-ups San Juan, which has 57,000 units, or Chicago which once had nearly 40,000 units but, after demolishing many of its most infamous high-rises, plans on retaining just 25,000.

NYCHA is a city-within-a-city in Gotham: there are more than 400,000 people who live in NYCHA-owned properties. This number is greater than the population of any city in the rest of the state — Buffalo's population is less than 300,000.

Yet NYCHA's real estate has been essentially frozen. As the city's economy changes and neighborhoods change with it, public housing stands apart. The Ingersoll Houses in Brooklyn, for instance, were built for the shipyard workers of the Brooklyn Navy Yard — itself long gone and replaced by an industrial park with dozens of innovative small businesses.

That's not all that's changed. Originally, public housing was meant to be financially self-supporting. Government would finance construction — but working families would pay rents sufficient to maintain the buildings. It was thought that many would move up and out, as well.

Today, more than 40% of NYCHA households have been in their apartments for more than 10 years and fewer than half of NYCHA household heads are employed, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's data. The rent rolls aren't nearly sufficient to cover the cost of maintaining aging structures.

The result is a financial crisis — a $225 million budget shortfall appears to have motivated the first-ever land sell-off. The benefits of 6,000 new apartments to be built on the land should not be minimized. But the larger problem of the "frozen city" is far more important in the long term.

The total real estate footprint of New York's public housing projects is equivalent to the size of some 156 World Trade Center sites. The city can ill afford to declare so many sites in so many neighborhoods to be off limits to change.

Cities thrive, in part, by allowing their real estate to be put to its highest and best use. In doing so, jobs and wealth are created — for all social classes, not just the rich. Setting aside land for those who earn low incomes is a deeply pessimistic policy — one that assumes there will always be a need for thousands of units of such housing.

Not only does such a system tie up a great deal of land with none of it on the property tax rolls, but also it requires a sprawling administrative and operational structure to keep it going, funded by a tax base depressed by the extent of public housing. Worse, it encourages continued poverty — by providing low-priced housing to the single-parent, female-headed families who dominate it — more than 70%, nationally.

It makes sense for the city to exit the public housing business in a gradual, humane manner. Selling off land could be a first step in that process. But it would be far better to start selling off whole buildings. The proceeds of the sales of buildings in hot real estate markets would do far more to help fund the existing system.

How to do it? As units become vacant, tenants from other buildings can move in. It is not unreasonable to pressure tenants, perhaps by raising the rent, to exit the system. This is the sort of turnover that happens in all neighborhoods; aging residents, faced with a decision as to whether it's worth paying taxes on a big house, for instance, choose to make a move. NYCHA reports that more than 39,000 of its apartment units are what it calls "underoccupied units," where the family size is less than the number of bedrooms. This newspaper's suggestion of allowing public housing tenants to be given property rights to their apartments, which could then be sold, can help provide the incentive for movers.

The big picture is this: The public housing financial crisis is chronic, not passing. It is best solved not through a minor change akin to Lenin's New Economic Policy, his brief flirtation with capitalism before a return to socialism. Instead, there must be a consolidation of the system in order to allow a gradual sell-off of property. Doing so will help spark real estate revitalization from Brooklyn to East Harlem to the South Bronx — and ultimately benefit all New Yorkers.


© 2007 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. (http://www.nysun.com/article/55891)

[Ninjahedge]

Maybe they should do a 75/25 split (tenant and city) where these $1M places would earn them $750K up front, minus an up front, in total taxation of a few percentage (avoid "income" taxes and the like).

If these families could get $600K right off the bat for their place, many could move away to otehr areas and live off of that for quite some time.

The only thing I fear is simple. Even people WITH money do not know how to spend it. What happens to someone who never had any and is now handed $600K? Well, first the vultures come in, but besides that, new money is just that.

Look at how many people who have won the lottery that overspent and ended up in financial trouble from questionable investments, purchases and partnerships.

I think the idea is good, but shoveling cash around is NEVER a good solution.

[ablarc]

I think the idea is good, but shoveling cash around is NEVER a good solution.
A little benign paternalism might help if written into law.

"Oh horrors!" exclaims a coalition of libertarians and pc's --though for different reasons.

[lofter1]

See, I don't have to come up with any ideas ... I just stir the pot and get everybody else thinking -- and then I educate myself using their proposals ...

btw: I think we're getting somewhere with this discussion.

[JCMAN320]

Loftier, I said several times in my post that I understand the need for public housing and I don't think I took the approach that we should ship poor people off to another place in the country. All I was trying to do was to have an honest discussion about a broken system. I don't think that you would disagree that it can be improved, right? That's all my intent is.

But since you raised it, I do think that we would be better off to knock down these symbols of a failed system like so many other cities have done and create a system that works better. Anyone know if other cities like Chicago have been successful since breaking up their projects?

Also, does anyone know if there is any limit on the amount of time that someone can stay in public housing? I think there should be or at the very least have an increasing contribution of rent that a person pays after staying in the system for a certain number of years. It seems to me that there should be some type of incentive to encourage upward mobility otherwise generation after generation will be stuck in public housing.

Another idea, does the city provide any type of financial education to people living in the projects so that they can improve their financial status? Because I think it is interesting to see how people choose to spend their money. My family was not well off when they first came to New York, but they made choices as how to make best use of limited resources and save for the future. In contrast, walking around the neighborhood surrounding the Amsterdam Houses last weekend for example, I saw everyone with a cell phone (adults and teenagers), parking lots full of cars (this is always mindblowing to me how the majority of Nyers don't have cars, but people in public housing are provided with parking by the city and have cars), and I know this is the exception to the rule but I saw a 40" Sony Bravia being delivered as well! I know these are all individual examples and that the majority of people are in need who live at these places so don't jump down my throat, but my point is that when people are not forced to make hard decisions and have a considerable expense lifted from their shoulders they probably do not make the best choices as how to spend their income and never get ahead in life. So I think another great thing would be to make sure in some form that education and oversight are provided.

Us here in Jersey City have been very successful. Here they have been knocking them down and replacing them with town homes for low-mid income families and they are all mixed income and the townhouses are integrated into the cities street layout. Also you cannot live in them if anyone in your family has a criminal record. We only have Montgomery Garden and half of the Duncan Ave. projects still standing. The Duncan Ave projects are currently being knocked down to be turned into town homes. It has been very successful thus far.

[ablarc]

Income redistribution through a progressive income tax, steeply graduated at the top

*** You'll rapidly lose most talent-intensive industries. It was tried in Britain and Sweden, among others. Not good results.

One difference you’ll find between the US and Britain is the disinclination of Americans to emigrate. In 1954, under Eisenhower the Republican, the topmost bracket of Federal income tax went to 91%, and there was no rush to live elsewhere (Monaco?). Gregory Tenenbaum will give you a thousand and one reasons the UK can’t be used as a model.

Universal health care through a government plan

*** Basically all euro countries have this. Still poor people, though. Hmmm.

By itself, access to health care won’t cure poverty, but it will get you poor people who live longer. Also middle class people who live longer. Maybe get the US out of the disgraceful position of being 47th in life expectancy (think about that !! the world’s “second richest country” and folks in 46 other countries live longer!), despite supposedly having the world’s best doctors and hospitals. Fat lot of good they are if you can’t make use of them.

Double teacher salaries

*** Teachers are not poor except by historically absurd or relativistic measures.

Right, but it’s not primarily teachers’ poverty this measure will cure. It’s the poverty of the badly-educated poor. More pay will mean better people going into teaching, and that means a better educated populace. Harder to be poor if you’re well-educated.

Double the minimum wage

*** Beyond a very (VERY) low floor, the minimum wage decreases employment.

Big deal. It’s wrong to pay anyone a salary you can’t live on without going homeless. If a person is willing to devote 40 hours a week to your welfare, you owe him a living wage. Anyway, the claim that it reduces employment describes a short-term (and unverified) phenomenon --and one used by heartless plutocrats to justify their parasitic greed. Eventually, they’ll hire someone at the higher wage to wax their Bentley.

On second thought, don't double the minimum wage; triple it instead.

Stop wasting our tax money and manpower on losing wars

*** OK. You got that one.

That was a cheap shot on my part, but you could finance much of the program out of this one.

One year’s mandatory public service for all upon completion of their education (high school, college or graduate school.

*** Been there, done that, got the (olive drab) t-shirt. Compulsive manpower always and everywhere = disgustingly wasted manpower / make-work / etc. The 'lump hypothesis' of labor does not attain except in rare exceptions.

Doesn’t have to be like that. Import some Chinese entrepreneurs to run the program for (their) profit and the collateral benefit of the poor.

Bet you can think of others.

Yup. Increase median productivity (another whole book there).

Even more computers are key here, and concentration on industries where we excel: bio-engineering, medical research (pour billions into stem cell research), computer programming, marketing, finance, entertainment, spinoff technology from defense industries, space exploration and tourism for profit ...

That won't eliminate poverty, though. In modern economies poverty (as in lack of access to basic housing, health care, food and personal possessions) is almost always the result of very poor, repeated personal choices that are difficult to eradicate completely even with unthinkable levels of compulsion.

They did it in Luxembourg.

(All those $100,000/yr. steelworkers, and they’re still competitive, but you need to be skilful and work hard.)

The key here is to add re-education to education. Not just teach things, but help people unlear bad habits. Every retraining and rehab program does that.

[pianoman11686]

Alleviate, v.t.: to make easier to endure

That’s what we’ve been trying to do all these years. Welfare tries to alleviate poverty, public housing is meant to alleviate poverty.

But neither actually alleviates poverty; each makes it worse. Talk to someone on welfare about the humiliation the program subjects them to. And as for public housing: who in his right mind thinks there’s relief in living like human refuse in a cesspool with piss in the elevator?

Agreed on that count. Maybe I used the wrong word (alleviate). But I think taking on the challenge to eradicate it completely is asking for more of the troubles that already associated with our attempts at alleviation. There will always be some poor, no matter how wealthy the country is on average. I think we have to realize that certain things are just not fixable, or at least, not meant to be fixed.

In order to alleviate poverty we have to perpetuate it; otherwise there’s nothing to alleviate.

Our goal should not be to alleviate poverty. Our goal should be to eliminate poverty.

Before someone pipes up with “the poor ye have always”, bear in mind that in Luxembourg they have eradicated poverty completely. Everyone in that country is able to live a decent life.

We can do it too, but we have to want to do it. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

Luxembourg's an easy test case, probably because it's very small. There are other places in the world that have no poverty: Monaco, Bermuda, and, indeed, large pockets of US suburbia. The key is having a small enough population that you can manage.

Consider what you would have to do to bring everyone living in poverty in the US up to decent standards. I think the homeless rate is about 1%, so that's at least 3 million people right there - that's more than 6 times Luxembourg's entire population.

I like some of your proposals, others push the envelope of what we can realistically accomplish.

[ablarc]

...brilliant ... So what's the plan?
For New York, the Sun's plan (Posts 28 and 29, above) is brilliant.

[pianoman11686]

Cities thrive, in part, by allowing their real estate to be put to its highest and best use. In doing so, jobs and wealth are created — for all social classes, not just the rich. Setting aside land for those who earn low incomes is a deeply pessimistic policy — one that assumes there will always be a need for thousands of units of such housing.

Not only does such a system tie up a great deal of land with none of it on the property tax rolls, but also it requires a sprawling administrative and operational structure to keep it going, funded by a tax base depressed by the extent of public housing. Worse, it encourages continued poverty — by providing low-priced housing to the single-parent, female-headed families who dominate it — more than 70%, nationally.

This sums it up for me: we need to get out of the practice of building and maintaining public housing through government spending. A noble idea, perhaps, but long past its decidedly unsuccessful trial period.

When I at first thought about following the Sun's plan, and just giving away the units to the current residents, I couldn't conceive of justifying it. Yes, 400,000 lives would be considerably improved, but how many other hundreds of thousands would miss out because of a few thousand more dollars in yearly income? In essence, it's a game of chance and random bureaucratic benchmark-setting: there are two possible outcomes, with a thin line between a winning hand and a losing one.

Is that fair? "Phooey", people will say: life is not fair, and we have to try to balance the stakes wherever possible. Can't ask for a better balance than to award people what is considered the single most important investment you'll ever make: a home. If done too quickly, it'll have incredibly powerful effects, among which housing in general would probably become more affordable. Think of, furthermore, the possibilities to revamp all these projects, maybe even integrate them into the city, while at the same time building more units. It could even significantly reduce crime.

I think that public housing is a large enough problem to warrant such a radical solution, especially when the potential payoffs are as beneficial as I think they'll be.