The President's $3 trillion budget was released on Monday to the usual fanfare, and, like most Presidential budgets was declared dead on arrival. That said, what it does lay out is where the the fights will be for more funding. One is HOPE VI.
HOPE VI, the revitailization of the oldest and worst public housing projects in the US, has been the most effective urban renewal program of the Federal government in the past two decades. It has been slow, expensive and controversial, but it has turned blights on neighborhoods into community assets that raise the value of surrounding properties. According to the President's housing budget, "Cumulative results of the HOPE VI program as of June 30, 2007 follow: 68,657 households have been relocated, 87,445 units have been demolished, 61,222 units (new and rehabilitated) have been completed, and 58,719 completed units have been occupied."
Each HOPE VI development is no longer a bleak crime-filled high rise. They are attractive, safe mixed income developments, often tied in with new schools, retail, home ownership opportunities, and community services. Though the original goal of the program was to redevelop the worst 100,000 public housing units (of the some 1.2 million in the country), it has done its job so well, despite delays and cost overuns, that it needs to be continued in order to bring the same neighborhood revitalization to small and mid-sized cities which often have one or more public housing projects in need of total redevelopment.
By the way, it is important to keep in mind that despite the need to redevelop more than the worst 100,000 units, overall some 80% of public housing units provide safe, decent and sanitary housing for families and elderly citizens, and even more would if the public housing capital budget were increased enough to fund all deferred maintainance and capital needs.
As of now, there are some $198 million available for new HOPE VI projects ($98 million carried over from FY 2007 and $100 million made available by HUD's 2008 appropriations). The President's budget calls for no new funding in FY09 and predicts that all current funds will be obligated by October 30, 2008, thus ending the program. Hopefully vigorous advocacy during the coming months can restore funding to allow this program to continue revitalizing more urban neighborhoods blighted by poorly designed and managed housing projects.
We have learned what the French have not: that concentrating the poorest families in poorly designed, built, maintained and managed projects harms not only the families and their children but the whole community as well. Redeveloping these projects into attractive mixed income developments brings a new vitality to the families, their children and the surrounding neighborhoods. Now that we know how to do this, let's not stop until every blighted development is redeveloped.
