The Effect and Crisis on Low Incoming Housing

The Effect and Crisis on Low-Income Housing

For many poor Americans, having a decent home and suitable living environment remains a dream. This lack of adequate housing is not only a burden for many of the poor, but it is harmful to the larger society as well, because of the adverse effects of inadequate housing on public health. Not only is the failure to provide adequate housing shortsighted from a policy perspective, but it is also a failure to live up to societal obligations. There is a societal obligation to meet the housing needs of everyone, including the most disadvantaged. Housing assistance must become a federally-funded entitlement.

America has both an implicit and an explicit social contract to provide adequate housing for its entire population. To date, this is a contract whose obligations remain unfulfilled. Evidence of this failure abounds in the vast numbers of homeless families on city streets, in the large numbers of families that have to live doubled and even tripled up with other families, and in the crushingly high rent burdens that many low-income families have to endure. Less transparent but no less important are the pernicious effects of this unfulfilled contract on the health of the disadvantaged, as has been described elsewhere. The explicit nature of the societal contract to meet the housing needs of all is spelled out in the Housing Act of 1949 (42 USC §§ 1441–1490r [1994]), which stipulates the “realization as soon as feasible of the goal of a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family.” But the Housing Act of 1949 was passed more than a half century ago by different politicians representing a different population. One could argue that this contract is no longer binding. Yet there is substantial evidence that the American polity still views a decent home as a minimal right in America. This is evidenced by the numerous state and local policies that mandate a minimal level of housing. As will be shown...