New Strategies from Housing Authorities Aim to Reduce Stigma, Strengthen Communities, and Prevent Homelessness
Public housing providers across the U.S. are adopting new ways to create a housing ecosystem that could repair some of the societal issues that are causing homelessness to rise among families with children and senior citizens, according to one expert.
Cities have shied away from building more public housing for low-income households for several reasons. First, the properties are expensive to maintain, and many municipal budgets are still reeling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public housing is also highly stigmatized, which can make it politically unpalatable for local elected officials.
But Boston Housing Authority (BHA) CEO Kenzie Bok noted during a recent lecture at Harvard University that some housing providers are developing new strategies for public housing that can address both issues. Some of those strategies include replacing Section 8 housing vouchers with project-based vouchers, setting up revolving funds for Public Housing Authorities to become limited partners in market-rate developments, and preserving existing affordable housing.
These strategies could not only help municipal governments solve the cash flow problems that the current public housing system creates but also help destigmatize the people who live in public housing, Bok argued.
“We will need to think about public housing as a good for all of us if we are actually going to design a stronger, more just society,” Bok said.
How Public Housing Became Stigmatized
The way the U.S. has conceived of public housing is “deeply unnatural” and is leading to the disintegration of whole communities, according to Bok. She noted that America’s conception of public housing largely revolves around the idea of the “public neighbor,” or someone who the public constrains largely out of pity. The idea of the public neighbor is part of the reason why public housing can exclude low-income people from broader communities and contribute to their continued stigmatization, she said.
This conception was born from a couple of competing factors. For instance, there has always been a notion in the U.S. that the private market can solve all social ills. However, the demands of the capital needed to build housing often work against the aim of providing affordable homes for everyone, Bok argued.
At the same time, public housing is considered an act of charity and not an act of public good. Bok argued that this has created a housing system that acts more like a sieve, where people on the margins of society are “clinging to the edges just trying not to fall through.”
“Not treating housing as a public good has gotten us to a place where not only low-income people, but even middle-income families and seniors cannot count on having homes in the communities that they are part of,” Bok said.
New Strategies to Strengthen Housing Systems
The strategies PHAs are adopting to address these challenges could have a massive impact on vulnerable community members, Bok added. For instance, replacing Section 8 vouchers with project-based vouchers can greatly improve housing stability because project-based vouchers are tied to a specific unit. Bok said PHAs have been slowly adopting this strategy for decades.
Replacing Section 8 vouchers has also been shown to have a positive financial impact on PHAs like the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA), Bok noted. CHA has converted all 60 of its public housing units that way and now receives enough cash from monthly rent payments that it has enough money to build new homes, she added.
PHAs like the Housing Opportunities Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland, are also pioneering strategies to become limited partners in market-rate developments. The theory behind the move is simple: market-rate units can subsidize the higher-than-normal amount of affordable units in the development, Bok said.
“In other words, it builds the public balance sheet for more housing production,” Bok said.
PHAs like the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles are also preserving affordable buildings with positive cash flow that are often targets of private investors once their affordability deed expires. Since PHAs can accept lower cash flow than traditional investors, this strategy can boost the supply of naturally occurring affordable housing. It can also help diversify the PHA’s portfolio to include smaller buildings, Bok noted.
Changing Perceptions to Expand Possibility
Adopting these strategies can go a long way toward overcoming the stigma against public housing that has existed in the U.S. for decades. Shifting this perspective could unlock new ways of preventing homelessness and housing instability before they begin and create healthier communities as well.
“Housing policy is one of a few things that shape human life so much that it is a reasonable measure of whether a society is just and of whether we each individually feel adequately recognized as a full member of our own society,” Bok said.
Now Is the Time to Demand Compassionate, Effective Policy
Now is not the time to be silent about homelessness in the U.S. or anywhere else. Unhoused people deserve safe and sanitary housing just as much as those who can afford rent or a mortgage.
Poverty and homelessness are both policy choices, not personal failures. That’s why we need you to contact your officials and tell them you support legislation that:
- Streamlines the development of affordable housing
- Reduces barriers for people experiencing homelessness to enter permanent housing
- Bolsters government response to homelessness
Together, we can end homelessness.