The government calls it “urban renewal”; it is really “urban removal”. Low-income people are removed from affordable housing so that corporations can increase rents, mortgages and their profits. Public housing is no longer “public”, it is privatized - turned over to private developers & “fat cats” - to better serve the profit interests of corporations & capital while disregarding human needs & human rights. It is happening in many areas such as health care - with the closing of DC General, education, energy, and the rise of the prison industrial complex. This is all part of the big picture in the age of corporate globalization and neo-liberal policies.

In 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Techwood homes, the country’s 1^st public housing project in Atlanta, GA, as part of the New Deal social contract.

White working & middle class families moved into Techwood, displacing 1,400 poor families - 1,000 white families & 400 “black” families - in the process.

By the 1970s-80s, 95% of the residents were low-income “black” families - mostly females & their children - as the “welfare state” expanded during the Civil Rights & “war on poverty” era.

Techwood was demolished in 1995-6 to build Olympic Park. The government promised to move former residents back into economically diverse public housing - but it never happened.

Section 8 was established in 1974 by the Housing and Community Development Act - part of the “war on poverty”. It was based on 20-year contracts between housing & apartment owners and the federal government - with many of these ending by 2006. Section 8 allows low-income families, who meet certain criteria, to receive housing payment assistance. Eligible families pay a maximum 30% of their income towards rent, and HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development provides the rest up to a certain maximum rent.

Section 8 is not an entitlement program. It is not available to all the families who need & are eligible for it. It is funded by the budget process & if need is greater than funding, low-income folks do not get Section 8, but go on very long Section 8 waiting lists. In 1983, the Section 8 voucher was introduced. The government said it would let renters “have greater freedom of choice to select housing where they want to live within a standard rent range”. Vouchers do not guarantee there will be landlords who will accept the voucher as payment for rent - so having a Section 8 voucher does not mean you have Section 8 housing!

Section 8 provided affordable housing to low-income people -many of minority groups- for a brief time, 1974 to today, but never for all the people who needed it. The program, a response to the demands of the Civil Rights & anti-poverty movement, lasted only as long the government & corporations found it useful & profitable. Today, Section 8 is ending and 1.3 million units of federally subsidized housing will be lost by 2006. The real beneficiaries of Section 8 are the developers & “fat cats” who own the properties rented to low-income residents. The government is not working in the interests of low-income people who are expendable in today’s electronic global economy & removable from affordable housing when a greater profit can be made. Public housing policy for low-income people was not a permanent solution - it was nothing but a band-aid.