Public Housing Reform and Neighborhood Schools: How Local Contexts Must Matter

Abstract

claire smrekar In 1992, Congress enacted the HOPE VI program 1 to overhaul the nation's public housing policy. The reform legislation was prompted by a report commissioned by Congress that deemed two-thirds of all public housing "severely distressed" (Popkin, Katz, Cunningham, Brown, Gustafson, & Turner, 2004). The report detailed a persistent pattern of highly dense, dangerous, and dilapidated housing units situated in crime-ridden neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, often isolated from a city's more stable commercial districts. HOPE VI sig-naled a new and ambitious commitment by the federal government to improve the living environments and neighborhoods for residents in public housing. Since the landmark public housing policy was enacted in 1992, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded 230 HOPE VI grants to more than 150 cities at a cost of over $5 billion (Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2005). Consistent with the HOPE VI "new urbanism" policy imperative, high-rise buildings and tightly clustered barracks-style apartments have been replaced with attractive, lower density townhouses, sidewalks and street grids (Popkin et al., 2004). The first phase of grants targeted some of the nation's most severely impacted housing projects in an intensive effort to rehabilitate the housing stock. A new policy emerged beginning with grants made in 1996, evidenced by more and more HOPE VI projects designed for economically integrated or "mixed-income" communities (Popkin et al., 2004). These sites feature an intentional blend of units available at public housing rates (for eligible lower income residents) and units offered at market rate (for moderate-income Claire Smrekar is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University. She is the author three books, as well as numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reports. Her research focuses upon the social context of education and education policy, with specific reference to the intersection of desegregation plans and choice policy on families, schools, and neighborhoods. 41