Reply #45: They're ostensibly slowly doing away w/ public housing

[Nevernose]

and moving to section 8 vouchers. Privatizing the problem of homelessness.

It's kind of a mixed bag. When you pack poor people into cramped, horrifically impoverished neighborhoods, crime does become a factor. More importantly, at least around here, much of the public housing built in the 60s and 70s hadn't been properly maintained since the 60s or 70s.

My immediate solution would be to buy foreclosed houses on the cheap -- not just the normal foreclosures, but houses that are in bad condition. We could then put a lot of construction workers back to work rehabbing and maintaining those houses, plus give people a place to live. TO assuage Republicans, maybe it could even be a price-controlled, gov't-assistance rent-to-own, so that renters in dire economic need could pick up a house for 30 or 40 thousand and eventually own it. All the benefits of public housing, few of the drawbacks.