In a Working Society, we would create new opportunities to work. We would offer affordable housing near good jobs and a million last-chance jobs to people who cannot find work on their own.
In a Working Society, we would reward work. We would raise the minimum wage and cut taxes for low-income workers. We would find ways for workers to not only have but keep their health care and other key benefits, a topic I’ll return to in the future. We would help workers save for the future with Work Bonds and homeownership tax credits. And we would create a million more housing vouchers for working families.
(snip)
In the 1990s, we saw how a new approach to welfare could help millions of families achieve independence. Now it is time for a new approach for another tough issue: housing.
I believe we should radically overhaul HUD in three big steps.
First, we need to integrate our neighborhoods economically. Many neighborhoods were once segregated by race; now segregation by wealth is common, often with a racial dimension. If we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together too.
We could all see the problems of concentrated poverty after Katrina, but the truth is that nearly every major American city has similar neighborhoods that remain unseen. The federal government has built public housing in the worst neighborhoods and overlooked the need for affordable housing in the suburbs.
These policies cut willing workers off from entry-level jobs, which are often created in the suburbs, far from public transportation. And they keep low-income children far from good schools.
If conservatives really believed in markets, they'd join us in a more radical and more sensible solution: creating 1 million more housing vouchers for working families over the next five years. Done right, vouchers can enable people to vote with their feet to demand safe communities with good schools. We can help pay for this by cutting back HUD’s role in managing public housing, which it doesn’t do very well and often sticks working families in bad neighborhoods.
Second, we need to put families ahead of bureaucracy. HUD is bloated and has a track record of mismanaging money.
We should start by cutting back HUD's excessive, unnecessary, and sometimes incompetent contractors. Second, we should trim the agency by at least 1,500 employees and get the money out where it can do some good.
We can take the opportunity to give more authority to cities and states to tackle housing problems in their own regions. They will be responsible for taking a regional approach -- including both cities and suburbs -- and creating affordable housing near jobs and good schools.
Finally, work should be at the center of our housing policy just as it is at the center of our other social policies. We should attach a contract to new housing vouchers: if they don’t already have jobs, recipients must work toward independence, and in return we will help them earn more and save more. A similar program is already working for 75,000 families today.
I’ve talked a lot about housing in cities, but we shouldn’t forget that housing is a rural problem too – 1.5 million rural homes are substandard – without plumbing or with a crumbling foundation or sagging roof.
http://oneamericacommittee.com/news/speeches/20060622/Edwards on setting benchmarks...
But this afternoon, I want to make clear I’m not willing to settle for some Washington “pie-in-the-sky” dream that gets promised and then quickly forgotten. Poverty is an issue where we cannot fail. So to hold us accountable, I propose we also set a benchmark to measure our progress and guide our way.
In the next 10 years, we need to cut poverty by a third, improving the lives of 12 million Americans.
If we meet this benchmark, we’ll be well on our way.
http://oneamericacommittee.com/news/speeches/20060622/You're right... this won't help the family getting evicted
right now... and the poor don't matter to the repubs in power... bush's reign of terror has greatly contributed to steadily increasing poverty.
Right now it's time to take back our government from these miscreants, elect
liberal, progressive Dems, and reverse the damage the repubs have done over the past several years, restore and
increase funding to social programs, and
tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. And I
am searching for votes... for John Edwards.