When the Truth Collides with Libertarian Fantasy: Attack on Federal Housing Programs Is Incorrect and Dangerous
With a penchant for equating criminal activity with the participants of various anti-poverty programs, it’s not surprising James Bovard recently took aim at one of the most important federally-assisted housing programs—the Section 8 “Housing Choice Voucher” program. Bovard’s August 17, 2011 Wall Street Journal piece “Raising Hell in Subsidized Housing” blames the Section 8 housing subsidy program for increased crime, allowing criminal-minded Section 8 tenants to stave off evictions by falsifying claims of domestic violence, and, oh yes, argues that the Obama Administration is responsible for the alleged failings of this more-than-40-year-old, Republican-created program.
Bovard’s blaming of Housing Choice Voucher holders for the rise in crime in their communities is not unlike Hanna Rosin’s widely discredited 2008 American Murder Mystery piece in the Atlantic Monthly. Like Bovard, Rosin’s claim of a link between crime and voucher participants made dangerous assumptions and stereotypes about program participants. Both writers also conveniently avoided reviewing empirical research to support their claims of a Section 8 to crime connection. Indeed, a new study commissioned by HUD found that Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers do not bring crime when they move to a new community.
In reality, the Section 8 housing subsidy programs provides 2 million low-income Americans with a chance to afford their housing, find new opportunities, and escape poverty. Rigorous admission screening practices and lease compliance laws make participants some of the most scrutinized tenants in the country.
In this era of debt ceilings and super committees, Bovard’s rant might help rally budget hawks to push for the end to this program. Even without Bovard’s allegations gaining traction, the federal assisted housing programs are part of a package of discretionary spending programs that could face draconian budget cuts totaling $1.2 trillion beginning in 2013 should the super committee fail to reach agreement. With cuts that significant, low-income Americans who rely upon Section 8 programs to make their housing affordable could actually lose their housing subsidies. These households would then join the millions of families across the country who are considered “housing burdened”—paying up to 100% of their income towards rent, and being forced to choose between utilities, food, transportation, and medicine in order to stay housed. Worse still, they would join the ranks of the homeless. So that’s the real danger here—not some mob of people with Section 8 subsidies wreaking havoc on a community—but pushing law-biding low-income Americans into even deeper poverty.
