REFRAMING THE "DESERVING" TENANT: THE ABOLITION OF A POLICED PUBLIC HOUSING.

AuthorCosta, Erica V. Rodarte

INTRODUCTION

In 2020, the effects of a "triple pandemic" highlighted centuries-old economic injustices that disproportionately burden communities of color. (1) At the forefront of these issues was access to housing for Black and Latinx communities--two groups that are already the most rent-burdened communities in the nation. (2) The global nature of the pandemic required rapid responses in the form of eviction moratoriums and, later, emergency rental assistance. (3) The former approach ensured that tenants would have a place to live for a few more months; the latter appeased landlords. Under the right political conditions, what may have seemed impossible before 2020--a nationwide recognition of the state of emergency in our housing assistancebecame a temporary reality. While these responses addressed the immediate needs of a desperate population, the plight of many others has gone unaddressed for decades. We have yet to fully address the needs of lowincome, Black and Latinx residents who have been systematically forced to depend on federal housing assistance, and who are often subjected to excessive policing within their own communities.

New Deal-era public housing projects vastly transformed the way the United States houses families and individuals. The first approach to federal public housing, spearheaded as part of the Housing Act of 1937, was intended to create jobs and empty slums, all while supporting a white middle class "submerged" by the Great Depression. (4) Since then, the federal governmentthrough both funding and underfunding of housing initiatives--transformed the construction of public housing or outsourcing of federal housing assistance, including who "deserves" to be housed, and the type of housing they deserve. (5) Communities of color were accepted, no longer limited to the few public housing units they had been admitted to during and prior to the war, only after the federal government had an infrastructure to support white families' independence and homeownership. From that time on, public housing became a stigma, a segregated ghetto, and a community deserving of state surveillance and policing.

Policing took the form of police forces physically present in public housing projects as a way to crack down on the failed war on drugs. (6) It also manifested in the strict regulation of the lives of the few residents "deserving" and eligible to receive assistance. (7) A more formal embodiment of policing arose through the "One Strike, and You're Out" federal policy which dictated that any run-ins with police would result in eviction from public housing. (8) As President Clinton put it, "If you break the law, you no longer have a home in public housing." (9)

In this Comment, I delineate the resounding effect that One Strike policies have in creating households that are labeled as "hard to house" because of their criminal histories. Additionally, One Strike policies contribute to and legitimize a carceral state that continues to punish and incarcerate communities of color and, afterwards, leaves them branded with criminal histories that exclude them from receiving one of the most basic human necessities: a place to live.

I propose, as a starting point, abolishing one-strike policies, defunding police forces that continue to antagonize communities of color living in public housing, and correcting a power imbalance between public housing tenants and public housing authorities through a right to counsel. Yet, these proposals operate only by continuing to advance a system of housing which we might consider abolishing altogether. The government's history of racial policing and its tendency to encourage policed communities for Black and Latinx families demand rethinking our federal housing assistance model as part of the larger abolitionist conversation.

In Part I, I provide an overview of how our federal public housing has transformed around racialized and classist notions of who constitutes a "deserving" tenant. This grounding is important to understand public housing and federal housing assistance more broadly as a state-sanctioned surveillance mechanism used to police communities of color. Moreover, understanding how the "deserving" tenant has transformed highlights the inadequate response to communities of color's housing needs--a stark contrast to the government's homeownership efforts targeted at building generational wealth for white communities. In Part II, I introduce the One-Strike rule, describe how public housing authorities can continue to interpret it, and analyze the effect this has on residents with criminal histories through a case study of the Philadelphia Housing Authority's eviction cases between

(2010) and 2020. While federal guidance during the Obama Administration weakened the mandatory aspects of One Strike, local housing authorities continue to have broad discretionary authority in implementing the rule against residents receiving housing assistance.

In Part III, I argue for the abolition of policed public housing. My approach is twofold--as Angela Davis describes the abolitionist framework--not just a "negative process of tearing down, but it is also about building up, about creating new institutions." (10) Any efforts to correct the disparities in access to housing must address the generations of racial inequality that shaped our current system. (11) I propose policies that will facilitate the dismantling of the current state of policing in public housing, including reining in public housing authorities' discretionary authority when it comes to One Strike, defunding police forces that antagonize public housing residents in their own communities, and leveling the power imbalance when unrepresented public housing tenants face eviction. Furthermore, I argue that our government's history of racially targeted policing should push us to rethink our housing assistance model--which is replete with "strings attached" based on perceptions of tenant deservingness--as it continues to exclude a large portion of Black and Latinx people in need of housing assistance. If we can learn anything from our pandemic responses, it should be that low- and middle-income families can benefit from direct cash assistance. (12) Moreover, the call to abolish institutions that contribute to our carceral state should incorporate a conversation about reintegrating individuals already affected by the carceral state into social and funding programs. Such a reframing of who is a "deserving" tenant under our federal housing assistance can also have profound consequences for other groups, including immigrant communities who are still not recognized as "deserving" of housing justice.

  1. OVERVIEW OF FEDERAL HOUSING ASSISTANCE: FRAMING THE "DESERVING" TENANT

    Defining the "deserving" tenant impacts not only who benefits from housing assistance, but the type of housing assistance a group "deserves." (13) In this Part, I provide the historical and policy background of how federal housing assistance evolved around racial and class lines. On the one hand, the racist narrative recounted that Black low-income families deserved the poor quality of the assistance they received, including the lack of options to move out of public housing and the stigma attached to receiving Section 8 assistance. On the other hand, Black low-income families, presumed to be criminals, are policed and surveilled to make sure only "good" or crime-free citizens receive housing assistance. These increased policing efforts are purportedly on the behalf of Black low-income communities' safety--a pervasive justification for the policing and intrusion of their everyday lives.

    1. The Founding of Public Housing for the White, Working Class

      The Housing Act of 1937 (1937 Act) marked the beginning of federal public housing programs. (14) Legislators predicated the 1937 Act on two growing issues amidst the Great Depression: unemployment and a "shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary" housing options. (15) Legislators saw the two issues as inextricably linked--during the 1930s, about 13 million Americans were unemployed and were either unhoused or living in crowded slums. (16) Additionally, although legislators recognized a need for government interference, they purposefully limited the government's role so as to not compete with the private housing industry (17) Thus, existing public works programs justified the 1937 Act's housing assistance, administered by the newly recognized public housing authorities (PHAs). (18)

      While the nation's target seemed to be housing all families of low income, federal policies and practices explicitly broadcasted that "deserving" tenants were white, working class families, sometimes at the expense of displacing

      Black families. (19) For example, the development of Techwood Homes, the first federal public housing project, resulted in the eviction of hundreds of Black families and transformed a previously poor, Black neighborhood into a "604unit, whites-only neighborhood." (20) The displacement and eviction of Black families predicated on the "preservation" of segregated communities was replicated nationwide, including in Austin, Chicago, and Atlanta. (21) This pushed Black families to higher population densities, effectively creating the slums which the 1937 Act was purposed to eliminate. (22)

      Not only did public housing legislation bypass Black Americans, but the "poorest of the poor were often excluded from public housing" altogether. (23) Like many pieces of New Deal legislation, the creation of public housing was intended for the middle- or working-class families. (24) Families eligible for public housing had incomes below the poverty line, but they were far from the poorest in the country based on income. (25) Moreover, public housing rents were still too high for families who had been living in slums to afford. (26) Through this iteration of public housing, "housing authorities targeted the so-called 'worthy...

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