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Making Public Housing Work
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16296 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1989 |
3,217 Words |
| Author
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Rita McWilliams
Rita McWilliams, formerly a national reporter for the
Washington Times, is a free-lance writer based in Washington,
D.C. |
Lena Jackson, a black single parent living in one of America's poorest inner cities, usually does not pay much attention to presidential appointments. But when President-elect George Bush selected Jack Kemp as secretary for housing and urban development, she cheered.
Thanks to Kemp's efforts in Congress, Jackson and tenants of the nation's public housing have been given a leg up on a struggle that has pitted housing bureaucrats against many of the nation's poorest citizens. Legislation that Kemp authored gives Jackson and the 2.5 million others who live in public housing projects the right to kick out the bureaucrats and take charge of their own housing complexes. And tenants in 14 of the nation's worst projects have done what the guidance of enlightened public servants had been unable to accomplish--turned drug infested war zones into decent places to raise a family.
Even before Kemp's legislation became law, Jackson and other tenants had wrested control of Lakeview Terrace, the Cleveland public housing complex where she lives. Kemp legislation, signed into law by former President Reagan in early 1988, ensures residents of public housing the right to manage their own communities, as well as begins the allocation of some 50 grants of $100,000 to help other groups of tenants get similar programs off the ground.
Why would the Lena Jacksons of America want to manage the nation's public housing? Public housing projects have become havens for drug dealers, thieves, and rapists. The units are run down, their halls covered with graffiti. Many of the residents ignore the basics of neighborliness, throwing garbage out windows and using stairwells
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