US Public Housing

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PUBLIC HOUSING

It is true that federal involvement in public housing predates 1937 however it was the Federal Public Housing Act of 1937 that gave public housing the features that are now recognized with it . Under the Act of 1937 , the federal government was to work through local housing authorities . Its role was to offer the amounts essential to amortize the fall capital costs of the housing projects , projects that were to be

br built to accord with federally set standards of adequacy . These projects were to be owned and managed by the LHA (Deirdre Pfeiffer , pp 23

It was expected that tenant rents would cover the complete costs of the projects--operation , repairs and maintenance , as well as recovery of capital costs . Such costs included merely payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT ) since the projects were to be exempt from local property taxes The projects were expected to be that part of the local housing inventory available to families of low income needing standard housing They usually were built near the city centre or in modest or poor income and even slum neighbourhoods . To the extent , then , that they were replacements of rental units that would have been made available through negative sequent occupance , the public housing units symbolized direct intervention in the local housing market process (John Charles Boger Judith Welch Wegner , pp144

The nature of that direct intervention was not just , though , that an attempt was being made to tempt positive sequent occupance in particular neighbourhoods , though this obviously was the main purpose . It was as well that the LHA was to control the demand side of the process of sequent occupance . The LHA was to find out who was eligible--not merely on the foundation of the criteria of need however as well of worthiness It was also to find out how long a family might remain needy and worthy as its income , composition , and even behaviour changed . In a sense , for the reason that it was probable to be larger than any other landlord and definitely than any market maker (for example rental agent , real estate agency , management agency , and all that , the LHA was to set the pace in determining how the lower end of the local housing market might operate (Deirdre Pfeiffer , pp 26

Therefore it was not so much that the market process was to some extent to be socialized (that is , to be made directly responsive to social need as determined by a public agency ) as that it was to be reformed . The private market had failed to offer sufficient housing . It had led to slum formation , and it had been disly , spreading blight at too quick a pace . LHAs were to operate to prevent these trends

Except for state-wide housing authorities in nine states , LHAs are basically local political agencies , operating at the margin of the general political processes . Generally , there are public commissioners--elected or appointed to a governing board...