November 2003

Public Housing HOPE VI: Resident Issues and Changes in Neighborhoods Surrounding Grant Sites

The public housing program began in the late 1930s and 1940s as a means to provide temporary housing for the working poor. By the 1960s and 1970s, public housing had become the housing of last resort. Over time, some of the nation's public housing became old and deteriorated, leaving residents to live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. In 1989, Congress formed the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing (the Commission) and tasked it with proposing a national action plan to eradicate severely distressed public housing by the year 2000. In 1992, the Commission reported that approximately 86,000, or 6 percent, of the nation's public housing units were severely distressed characterized by physical deterioration and uninhabitable living conditions; high levels of poverty; inadequate and fragmented services; institutional abandonment; and location in neighborhoods often as blighted as the sites themselves. Therefore, the Commission recommended increased funding for support services to residents of severely distressed public housing, resident participation in revitalization efforts, and revitalization consistent with any occurring in surrounding neighborhoods.