The North Carolina Low Income Housing Coalition held its annual conference this week, and I was invited to discuss the 1998 public housing bill. My co-presenters on a panel were Lillie Brown, a resident of public housing in Greensboro and an incoming board member of NCLIHC, and Marcus Goodson, the executive director of the Sanford, NC Public Housing Authority. Hearing how each was interpreting the information they were receiving about changes in public housing policy was a fascinating glimpse at the process of translation of federal intent at the local level. Mr. Goodson generally expects the new law to allow for greater opportunity for innovation in the management of public housing. Ms. Brown is concerned about how uninformed residents are about the pending changes.

A debate that surfaced in the discussion was about the definition of public housing as transitional or permanent housing. In talking about programs to help families move on from public housing, Mr. Goodson commented that public housing was not intended to be a long-term place of residence. Public housing was supposed to be short-term assistance during a period of financial hardship. He cited the presence of second and third generations in public housing as evidence of program flaws. Ms. Brown responded by pointing out the basic difficulty of finding other affordable housing to move out to. She also talked about the contradictory messages that public housing residents receive. On one hand, they are told that their tenancy is temporary. At the same time, they are expected to be stakeholders in their neighborhoods and be committed to community improvement.

This fundamental issue is more complex than it first appears. One, shouldn't we distinguish between the need for housing assistance and residency in a community when we talk about help being temporary? Neighborhood stability and mixed income communities are goals for public housing. Defining public housing as transitional and potentially placing time limits is incongruent with plans to attract and retain higher income families.

Two, we have to remember that some families are able to maintain their housing only because they have financial assistance. Helping people reach a social minimum and not slip back is a basic function of the safety net.

A third point is to reflect on the legacy of the early use of federal public housing funds. In some cities in the South at least, public housing was built not to provide temporary quarters for low income people, but to maintain racially segregated neighborhoods. In Richmond, Virginia, the first public housing was built because the housing in neighborhoods where black people were allowed to live was deteriorating and the city fathers feared that they would spill out into white neighborhoods. The intent of public housing was to contain the black population, and no one considered the housing to be temporary. Richmond is not alone. See The Separate City by John Moeser and Christopher Silver (1997).