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Ben Carsons Warped View of Housing
Antigovernment ideologues resent the Department of Housing and Urban Development even when they know nothing about it. Ben Carson, Donald Trump’s choice to run HUD, is a fine case in point.
Last year, Mr. Carson accused the agency of “social engineering” for requiring state and local governments that receive federal housing money to stop dumping subsidized housing in poor neighborhoods and instead locate some of that housing in healthier neighborhoods where residents would have access to transportation, jobs and decent schools. His comment betrayed a distressing ignorance of HUD’s mission, the laws under which it is supposed to operate and, more broadly, the history of housing segregation in the United States.
What triggered his outburst was the administration’s decision — long overdue — to begin paying attention to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and its mandate to “affirmatively further” fair housing goals. Among other things, this meant making a good-faith effort to break down patterns of racial and economic segregation that, perversely enough, had been promoted by the government itself.
Research shows that integrating poorer families into healthier, mixed-income neighborhoods has improved prospects for them and their children. A prominent Harvard study last year found that young children whose families had been given housing vouchers to move to better neighborhoods were more likely to attend college — and to attend better colleges — than other children, and had significantly higher incomes as adults. This form of economic integration could be crucial to breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
Last year, Mr. Carson accused the agency of “social engineering” for requiring state and local governments that receive federal housing money to stop dumping subsidized housing in poor neighborhoods and instead locate some of that housing in healthier neighborhoods where residents would have access to transportation, jobs and decent schools. His comment betrayed a distressing ignorance of HUD’s mission, the laws under which it is supposed to operate and, more broadly, the history of housing segregation in the United States.
What triggered his outburst was the administration’s decision — long overdue — to begin paying attention to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and its mandate to “affirmatively further” fair housing goals. Among other things, this meant making a good-faith effort to break down patterns of racial and economic segregation that, perversely enough, had been promoted by the government itself.
Research shows that integrating poorer families into healthier, mixed-income neighborhoods has improved prospects for them and their children. A prominent Harvard study last year found that young children whose families had been given housing vouchers to move to better neighborhoods were more likely to attend college — and to attend better colleges — than other children, and had significantly higher incomes as adults. This form of economic integration could be crucial to breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/ben-carsons-warped-view-of-housing.html