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229 chapter sheila crowley HOPE VI: What Went Wrong HOPE VI was initiated with the best of intentions, but it is a case study in how badly a government program can run amok. While HOPE VI has resulted in the removal of blighted buildings and the development of some lovely new homes, it also has resulted in the involuntary displacement of tens of thousands of poor, predominantly African American families from their homes and communities, made the housing situation for some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens even more precarious, and exacerbated the shortage of affordable homes for people in the lowest income brackets. The promise (and rhetoric) of HOPE VI as a means of improving opportunities for residents of distressed public housing never matched the reality. Many more displaced residents were promised improved housing and economic uplift than have actually received both or are ever likely to. Those who have examined HOPE VI refer to “winners and losers,” with one study concluding that “the effects have been mixed, with some former residents . . . better off . . . and . . . others at risk” and another asserting that “HOPE VI enhances only a small number of public housing residents.”1 Overall, more people who lived in public housing communities redeveloped under HOPE VI were hurt by the program than helped. Thus, the core tenet of government intervention in the lives of its citizens—“First, do no harm”—has been violated. Evaluation scholar Egon G. Guba of Indiana University asserts that public policy must be examined and understood from three perspectives: what the policy intended, how the policy was implemented, and what happened to the people whom the policy was supposed to affect.2 It is a circular, nonhierarchical process of which the written policy that outlines what policymakers seek to achieve is the beginning, not the end. Policymakers examine the results of the programs designed to implement their policies to determine how well-crafted the policies were in the first place. Actual impacts and experiences are continually fed back into the policymaking loop to improve the policies in order to better meet the needs of the intended beneficiaries. 13 Andrea Williams stands amid the rubble of the Miami public housing complex that was her home.© The Miami Herald, 2006 230 sheila crowley It is in that spirit that this critique of the HOPE VI program is offered, trusting that indeed the intended beneficiaries of HOPE VI are the residents of “distressed” public housing and not the developers, lenders, public housing officials, and politicians who are the program’s most loyal advocates. This chapter examines the implementation of the HOPE VI program from the vantage point of the intended beneficiaries and other low-income people in need of affordable homes in their communities. The thesis of the critique is that the implementation was more about the real estate than it was about the people. The chapter closes with recommendations for reform to best address the failings identified and with thoughts about the future of public housing. For Residents, Displacement and the Loss of Home The number of public housing households relocated under HOPE VI has now reached more than 72,000.3 All of those families—even the small number that have or will return to the redeveloped sites—were removed from the place that was their home. The importance of “home” to the physical and mental health of human beings cannot be overstated. Shelter is one of the most essential human needs. One’s house is where one’s life is centered and where family life is conducted. One’s house is connected to other houses, creating the structure for communal life and the organization of human society.4 The disruption of a home that occurs when a move is not freely chosen by the people who must move is one of the most serious consequences of any action that a public authority can take, and forced relocation should be approached with extreme caution. forced relocation In the United States, poor and disenfranchised people are disproportionately forced from their homes.5 Urban renewal in the United States is the story of poor people “pushed out of their neighborhoods to make room for various forms of ‘progress’ . . . no other group will allow itself to be displaced.”6 So, too, the vast majority of homes that were lost to the construction of the interstate highway system belonged to poor and black people.7 The displacement of 72,000 families from their homes by HOPE VI is...

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