The Urban Institute published a report last month that attempts to examine past HUD and PIH programs to better instruct more equitable development initiatives within the future public housing industry. Titled An Equitable Strategy for Public Housing Redevelopment, this report and its authors establish that much of the current public housing stock was built before the mid-1970s in areas of concentrated poverty and is physically deteriorating. With over $70 billion in the capital needs backlog, public housing faces major redevelopment challenges, but the report argues that any new initiatives around redevelopment should be integrally tied to increasing equitable outcomes for low-income families and public housing residents.
Recommendations from the report include:
- Repealing the Faircloth Amendment to allow for increased production of public housing units.
- Providing adequate funding to maintain existing units.
- Reconsidering redevelopment models from the perspective of unit loss.
- Shifting from gathering input from to engaging tenants in plan development.
- Strengthening place-based, comprehensive community strategies to redevelopment.
- Implementing best practices for tenant relocation (and providing sufficient funding).
Click here to see the full report of An Equitable Strategy for Public Housing Redevelopment, or here for the abstract.