Bill to Redesign Housing Policy Clears Hurdle
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Challenging decades of housing policy that favored the neediest, the House voted today to change the face of public housing by providing shelter to more of the working poor. The bill, which passed 293 to 132, would repeal a landmark 1937 Depression-era housing law that Republicans say has turned once livable housing projects into miserable ghettos for the unemployed. It would replace the old framework with a system that made way for higher-income tenants and created what the bill’s supporters said would be more self-sufficient communities, requiring less Government aid. The measure, which is opposed by the Clinton Administration as too harsh, could cut roughly in half the percentage of extremely poor tenants living in public housing, now roughly 75 percent, through attrition. It would also retool rent policies so that every tenant’s monthly payments would not necessarily rise along with income, a practice criticized as discouraging public housing residents from getting off welfare. The measure would also require many public housing tenants who are unemployed to perform eight hours of community service a month, or in most cases, risk eviction. The legislation is another step in Republican efforts to compel more people to get off welfare and join the work force or at the very least, repay the community through volunteer neighborhood work. More : query.nytimes.com |