Publications Received

Problem: Most housing programs in the United States do not focus on the most pressing housing needs. In 2003 more than 13 million households spent at least half their incomes on rent or the costs of homeownership, an increase of more than 35% since 1993. The vast majority of these households were poor. Yet housing policy has shifted away from deep-subsidy programs targeted to the poorest households toward providing shallow subsidies to higher-income households.

Purpose: This article considers whether, given that the federal government is unlikely to increase funding for low-income housing, state and local governments are likely to increase housing assistance to the lowest-income households in the future, how such assistance could be structured, and how states and localities might be persuaded or compelled to provide this assistance.

Methods: We examine the income distribution of households supported by major programs administered by state and local governments and the extent to which these programs target the poor and provide them with sufficient levels of subsidy. We reviewed program data reported to funding agencies and trade associations, census data on housing problems compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and data from surveys of policies and practices conducted by academic researchers and policy organizations.

Results and conclusions: We find that the shift to state and local administration of federal funds has not significantly shifted priorities. We provide evidence that states are not using their discretion go beyond federal requirements, and are not serving income groups below those they are required to serve. Locally funded programs are less likely to target the poor than state or federal programs.

Takeaway for practice: Rather than hoping for substantial local housing assistance targeted to the poor, we recommend making more effective use of existing federal resources.

Research support: None.     

HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOOD REHABILITATION: A NEW METHOD TO HANDLE OLD PROBLEMS

One of the major national goals in the area of urban housing is to stem neighborhood deterioration and to upgrade and conserve America's housing and neighborhoods. In recent years increased attention and resources have been devoted to rehabilitation at the local government level and increased support has been provided by the Federal Government. The rehabilitation of neighborhoods and housing is, however, a complex and difficult problem which is not subject to easy or quick resolution. This paper describes the nature of the problem and identifies some of the constraints and principles that must be considered when framing strategies to cope with problems. Existing national policies and programs are briefly covered. The paper concludes with a suggested strategic approach which would help cities monitor neighborhood changes and aid in the allocation of community development funds.     

Housing for Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians suffer from less adequate and affordable housing than any other group despite the efforts of national and state governments, especially in the past 30 years, to improve them. Among the reasons for their continued poor housing are their poverty, the different values placed on housing by the more collectively oriented Indigenous people and their lack of control over the housing that has been provided for them. The Community Housing Program, under which government funded housing is provided and managed by local Indigenous housing organisations, has had some success in resolving these problems. A promising solution to the problems of the housing organisations may be found in umbrella organisations that are beginning to develop which can ensure both rent collection and accountability to funding governments and community control over housing design and management.     

Urban environmental problems and planning strategies in Tropical Africa: The example of Nigeria

Although various social and economic problems associated with urban development in Tropical Africa have received considerable attention by social scientists, less attention has been paid to the physical problems. The paper outlines the relationship between urban environmental problems in Tropical Africa and the processes of urban development in the region. The paper shows that the urban environmental problems of Tropical Africa are mainly associated with the process of uncontrolled urban settlement, the poverty of a large proportion of urban dwellers and the discriminatory housing policy of many countries in the region.With specific reference to Nigeria, the paper characterizes the urban environmental problems of Tropical Africa. These include poor housing quality, bad layout of streets, poor drainage, lack of facilities for solid waste disposal and water pollution. Finally, the paper suggests some strategies for ameliorating the urban environmental problems in Nigeria.     

Conserving Rental Housing A Policy Analysis

Conserving the existing stock of rental housing is a key part of any policy to house low-and moderate-income people and to revitalize their neighborhoods. Local governments, with their limited resources, have growing responsibility for the conservation efforts. But they have little information about what programs actually result in better maintenance and repair of rental housing. This article, based on studies of landlords' investments in repairs to their buildings, outlines policies for shaping effective programs to conserve rental housing. It focuses on six crucial issues: how to divide public actions between those that directly support housing improvements and those that indirectly encourage rehabilitation by improving neighborhood conditions; how much assistance to provide, and where to concentrate it geographically; how to involve other private parties, especially lenders; which owners to assist; what level of rehabilitation to support for a given building; and how to balance the use of “carrots” and “sticks.”     

Encouraging Private Investment In Older Housing

ABSTRACT: In the United Kingdom owner occupied pre-1919 housing forms the largest element of housing stock in poor condition and is the main focus of housing renewal policies. The rapid growth of homeownership and lack of rental houses have attracted many low income people. Grants to homeowners for repair and improvement have been the focus of government renewal policies over the past 20 years. Grant aid has not always targeted the worst properties nor has the work been as durable as expected. Public spending levels do not cover the magnitude of problems. The authors argue for new mechanisms to encourage private owner investment in maintenance, repair, and improvement. Alternative strategies are needed to ensure that limited public resources are used effectively. Their conclusions are relevant to other nations with increasing rates of homeownership. The authors stress the need to determine problems of housing condition early and to develop effective and realistic policies to deal with them.     

Deconcentrating Poverty With Housing Programs

Problem: Housing programs of the past have exacerbated the problems of concentrated poverty. Current housing programs serving very low-income households, including homebuyers as well as renters, should be examined to determine the extent to which they help households make entry into neighborhoods with low concentrations of poverty.

Purpose: This research is designed to assist planners in understanding how well various approaches to resolving housing affordability problems can facilitate the poverty deconcentration process.

Methods: Administrative data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development are used to assess the degree to which federal housing programs help lowincome homebuyers and renters locate in neighborhoods where less than 10% of the population is below poverty.

Results and conclusions: Subsidizing households ought to be more effective than subsidizing housing units at helping lowincome households locate in low-poverty areas, and whether a household rents or buys should not matter to whether a program succeeds at deconcentration of the poor. Yet, analysis of national datasets across several housing programs finds neither of the previous propositions to be true. Housing vouchers suppliedto households are not helping renters locate in low-poverty areas any more effectively than are current project-based subsidies. It also turns out that tenure matters; a disproportionately higher share of low-income homebuyers are locating in low-poverty neighborhoods than are lowincome renters.

Takeaway for practice: I recommend that housing planners seeking to make poverty deconcentration more effective use housing placement counselors, administer programs at the metropolitan scale, lease and broker market-rate housing directly, promote mixed-income LIHTC developments, practice inclusionary zoning, and monitor the impacts of these efforts.

Research support: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.     

The Politics of Revitalization in Gentrifying Neighborhoods The Case of Boston's South End

Federal and local officials have in recent years enacted programs to escalate the middle-class resettlement of city neighborhoods. Enamoured with the physical and economic benefits promised by the back-to-the-city movement, they have underestimated the shortcomings of this neighborhood revitalization strategy. The experience of Boston's South End with publicly supported middle-class resettlement illustrates the severe social and political strains that can develop between incumbents and more affluent “pioneers”—strains which can ultimately inflict damage on the neighborhood's poor. Officials must direct current resources to aid the cities' poorer residents and avoid stimulating gentrification until its adverse side effects can be controlled.     

Enticing Arsonists with Broken Windows and Social Disorder

In criminology, it is well understood that indicators of urban decay, such as abandoned buildings littered with broken windows, provide criminals with signals identifying neighborhoods with lower crime detection and apprehension rates than better maintained neighborhoods. Whether it is the resident population’s sense of apathy, lack of civic pride, or fear of confrontation that causes criminals to perceive an easy mark, it nevertheless emboldens them to strike. Previous research of wildland arson hints that broken windows (e.g., areas of criminal activity) are partly responsible for arson outbreaks within the wildland–urban interface. We model the incidence of wildland and non-wildland arson ignitions in Michigan from 2001 to 2005 as a function of constructed Broken Windows indices. Our results suggest that crime prevention and urban revitalization programs may be as valuable as fire suppression, fuels management, and law enforcement in limiting incidence and the damage from both wildland and non-wildland arson.     

Housing Reform and its Impacts on the Urban Poor in China

Housing provision in Chinese cities has experienced many changes since 1979 when the country embarked on major economic reform. During the late 1980s and the 1990s many publicly owned houses were sold to their existing tenants or other public sector employees. Large numbers of new houses were built by commercial property developers for the emerging urban housing market. As a result, new patterns of residents have emerged. Housing areas of different standards for different social groups became a dominant feature of large Chinese cities at the end of the 1990s. Will the urban poor benefit from these changes and what is their housing situation like under the reformed system? This paper addresses these questions by examining the nature of the emerging urban poor and their accessibility to housing. It involves an assessment of the implications of recent housing reform policies for the disadvantaged groups. The paper identifies two major groups of urban poor in Chinese cities: the poor among the official urban residents and the poor rural to urban migrants. It concludes that while housing problems of the official urban poor have been recognised, there is no formal policy in relation to housing provision for the unofficial poor.     

Unconventional housing provision: reflections on health aspects: a case study of Zimbabwe

When the Zimbabwean government embarked on the countrywide destruction of unconventional urban housing settlements code-named “Operation Murambatsvina”, it received international condemnation for displacing people and destroying livelihoods. While the operation negatively affected the residents, it also had some positive effects, given that most of the settlements that had sprouted up in cities did not have proper physical infrastructure. However, their destruction did not put a stop to spontaneous housing, as the displaced people relocated to peripheral locations, perpetuating some unconventional settlements already in existence and erecting new ones. The failure of states to cope with massive demand for low-income housing simply means that unconventional housing will not disappear in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, these areas lack proper physical infrastructure, which is the most important health component of human settlements. The most realistic means of dealing with these health concerns is to ensure that the settlements are equipped with proper physical infrastructure. This paper critically evaluates physical infrastructure provision in unconventional housing settlements in Harare, Zimbabwe. The argument is that developing countries need to accept unconventional housing as part of their housing options for the poor. The authors conclude that the only way to provide proper and healthy housing for the urban poor is to streamline government policies in order to address the critical issues that affect human settlements.     

The lost history of urban renewal

Contrary to common understanding, the US government's policy of “urban renewal” was conceived as an alternative policy to slum clearance. Bitterly opposed to public housing, conservative housing‐industry trade associations sought a way to reform the urban redevelopment formula of clearance and public housing established in the Housing Act of 1949. In the early 1950s, the industry groups seized on citizens' neighborhood fix‐up efforts, particularly the Baltimore Plan, to conduct a national campaign to popularize code enforcement, rehabilitation, and private low‐cost housing development as methods to restore and stabilize city neighborhoods. At conferences organized by House and Home magazine and in the President's Advisory Committee on Government Housing Policies and Programs, the housing industry associations fashioned policies, now named “urban renewal,” which were codified in the Housing Act of 1954. But private industry's venture in urban policymaking failed in implementation. Home builders proved reluctant to participate in the new programs, public housing hung on, and hundreds of thousands of homes fell to the wrecking ball. As urban renewal became synonymous with slum clearance, neighborhoods continued to decline. In the end, ironically, housing rehabilitation reemerged as a populist tool for reviving the inner city.     

Using Public Housing to Achieve Self-Sufficiency: Can We Predict Success?

In the United States since the mid-1980s, self-sufficiency programs have sought to transform public housing developments from permanent housing into way stations for low-income people. This article presents exploratory research on the predictors of success in these programs. Statistical analysis of longitudinal survey data from participants in an early public housing self-sufficiency program points to lack of previous welfare experience and the presence of prior vocational training as being predictors of program success. In-depth interviews suggest that having a high-school education is important for success, and any additional education prior to participating in a self-sufficiency program is helpful. Interviews also indicate that successful program graduates alienate themselves from social groups that discourage self-sufficiency.     

Role of state and market in housing delivery for low-income groups in India

Despite the importance of housing, it hasgenerally received very low priority in India'spublic policy and investment program, which haschanged frequently since independence in 1947. Although the government has embarked on avariety of innovative housing programs andpolicies, especially for the lower-incomesegments of the population in urban areas, thecoverage of these programs and schemes ismarginal as compared to the overall housingrequirements of the urban population. Aconcerted effort by the public and privatesectors has not been able to keep pace with thegrowing demand for urban housing, especiallythat market segment accessible to the urbanpoor. The most visible manifestations of stateand market failure are the numerousunauthorized housing settlements scattered inand around the large cities of India. Thispaper reviews the role of the state, the marketand non-governmental organizations (NGOs) inthe provision of housing for low-income groups.It is found that formal housing agencies inboth the public and the private sector areneither building fast enough to meet demand norcheaply enough to reach the poor. As aconsequence, an informal sector has emerged inalmost all cities in India.     

Explanations for the eclipse of United States public housing development: 1961–80

Despite the Reagan cutbacks in US housing programs, the public housing program's role in housing development had been greatly diminished in the 20 years prior to 1981. The diminution of public housing development over this time was not caused by insufficient need for public housing or because the program had failed in providing decent, affordable housing for low‐income households. Instead, public housing's decline as a source of new subsidised housing appears due substantially to factors external to the program. These factors include: 1) growing acceptance, by both government and business, of direct business participation in the delivery of government social services, including housing; 2) increased use of federal monies, especially in the 1960s, to subsidise the construction industry, with a consequent relative decline in resources for programs housing low‐income households; 3) the faltering image of the public housing program, which loomed much larger than the reality, 4) delays in construction, which were primarily caused by racial and class antagonisms toward public housing tenants; and 5) a decline in support for public housing by those organised groups that had, by the 1960s, become the national housing lobby.     

The property restitution in Warsaw: renaissance or decline of pre-war buildings?

This paper aimed to provide an understanding of the segment of pre-war buildings in Warsaw (Poland) and its position within the housing stock in the light of restitution of private properties. Although the majority of the buildings were destroyed during the Second World War, enclaves of the pre-war buildings still exist in the central districts of the capital city of Poland. The communalization of land in Warsaw in 1945 considerably reduced the proportion of private ownership. In the following years, the scarcity of funds for repairs and rehabilitation of the pre-war buildings contributed to their poor maintenance, resulting in worsening housing conditions. Since 1989, the political and economic transformation in Poland strengthened the privatization and paved the way to restitution of communalized properties to their previous private owners or their heirs. However, lack of law on property restitution and the complexity of groups of interest involved in this process (former private owners, “buyers of claims,” municipality and tenants) entail different tensions. In this way, the private owners struggle for years with restitution procedures, “buyers of claims” attempt to make profit on restitution, and sitting tenants defend their right to stay and to pay lower rents after the building is returned. Finally, the renaissance or decline of restituted pre-war residential buildings in Warsaw is strongly influenced by the type of existing ownership structure of individual dwellings in a building which may facilitate or hamper its refurbishment.     

Is private rental an option for urban housing provision in Hungary?

By 1998, 91 percent of all housing units in Hungary were occupied by owners –an extremely high percentage by international standards. Today's Hungarian housing politicians, whose anti-rental convictions stem from the experience of the previous regime, tend to disregard arguments about the consequences of this bias: the negative impact on mobility, the creation of a rigid housing market (lack of adaptability to the housing market), hardships in addressing social problems, conflicts between generations (obligations borne by elder generations) as well as the `compulsory' purchase of housing by younger generations and the drain of subsidies. There is extensive evidence that current Hungarian regulations are hostile to rental housing. With subsidies channeled to the ownership sector (housing construction benefits, interest subsidies, local subsidies, employer subsidies) as well as tax relief (purchase of privately owned housing, savings-linked subsidies, imputed rents), it is more expensive for households to rent than to buy or build housing. This leads to a distorted economic structure and a distorted use of society's resources. A housing policy based on modern economic theory pursues neutral subsidy and tax policies concerning ownership. Thus, from an economic point of view, there is no reason to prefer owner-occupied housing to rental housing. This paper explains why the private and public rental sectors are so small. But at a deeper level, the question is why private rented housing exists at all. The paper also explores related questions: who tend to rent out their units, why, for how long and how much; and who tend to rent these units, why do they rent them, and at what prices? The key policy issue is to define the basic impediments to the sector's expansion. On this basis, a new housing policy program can be formulated.     

Low-Income Access to Urban Land and Housing in Botswana

Like most developing countries, Botswana—a middle-income country—has experienced rapid urban growth, which has brought in its wake many social and economic problems. One of the key challenges has been the lack of access to land and housing for the poor who have moved into the urban centres in large numbers in search of employment and economic survival. Many programmes and strategies have been introduced by both central and local governments to address this problem. These include: squatter settlement upgrading; public housing through site, service and self-help housing; subsidised plot allocation; financial incentives for housing construction, etc. Many challenges have hampered the implementation of these strategies and programmes including fast urbanisation, which outstrips supply of land and housing for most urbanites; unaffordability of many of these schemes; poor targeting; high defaulting rates and poor management of these schemes. This paper calls upon the government, the private sector and local communities to devise holistic solutions to enable low-income households to procure decent accommodation in urban areas.     

法国历史城市复兴中住房政策的特征及作用

20世纪下半叶,法国历史城区面临严重衰退:常住人口持续下降,空置住宅比例增加,社会隔离现象严重。1975年法国实施的住房政策在遗产保护的前提下,改善居住环境,促进社会混合,提升经济活力,在历史城市复兴中起到了关键性作用,值得中国历史城市借鉴。本文解析了该政策的背景、特征以及效用,提出了值得借鉴的要点。     

Comment on “Neighborhood Revitalization and Displacement: A Review of the Evidence”

The issue of neighborhood revitalization and displacement certainly does have a déjà vu quality to it. While government officials, academic housing analysts, and even neighborhood groups seem to approach the problem as if it were a brand new phenomenon, in reality the recent history of displacement under urban renewal, the interstate highway system, and other government programs is very relevant. What is remarkable in the spate of literature that recently has emerged on the issue—of which Sumka's article is quite representative—is the failure to acknowledge that history and the lessons it might offer.