Affordable Housing Crisis: Why The Projects Were Torn Down
Channel: These Are Our Humans
Date: 2023-01-22

The history of the housing projects in the United States and the pros and cons are explored in this short doc. We look at the results of the New deal, what happened to Section 8 housing, where are all of the housing projects today, and how it relates to the current housing crisis. 

Most of our public housing projects were built using federal money following World War II. Unfortunately the projects quite quickly became a way to separate lower income minorities from wealthy white neighborhoods. 

Why has the government spent the last 30 years tearing down buildings of their own creation? Given that we are in the heights of an affordable housing crisis, wouldn’t low cost housing, built on giant plots of land, in cities with strong economies, be the no-brainer solution to the affordable housing problem? 

Chapters:
0:00 History of Public Housing Projects
1:05 Techwood Homes The first Government Housing Project in the U.S.
2:22 Government Housing of the Mid Century
3:12 Richard Nixon Moratorium on Federal Housing Spending
4:04 Urban Renewal Programs of the Late 20th Century
5:28 Affordable Housing Crisis of the 21st Century
6:12 Crime in The Projects
9:35 Should Government Welfare be Abolished?
10:18 Contemporary Gentrification


Links & Resources: 
Drugs and Crime in Public Housing: A Three-City Analysis - https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/145329NCJRS.pdf 

Public Housing History Timeline - https://nlihc.org/resource/public-housing-history 

The Color of Law - https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten-history-of-how-our-government-segregated-america/

Los Angeles Housing Developments projects today - https://www.hacla.org/en/development-services/development/jordan-downs-redevelopment 

Jordan Downs - https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/housing-broad-museum-worker-safety/jordan-downs-watts 

Cedar Grove billion dollar project - https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-inpractice-061422.html