By Star Parker
Nov 21, 2005
Anyone who would like insight into why black poverty in America persists
in the pathological way it does should read a recent lead story in
National Journal called "Social Policy - The Katrina Experiment."
The article provides a useful and revealing panorama of
low-income-housing policy since its inception in the Johnson
administration, through today's thinking regarding policy options for
housing for the hundreds of thousands of Katrina evacuees who are still
unsettled.
For me, two troubling themes jump out:
First, the common denominator of low-income-housing programs over these
last 40 years is that they have been consistent failures. Yet, despite
this indisputable fact, today's social-policy gurus persist in search of
the magic government low-income-housing program, rather than
appreciating that the problem has been, and is today, government
interference in private lives.
Second, and, frankly, revolting, is how graphically clear it is that
social "scientists" view poor blacks as simple laboratory guinea pigs.
Consider, for instance, the following, regarding "mobility theory,"
which hypothesizes that the only hope for poor black neighborhoods is to
break them up and disperse folks into white or racially mixed
neighborhoods:
"By 1992, Congress was ready to test the mobility theory rigorously.
Between 1994 and 1998, housing authorities in five cities recruited
4,600 very-low-income families for Moving to Opportunity demonstrations
_ still ongoing _ intended to compare the outcomes in three groups of
families. One group received regular Section 8 government housing
vouchers, another group received more-prescriptive vouchers plus
counseling, and a control group got no vouchers at all."
Yes, indeed we are talking about human beings here. After a half-century
of this sort of thing, can you guess why inner-city blacks may have
problems?
The housing projects, started in the Johnson administration, were
initiated under the premise that poor blacks can't figure out what other
poor people seem to be able to figure out regarding going to work and
paying the rent.
The failed housing projects gave birth to Section 8 vouchers in the
Nixon administration. As the problems and failures of this social
experiment became clear, new ideas blossomed.
"Mobility theory" is today's brainstorm. Use government as a vehicle to
purge poor blacks out of the ghetto and disperse them around the country
into healthy environments and hope that the good news will rub off.
Social-science elitists are excited today because Hurricane Katrina has
become an unexpected accomplice. It did their work for them to implement
the first part of the experiment _ it purged poor blacks out of their
neighborhoods. Now they want to design government programs to do the
rest.
Here's David Brooks of The New York Times:
"Hurricane Katrina has given us an amazing chance to do something
serious about urban poverty. ... The only chance we have to break the
cycle of poverty is to integrate people who lack middle-class skills
into neighborhoods with people who possess these skills and who insist
on certain standards of behavior."
Washington, D.C., where our senators and congressmen go to work, and
where I assume Brooks has spent a good deal of time, has a poverty rate
50 percent above the national average. I guess that over recent years
Brooks never felt there was an opportunity to do "something serious"
about this poverty because no natural disaster purged these folks into
the street.
In 1996, I worked on welfare reform. This reform was driven by the
unique premise, easily grasped without a Ph.D., that the way to get
folks off welfare was to inform them that they could only be on it for a
limited time. Today, welfare rolls are half what they were in 1996.
Low-income-housing programs of all forms have failed because they are
just that _ programs. Compassion is expressed through temporary
assistance in emergencies, not in fostering dehumanized dependency.
The Katrina disaster shouldn't be used as an opportunity to grow
government and launch new social experiments.
Government assistance to evacuees should be at arm's length, and should
maximize individual choice and latitude. Provide fairly priced rental
vouchers, perhaps equal to the national average rental plus 20 percent,
redeemable anywhere, with a reasonable but clearly finite duration. Say,
one year.
If we truly want to help the poor across the board, put time limits on
Section 8 vouchers, with a goal of totally ending the program.
The social-science elitists may find it hard to believe, but poor blacks
really can figure out what they need to do when the facts are put in
front of them and the responsibility is theirs to act.
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