4 ms·

>"earn hundreds of dollars more each year " ... Uh, not worth spending millions on public housing then.. IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a

>"earn hundreds of dollars more each year " ... Uh, not worth spending millions on public housing then.. IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a market solution to housing issues and helps fight segregation (when landlords arent doing illegal things). One of the solutions to classism is to have people mix more. Live together, school together, work together, marry together.

jseliger 10y ago
IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a market solution In theory that's true, but in practice many U.S. municipalities have restricted the development of any new housing to the point that Section 8 vouchers are impractical due to costs and simple apartment availability (http://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/supply-side-of-affordable-housing-matters-most http://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/supply...). Without doing something about NIMBYs and local zoning processes, Section 8 vouchers will not be effective. Matthew Desmond's book Evicted is pretty good on this point (http://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/dp/0553447432?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/d...). I've written or worked on Section 8 proposals, as well HUD 811, 202, HOPE VI, and related programs (see http://seliger.com/2008/07/27/reformers-come-and-go-but-hud-abides/ http://seliger.com/2008/07/27/reformers-come-and-go-but-hud-... if you're curious); the people who run them, especially in high-cost cities like LA, SF, NYC, and Seattle are well aware of the problems that local zoning imposes on affordable housing.
twblalock 10y ago
> IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a market solution to housing issues Once any kind of government vouchers or subsidies are involved, you don't have a market solution anymore. Market solutions are solutions that the market provides all by itself. I agree that vouchers are a better solution than public housing or rent control, and probably introduce fewer distortions in the market than those policies, but it is incorrect to call vouchers a market solution. In particular, voucher programs generally require landlords to work with local housing authorities to accept rent payments, additional inspections, etc. As a result of this, many landlords don't want to accept tenants who use the vouchers.
josho 10y ago
Agreed but for rather different reasons. I've travelled through the US and stumbled into public housing projects on a few occasions. I found them simply repugnant. Public policy that clumps the poor together is beyond stupid. It's made even worse when you factor in how schools in the US get their budget (property taxes). So, this housing policy further guarantees that the poor stay poor because they end up in crappy schools. It's like America doesn't actually want to fix any of their social problems.
- ghaff 10y ago
  While you're right about property taxes going to schools, the reality is that urban schools tend to have higher expenditures per pupil than many upscale suburban schools. For example, in Massachusetts, Boston has per-pupil expenditures about $1,000 more (~5%) than Concord, one of the tonier western suburbs. Sure, Boston has many upscale areas but it also includes neighborhoods like Dorchester and Roxbury. Yes, you can look through the data and find especially old industry cities that have lower spending than many suburban towns but expenditure/pupil doesn't really follow clear patterns based on the income of the community.
epistasis 10y ago
If you're comparing dollar value, then you'll need to compare relevant quantities there though. "hundreds of dollars more per year" over several decades is tens of thousands of dollars. What is the relative expense of "section 8" than public housing, since it doesn't produce better economic outcomes than public housing? But like you mention, there are other axes of evaluation, such as fighting segregation, classism, etc., in addition to basic social justice. "Market soultions" are quite (most?) often the best solutions along these axes, but being a market solution is not an end within itself, IMHO. This study is just one tiny aspect of the big picture. But its still worthy of publicizing because it's not what I, or many others, expected.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
"have people mix more" seems on its face a good idea, but people don't do it naturally. It'd be interesting to know if it actually works or not. I'm not sure how to classify the impulses people have surrounding "they're not like me." I also recall actual violence when forced busing was in play to remix the balance of who went to what school. I think the problem in America is the overwhelming use of techniques of sub-linguistic persuasion in media. Think of Alex Baldwin's character in "Glengarry/Glen Ross." Or, if you prefer, an actual practitioner who is running for President right now.
- militantdm 10y ago
  Could you offer an explanation of what you mean by "sub-linguistic persuasion"? Honestly curious what you mean by this.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    I mean the use of symbols that are not quite at the level of language to persuade others. The scene with Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross" is an example - "third prize is you're fired" isn't quite a language construct - it's purely trading on fear. You don't parse it, understand it, then critique or agree. If you try to treat these things as language, they fall apart. This leads to this massive disconnect in interpretation. Over the last year, Scott Adams has gone over this quite a bit in explaining the current USAian Republican POTUS candidate. Other source include ( to a lesser extent ) Marshall Macluhan's various work and "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/09/dilbert_creator_scott_adams_gets_trump_like_no_one_else.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
devinhelton 10y ago
"One of the solutions to classism is to have people mix more. Live together, school together, work together, marry together." There are two problems with this. One, mixing people together often results in the two groups fighting over scarce resources (whether that be spots on the football team, dates to the prom, playing rights at the local basketball court, or well-paying union or government jobs). The battle for scarce resources actually greatly increases class or race based animosity. Second, there are very real differences in behavioral patterns between groups. If you bring in a low class population that is playing loud music until 12AM and letting their kids make mischief around the neighborhood, again, that is going to greatly increase classism. See for instance the books "Boston Against Busing" or "Philly War Zone: Growing Up in a Racial Battleground" which describes the conflicts that happened when integration was a big thing in the late 60s and early 1970s. I also wrote a blog post myself on how I changed my mind about the usefulness of Section 8 vouchers and using integration as a solution to class and racial divides: http://devinhelton.com/historical-amnesia.html http://devinhelton.com/historical-amnesia.html
thescriptkiddie 10y ago
I agree completely with the sentiment, but I don't think that the current Section 8 program is doing a very good job accomplishing those goals. At least some landlords cater specifically to Section 8 tenants, resulting in buildings full of poor people that might as well be traditional public housing, and many other landlords refuse to accept Section 8 tenants altogether. If you really want integration you either need to give cash directly to the tenants (so that the landlords don't and can't know they are receiving a subsidy), or you need to build Singapore-style (high quality, non-means-tested) public housing. Or both. And we need to make sure that affordable housing, whether public or private, is built in places where people actually want to live and can find work, not a 45 minute drive into the suburbs where land is cheap.

jseliger 10y ago

IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a market solution In theory that's true, but in practice many U.S. municipalities have restricted the development of any new housing to the point that Section 8 vouchers are impractical due to costs and simple apartment availability (http://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/supply-side-of-affordable-housing-matters-most http://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/supply...). Without doing something about NIMBYs and local zoning processes, Section 8 vouchers will not be effective. Matthew Desmond's book Evicted is pretty good on this point (http://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/dp/0553447432?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 http://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/d...). I've written or worked on Section 8 proposals, as well HUD 811, 202, HOPE VI, and related programs (see http://seliger.com/2008/07/27/reformers-come-and-go-but-hud-abides/ http://seliger.com/2008/07/27/reformers-come-and-go-but-hud-... if you're curious); the people who run them, especially in high-cost cities like LA, SF, NYC, and Seattle are well aware of the problems that local zoning imposes on affordable housing.

twblalock 10y ago

> IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a market solution to housing issues Once any kind of government vouchers or subsidies are involved, you don't have a market solution anymore. Market solutions are solutions that the market provides all by itself. I agree that vouchers are a better solution than public housing or rent control, and probably introduce fewer distortions in the market than those policies, but it is incorrect to call vouchers a market solution. In particular, voucher programs generally require landlords to work with local housing authorities to accept rent payments, additional inspections, etc. As a result of this, many landlords don't want to accept tenants who use the vouchers.

josho 10y ago

Agreed but for rather different reasons. I've travelled through the US and stumbled into public housing projects on a few occasions. I found them simply repugnant. Public policy that clumps the poor together is beyond stupid. It's made even worse when you factor in how schools in the US get their budget (property taxes). So, this housing policy further guarantees that the poor stay poor because they end up in crappy schools. It's like America doesn't actually want to fix any of their social problems.

ghaff 10y ago
While you're right about property taxes going to schools, the reality is that urban schools tend to have higher expenditures per pupil than many upscale suburban schools. For example, in Massachusetts, Boston has per-pupil expenditures about $1,000 more (~5%) than Concord, one of the tonier western suburbs. Sure, Boston has many upscale areas but it also includes neighborhoods like Dorchester and Roxbury. Yes, you can look through the data and find especially old industry cities that have lower spending than many suburban towns but expenditure/pupil doesn't really follow clear patterns based on the income of the community.

epistasis 10y ago

If you're comparing dollar value, then you'll need to compare relevant quantities there though. "hundreds of dollars more per year" over several decades is tens of thousands of dollars. What is the relative expense of "section 8" than public housing, since it doesn't produce better economic outcomes than public housing? But like you mention, there are other axes of evaluation, such as fighting segregation, classism, etc., in addition to basic social justice. "Market soultions" are quite (most?) often the best solutions along these axes, but being a market solution is not an end within itself, IMHO. This study is just one tiny aspect of the big picture. But its still worthy of publicizing because it's not what I, or many others, expected.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

"have people mix more" seems on its face a good idea, but people don't do it naturally. It'd be interesting to know if it actually works or not. I'm not sure how to classify the impulses people have surrounding "they're not like me." I also recall actual violence when forced busing was in play to remix the balance of who went to what school. I think the problem in America is the overwhelming use of techniques of sub-linguistic persuasion in media. Think of Alex Baldwin's character in "Glengarry/Glen Ross." Or, if you prefer, an actual practitioner who is running for President right now.

militantdm 10y ago
Could you offer an explanation of what you mean by "sub-linguistic persuasion"? Honestly curious what you mean by this.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  I mean the use of symbols that are not quite at the level of language to persuade others. The scene with Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross" is an example - "third prize is you're fired" isn't quite a language construct - it's purely trading on fear. You don't parse it, understand it, then critique or agree. If you try to treat these things as language, they fall apart. This leads to this massive disconnect in interpretation. Over the last year, Scott Adams has gone over this quite a bit in explaining the current USAian Republican POTUS candidate. Other source include ( to a lesser extent ) Marshall Macluhan's various work and "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/09/dilbert_creator_scott_adams_gets_trump_like_no_one_else.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...

devinhelton 10y ago

"One of the solutions to classism is to have people mix more. Live together, school together, work together, marry together." There are two problems with this. One, mixing people together often results in the two groups fighting over scarce resources (whether that be spots on the football team, dates to the prom, playing rights at the local basketball court, or well-paying union or government jobs). The battle for scarce resources actually greatly increases class or race based animosity. Second, there are very real differences in behavioral patterns between groups. If you bring in a low class population that is playing loud music until 12AM and letting their kids make mischief around the neighborhood, again, that is going to greatly increase classism. See for instance the books "Boston Against Busing" or "Philly War Zone: Growing Up in a Racial Battleground" which describes the conflicts that happened when integration was a big thing in the late 60s and early 1970s. I also wrote a blog post myself on how I changed my mind about the usefulness of Section 8 vouchers and using integration as a solution to class and racial divides: http://devinhelton.com/historical-amnesia.html http://devinhelton.com/historical-amnesia.html

thescriptkiddie 10y ago

I agree completely with the sentiment, but I don't think that the current Section 8 program is doing a very good job accomplishing those goals. At least some landlords cater specifically to Section 8 tenants, resulting in buildings full of poor people that might as well be traditional public housing, and many other landlords refuse to accept Section 8 tenants altogether. If you really want integration you either need to give cash directly to the tenants (so that the landlords don't and can't know they are receiving a subsidy), or you need to build Singapore-style (high quality, non-means-tested) public housing. Or both. And we need to make sure that affordable housing, whether public or private, is built in places where people actually want to live and can find work, not a 45 minute drive into the suburbs where land is cheap.