Section 8 leaves poor unmoved
Efforts to scatter poverty meet unplanned hurdle
When the nation’s massive public housing projects were built in the 1950s and 1960s, they were lauded as an answer to the problems of providing adequate shelter to the poor.
It didn’t take long for the projects to become islands of poverty, beset by crime and hopelessness.
Enter Section 8, now known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, a federal program started on a pilot basis in the 1970s as a way to end the concentrations of poverty.
If people living in the projects were bedeviled by crime, deteriorating conditions, bad schools, few resources and urban blight, a voucher that would let them escape to neighborhoods with less crime and fewer problems might also help them escape poverty altogether. Those with vouchers would pay 30 percent of their income toward rent, the government would pay the rest.
“There was a general feeling that there was a contagion effect,” said Ron Haskins, a poverty expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. “The idea was to disperse low-income families.”
Thirty years later – despite the chance to live anywhere in the city – a map of where Section 8 vouchers are being used in Fort Wayne shows they are largely concentrated on the southeast side.
Concentrated poverty not only causes problems such as deteriorating housing, falling property values and higher crime rates, but it also misses opportunities that benefit both the poor and the entire community. In neighborhoods with mixed incomes, poor people have better chances to stop being poor.
The poor who move from high-poverty neighborhoods to those with little poverty report a much higher quality of life, said George Galster, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and an expert in neighborhood dynamics. “There’s less stress, less exposure to violence, they’re more likely to finish high school, more likely to go to college, less likely to be convicted of a crime and all the other predictable outcomes you would expect.”
The one bit of comfort Fort Wayne can take is that it is hardly alone in having its poor concentrated in one area of town, despite decades of effort.
“That has been the finding all over the country,” Haskins said.
Pockets of poverty
The map paints a disturbing picture for Heather Presley, deputy director of economic development for housing for the city of Fort Wayne.
“We are the most affordable housing market in the nation for a city of our size,” Presley said. “Someone who earns 50 to 60 percent of the median income can pretty much live anywhere in the city. If voucher holders are concentrated on the southeast side, that means they’re constricted in their ability to choose where to live.”
One major factor limiting the program’s success nationwide is that landlords can choose not to accept Section 8 vouchers, Wayne State’s Galster said.
“In virtually all American states, with the exception of Massachusetts, the landlord can legally choose not to participate in Section 8, no questions asked,” he said. “That’s the downfall of the program right now.”
That also leads to situations like the one in Fort Wayne – areas with weak rental markets recruit Section 8 tenants because they provide a steady rental income. Fort Wayne’s southeast side is glutted with rental homes and not enough renters, making voucher holders a prize catch.
“In those situations, it’s not that the poor want to cluster together but that they’re actively sought,” Galster said. “(Landlords) are not doing social policy, they’re doing profit maximization.”
And despite the southeast side’s many problems, renting there offers something no apartment complex in a more suburban neighborhood can offer, said Maynard Scales, executive director of the Fort Wayne Housing Authority, which runs the Section 8 voucher program in Fort Wayne.
“We’ve discovered that if given a choice between an apartment and a single-family rental house, they tend to want to live in the single-family unit, and there’s more of those available southeast and southwest,” Scales said. “That’s the preference for many families.”
Single-family homes for rent in other areas tend to be out of the price range available to voucher holders, he said, limiting their choices.
There are other factors at work, too.
“People – not just poor people, but people in general – do not necessarily like to move,” said the Brookings Institution’s Haskins. “Think of what it takes to move out of a neighborhood: Just moving is a huge undertaking, and think of all you’re leaving behind and now you’re entering strange territory.”
Minority voucher holders might be reluctant to move into white neighborhoods where they don’t know whether they’ll feel welcome. They’ll have to find a new grocery store, a new bank, a different park and maybe a new church. All of those things make it much easier to stay in the familiar neighborhood with its comfortable routines, he said.
Scales said his agency sees that often when counseling voucher holders.
“People are a little leery; they say, ‘I’ve lived here all my life,’ ” he said.
One person who made the leap is Jim Luker.
Luker, 47, had been living in an apartment downtown. But after a break-in, he used his Section 8 voucher to move to a complex on Reed Road. Not only are there a lot more grass and trees, but it was also closer to classes at Brown Mackie College, near a bus line, and he no longer has to deal with loud upstairs neighbors.
“I haven’t had any problems since,” Luker said.
If Luker is the exception, other cities have also had a major motivator to move the poor out of the inner city that Fort Wayne does not: the wrecking ball.
Cities across the country have been tearing down their massive public housing projects, forcing voucher holders to use them in other neighborhoods. But Fort Wayne has never had massive public housing projects, and the few public housing complexes it does have are model facilities, Scales said, not candidates for demolition.
Solving the problem
Wayne State’s Galster said one way to improve the program is to require landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers if renters want to use them.
But there’s a catch. Studies have found that in many cases, voucher holders tend to re-concentrate, moving into neighborhoods either similar to or not so different from the one they left. That removes one pocket of poverty but creates new ones. And Galster’s studies have shown that when the number of poor in a neighborhood tops 15 percent or 20 percent, all the same old problems reappear.
“If I were in charge of the voucher program, all landlords would have to participate if they are asked by a tenant, and second, I would require the local housing authority to help the tenants find locations in low-poverty neighborhoods, and third, I would require voucher holders to find a dwelling in a neighborhood with less than 10 percent poverty,” Galster said. “It’s a stick to the landlord and a stick to the tenant – we’re not going to let that dynamic happen.”
But Galster is not in charge of the voucher program, and no one expects to see his rules enacted anytime soon, especially because some criticize his studies as attempts to keep the poor out of wealthy neighborhoods. Galster said those critics skip over the parts of his studies that show that when their numbers are less than 10 percent, the poor have no detrimental effect on a neighborhood.
Scales said that regardless of what people would like the system to be, he has made de-concentrating poverty a focus for his agency since he took over in January 2005.
“We cannot tell them where to lease at or where not to lease. That’s steering, and steering is illegal,” Scales said. “But we give them ‘areas of opportunity.’ We’re stretching and making every effort to make sure they have access to all the rental possibilities that’s available.”
When a client receives a voucher, Scales said, the client is briefed on how the program works. And during that briefing, the agency does everything but steer the client to neighborhoods that might improve his or her life.
“In the briefing, we say, ‘You can choose wherever you want, however, did you consider neighborhoods close to the schools your kids go to? Ones that are close to your job?’ … We’re saying that here, jobs, bus lines, schools and shopping are close by,” Scales said. “Are we influencing them? Yes, we are. Are we steering them? No, we are not.”
Scales said it is well known that the neighborhood in which children grow up can strongly influence where they end up in life, and the agency makes sure voucher holders understand that.
“Change is uncomfortable, we understand that,” he said. “But the bottom line is, if I make this change, will it make my children’s life better? … All we’re saying is give it a look.”
To make it easier, the agency, along with several partners, has developed a Web site, www.fortwaynehousingnow.org, that brings together voucher holders and landlords who accept them. Prospective tenants can easily see on a map where the units are located, and with a click of the mouse can bring up photos and rental information. Scales said the site can easily be used to see where a rental unit is in relation to bus lines or social services. It’s free for both landlords and renters.
A computer with the site loaded will be available in each briefing room used for Section 8 clients, he said.
“You can sit in real time and look at rental possibilities and not have to spend gas money driving around,” Scales said.
Scales said though the map of where voucher holders are renting still shows a concentration on the southeast side, a careful examination will show that they are spread through the city wherever there are a lot of rentals. And the map has improved.
“It has gotten better. It’s not dramatic, but every year more and more,” Scales said. “Is it dramatic? It will be.”
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