New Vision of Public Housing
Aliso Village in Boyle Heights is about to be transformed from old, unsafe World War II-era buildings into a smaller, safer, modern apartment complex for both poor families and working families. The new balance should attract mixed-income tenants to the apartments, which would reduce the concentration of deep poverty and the isolation that too often mark urban public housing.
The reconstruction of Aliso Village, financed in part by a $23-million federal Housing and Urban Development grant, represents a new vision of public housing. During the Reagan administration, Congress reserved public housing apartments almost exclusively for the poorest of the poor. Philosophically, that policy made sense at a time of high unemployment, a national shortage of low-rent housing and a surge in the homeless population. In practice, the change further concentrated jobless tenants, including many who had never worked, into isolated complexes in neighborhoods devoid of most services.
The newly reconfigured Aliso Village project will shrink from 685 units, all for low-income tenants, to 469 units for a mix of low- and middle-income tenants. For tenants who depend on government assistance, the development will have on-site job training and other services to help them make the transition from welfare to work.
This more-balanced approach to subsidized housing is emerging in Washington during negotiations over a complex public housing bill. The legislation should change the mix of tenants, while still protecting the very poor families who live in places like Aliso and have nowhere else to go. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo says he’s all for greater economic integration in public housing projects but not at the risk of eliminating apartments for poor senior citizens or vulnerable children.
Cuomo is also pushing for 15,000 more Section 8 housing vouchers, the federal subsidies that allow low-income families to rent privately owned apartments, living alongside people who are paying market rate. This increase, the first in five years, would help address the urgent need for affordable housing in cities like Los Angeles at a time when old public housing projects are being razed or shrunk.
In his negotiations with Congress, Cuomo also seeks to increase the availability of low-cost federally insured mortgages for at least 17,000 more home buyers per year. Any increase in homeownership would increase the stability of neighborhoods.
Los Angeles is plagued by a chronic crisis in affordable housing, which is worsened by a dwindling number of low-rent apartments on the private market and a surge in the number of low-income renters. The Aliso Village project, combined with additional federal mortgage assistance and rental vouchers, will serve more poor and working-class families while helping erase the taint of “poor only” housing.
