Who?
Of course people who cannot afford housing turn to the government for help, but I was also surprised to know that not only poor families look to the government for help, working families do as well. The number of working families facing critical housing needs increased 73% from 1997 to 2005. Thats crazy to me. How can a family be working a full time job and not be able to afford housing? Something is seriously wrong with that. The region with the highest rates of citical housing needs are in the West and Northeast. This is a little shocking to me because a few sessions ago we learned people in the South are the poorest so I thought they would need housing more than the people in the West/Northeast.
What?
Government housing is extremely important to people who cannot afford to purchase a house of their own or cannot rent an apartment. There is two types of government assistance: public housing or vouchers. Public housing requires residents to pay 30% of monthly income and live in a designated area built by governments. Vouchers are either given to landlords provided the unit meets quality standards or given to a tenant so they can rent a home in private housing market or help pay mortgages so that low income families can purchase homes. In my opinion vouchers are the best option. Not only does it improve outcomes for children because it allows people to live in low-poverty neighborhoods and racially-mixed neighborhoods, which leads to less likelyhood of becoming involved with volence and children usually get a better ecducation, but it also helps families leave and stay off welfare. Although vouchers should great there are always down sides for government assistance. Only 1 in every 3 families gets vouchers and it doesn't provide equal acces to low-poverty neighborhoods. If the governemnt made it easier to recieve vouchers and live in nicer neighborhoods, it would make life better for thousands, even millions of American who are stuck in public housing.
The issue with working families not being able to afford housing comes back to not being able to earn a living wage. I heard a soundbite a couple of weeks ago on NPR about the increase in the number of people seeking emergency housing assistance from Fulton County, in fact the report stated that people were coming from outside of Fulton County for their needs.
ReplyDeleteI found a "Living Wage" calculator that shows that the living wage for Fulton County for a family of three is nearly $23/hour it also shows the poverty wage and current minimum wage as being $7.81/hr and $7.25/hr respectively. There is obviously a huge disparity between these income levels. Here is a link to the sight if you're interested:
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/counties/13121
The real problem with government housing is that when in one location (the projects) property values instantly decrease and crime rates increase, by allowing people to choose where they want to live, it can separate and spread out the problems associated with lower income families.
ReplyDeleteYou made some great points! Nice post!