Philadelphia Mayoral Race

The Philadelphia Mayoral Race is in full effect. The mayoral candidates campaigns are reaching a high point with this upcoming May elections. One of the candidates in the upcoming election is Nelson Diaz. Nelson Diaz has a lot of experience dealing with public housing. In the early 1990s Diaz was appointed general counsel for HUD. When crime and drug rates in public housing communities where at an all time high Diaz laid the groundwork for reform for how public housing communities were built and financed. Diaz revolutionized public housing at a time when it looked like it would cease to exist. Diaz proposed that public housing communities could be managed by private developers. This idea provided public housing communities with mixed income rather than only low income. Diaz's idea provided this because private developers could make public housing units and regular market price houses in one community. This made the public housing system more of an entrepreneur system and not so much a complete government funded program. This new reform lead to the demolition to many high rise projects which were highly ineffective in providing adequate housing to residents. These high rise projects were also the most vulnerable to high crime and drug rates.









http://planphilly.com/articles/2015/03/03/at-hud-diaz-opinion-marked-shift-in-public-housing-development  

Harsh Reality

Redlining is the practice of denying or charging more for services such as banking or insurance. Usually redlining targeted minority groups specifically blacks. Redlining began when the National Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Association (FHA). Redlining policies where legal at the time and the maps were used by investors to determine which areas to invest in. Blacks could not secure mortgage loans at the time and bankers would not invest in black neighborhoods. These factors led to a large increase in racial residential segregation and inner city decay. White people would leave these areas in a process known as white flight.This redlining crippled the housing market and lowered property values in some areas. This led to an increase in landlord abandonment which left many buildings unoccupied. These abandoned buildings gave safe haven to drug dealing and other illegal activity which caused social problems and a greater decline in investment. Since the areas had no investors they couldn't get redevelopment or updating which further contributed to the decay of these areas. With these areas getting worse the wealth gap continued to widen. There are still many types of redlining that still go on today. Small businesses in blacks communities have difficulty getting loans even after meeting all the necessary criteria. Many redlining policies have been outlawed despite this fact. Investors are forced to use criteria that is less racially biased in nature.
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Redlining.html
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html

Housing Choice Vouchers Program

The Housing Choice Vouchers Program is a federally funded program for public housing. The program is in place to provide a good standard of living to low income families, the elderly, and people with disabilities. This program provides a housing subsidy paid for by the federal government for these families to find a private house. In this program residents are not restricted to the public housing communities provided by their Public Housing Authority. If residents find an owner willing to accept the voucher than they can live in any apartment or house of their choice. This program helps these low income families live in a better community or a community with more wealth. HUD has reported, however, that this program is being underfunded. HUD has cited that funding problems for this program make it difficult for the program to be implemented at a high performing and efficient manner. HUD has requested a budget increase for the 2016 fiscal year in order to correctly implement this program. This would be a $490 million increase from the 2015 fiscal year. The main financial problem with this program is covering administrative costs.

Mistakes Made

There have been lots of mistakes made regarding public housing. Most of these mistakes can be attributed to the real estate industry and government mismanagement. Public housing was once very popular and provided cheaper and sometimes nicer alternatives to private housing. This proved to be a great threat to the real estate industry. The government with influence from the real estate industry then made public housing only available to the very poor by passing the 1949 Housing Act. This made public housing less popular and the stocks in public housing plummeted as a result. It also further isolated the poor keeping them in one area. When stocks declined government neglect of public housing began to rise. The concentration of poor people in public housing began to rise along with mismanagement and further neglect of maintenance. By 1988 the average income of a public housing household was one fifth of the national average. This shows that the changes made in public housing had a very detrimental effect. Public housing areas became areas of deep poverty and became more concentrated with minorities. In these public housing areas experiencing deep poverty crime rates and illegal activity increased dramatically. Concentration of poor, crime rates, and a discrepancy for funding public housing is why public housing is in such a miserable state today.
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/77/pubhsg.html

The History Behind It

During the 1930s there was a high demand for affordable housing. Public housing provided the for low income families. The state of public housing has changed over the years and the situation has become more pressing. At the time the African Americans need for public housing was great because of redlining policies that excluded blacks from the suburbs. Despite this fact the earliest public housing units were in white neighborhoods reserved for white tenets. By the 1950s when the city's black population was on the rise public housing units for blacks where made in North and South Philadelphia. With more and more blacks living in these public housing projects less whites were willing to live in them creating more segregation in the city. Public housing projects took a turn for the worst during the 1960s. Traditionally rent from residents would be enough to cover management and maintenance costs but this changed when an amendment was passed limiting the rent to exceed no more than 25 percent of the residents income. At the same time, however, management and maintenance costs rose which led to a discrepancy on how to fund these housing units. This led to the deterioration of public housing in Philadelphia. Lately federal funding has supported public housing in Philadelphia allowing for new and rejuvenated houses to be built but a bigger problem still remains.
http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/public-housing/

Fracking

There is currently lots of controversy concerning fracking lately. Fracking is a process of extracting oil by shooting pressurized water into a drilling site. This process created lots of jobs and it brings in lots of revenue but lots of people think it causes earthquakes. Many believe this process is hurting the environment. Lately courts have been letting cities decide if they want to ban fracking some cities have even had referendums about the matter. Although the environment is very important I believe that jobs are more important at least for right now. The reality is that more jobs are needed everywhere and this meets that demand and brings in lots of revenue for funding different outlets. If there is enough evidence supporting fracking causes earthquakes then it should be strictly regulated so not to put peoples lives in danger.

PHA Housing

PHA Housing in Philadelphia is in a miserable state right now. These homes claim to provide a safe and affordable housing environment for low income families but in reality they do more harm than good. Putting lots of low income families in one area makes a high poverty area. Even though these homes are supposed to be for the better of the community they keep it in a cycle of poverty. Some of the buildings are very old and if a new building is made there is no guarantee that a family will get its house back because the process is done by application and circumstances. Some families might be left without a place to go. PHA Housing areas are also notoriously known as high crime areas also. These are not the ideal areas to raise children in which many families who reside in these homes have. This is not just in Philadelphia either this is in all urban areas across the country. Having lived in one of these homes for 4 years in the middle of North Philadelphia I know first hand of the experiences involved in living in such areas. I think that there is a lot of reform these homes need. I believe these areas are getting worse. Also there should be a limit on how long people will live in these areas. There are generations of families living in these areas that have no interest in leaving. The goal should be to provide a safe environment to live in. PHA housing is in need of great reform. These public housing units with high concentrations of minorities have caused more harm than good. This problem, however, is not limited to just Philadelphia there is public housing in the same miserable state in cities around the country. I believe these types of public housing neighborhoods are negatively effecting inner city youth.