How European-Style Public Housing Could Help Solve The Affordability Crisis

[M II A II R II K]

How European-Style Public Housing Could Help Solve The Affordability Crisis


February 25, 2020

By Ally Schweitzer

Read More: https://www.npr.org/local/305/2020/0...ability-crisis

"Public housing" isn't such a loaded term in Vienna, Austria. In the European capital, public housing is attractive and well-maintained. It's located near schools, transit and cultural amenities. It's home to singles, families and senior citizens and most important, it's mixed-income, with affluent Viennese sharing walls with working-class residents.

- Could such housing exist in the D.C. region? Increasingly, progressives are saying "yes." In Maryland, Del. Vaughn Stewart (D-Derwood) is introducing legislation to create the state's first "social housing" program. In the District of Columbia, Will Merrifield, a candidate for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council, has made European-style public housing a pillar of his platform. The idea is gaining ground nationally, too, boosted by the presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I). — But social housing is still a radical concept in the U.S., where government-funded housing is unfairly or not associated with crumbling apartment towers marred by crime and poverty. — First constructed as segregated housing for low-income Americans during the New Deal era, many public housing projects were reserved for poor African Americans systematically shut out of the housing market. As conditions worsened in public housing, the federal government pulled out, leaving local authorities with enormous maintenance backlogs and residents in unsafe conditions.

- Some progressive officials and activists say public housing doesn't need to be this way. Borrowing best practices from cities like Vienna, Austria, they say, could improve millions of lives, chip away at America's legacy of racial segregation and give the country an economic boost. The challenge is convincing leaders that social housing is more than a utopian ideal. The main difference between social housing and public housing is who's allowed to live in it. — Owned and operated by governments, disproportionately located in high-poverty areas and exclusively available to the neediest occupants, public housing has never had a working financial model, says Peter Gowan, a senior policy associate with the left-leaning Democracy Collaborative. "Public housing in the United States was designed to fail," Gowan says. "It was designed to be segregated, it was designed to be low-quality. Where a few public housing authorities tried to do it very well, it was disinvested from later on." Today, D.C.'s Housing Authority faces deferred maintenance costs exceeding $2 billion on more than 6,600 public housing units, some of which are unlivable.

- Today, social housing in Vienna is available to people of all incomes. It's often built on government-owned land that's sold to a private company, which then owns and operates the housing units under public oversight. And crucially, social housing is placed in desirable areas and required to meet architectural and livability standards that make it appealing to people across the income spectrum. — Higher-income tenants pay market rents, subsidizing the cheaper rents reserved for low-income occupants. In Vienna, typically half of a building's units are reserved for low-income people. Rent costs don't fluctuate wildly year-over-year, in part because the government builds thousands of new social housing units each year, ensuring that supply keeps up with demand. Today, social housing accounts for an estimated 40% of the housing stock in Vienna. — Supporters of social housing acknowledge it's a tough sell in the U.S., and not only because of its association with American-style public housing. It's also potentially expensive for taxpayers, at least in its early stages.

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Churchill Gardens is a social housing community in London. Progressives in the D.C. area are calling for similar housing to be built here.







In D.C.'s Ward 1, Garfield Terrace is one public housing building in serious disrepair, according to the city's housing authority.

[mousquet]

It's no secret to us. I would summarize it that way.

"Social housing" meant for people in difficulties has to be scattered over regular market rate areas, so there's no poverty ghetto of any kind anywhere. Then people can calmly talk to each other and make deals somehow.
That's how society as whole ends up better off, when people act as a wise smart pack.

The problem is oftentimes, the rich and the poor are kind of sectarian like bigots.
In a nutshell:
Communists / Socialists / Marxists = poor bigots.
Conservatives / hypocritical Liberals = (wannabe) rich bigots.

That doesn't help us very much, huh.

[xzmattzx]

Does affluent mean rich? How does someone affluent get to have affordable housing?

[IMBY]

There'd be far less need to raise the minimum wage if there were more public housing. Also add in generous food stamp allowances, and keep the minimum wage as it is.

With a $15 minimum wage in San Francisco or L.A., then that person could move from renting a closet to a decent sized room in someone's house. An apartment? Yes, with 4-5 roommates!

[Reverberation]

I like the Singapore model. Government should build low cost (subsidized?) housing to be SOLD to buyers who can afford it on minimum wage. Thus juicing the supply of market rate units as people inevitably move out.

[Silewe]

Singapore is a city-state tax haven for asia. Cant really use them for comparison. Maybe if nyc leaves the country.