Speaking as a housing advocate, I think that rental housing is one of the greatly under-appreciated policy issues. Housing is the biggest expense that most people face (yes, bigger than health care), and it affects a lot of other issues, like transportation and education.

That said, Obama's position paper is more specific than it appears. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a very specific legislative proposal. It would use a percentage of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's business and put it into a fund to develop affordable housing targeted to extremely low income households. The amount depends somewhat on how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing, but it would amount to about $500 million to $1 billion per year.

The HOPE VI program received a lot of attention, but at the end of the day, it isn't a very significant part of the nation's housing policy. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it has funded the demolition of about 120,000 units of distressed public housing (out of about 1.3 million units). It funded the replacement of roughly a third of those units (some of which are still being built). In the end, it resulted in a net loss of public housing, although the new public housing that was built was of much better quality than what it replaced.

The line about public housing operating subsidies is also more specific than it appears. There is a formula for determining how much it would cost to operate public housing, and HUD and Congress have been providing about 3/4 of the necessary amount. Restoring that would cost roughly $1 billion per year.

It's also worth mentioning that Obama has actually done a lot of work on legislation to help homeless veterans, pretty much from the moment he entered the Senate.

I'm not a housing expert (and I haven't stayed in Holiday Inn Express either), but the Section 8 thing - while better than nothing - is deeply flawed from what I know about the program. Building owners who participate do so because they don't want to invest in maintaining or upgrading the property, but to milk the income before the property is condemned (which often takes WAY to long to occur).

Concentrating low income folks in a building, neighborhood or area is flat out a bad idea with major impacts on public transportation, education, segregation, drug issues, crime, etc.

I'd favor a program that says that any federal involvement in loans, redevelopment activity, or whatever should require a percentage of units be constructed and permanently maintained through the life of the property (sometimes these redevelopment-linked actions expire after some number of years currently).

Mixed incomes and mixed neighborhoods are desirable goals, and if US money or guarantees are involved, we have a right to insist on social objectives be achieved.

Obama has been deeply involved in Illinois politics during a period when the city of Chicago has not only allowed public housing to decay further but has also demolished thousands of units of public housing without in any way adequately providing for those who have been driven out by this "ethnic cleansing" Chicago. What does Mr. Progressive think about that? What has he done about it?

"Building owners who participate do so because they don't want to invest in maintaining or upgrading the property, but to milk the income before the property is condemned (which often takes WAY to long to occur)."

Jim would it surprise you to learn the majority of people don't live in NY, DC, and the couple other large cities that might have a slight bit of the problem you blanket the whole program with?

It's obvious you have never participated in a section 8 program. Personally I would never rent through section 8 because I don't know a single person that didn't get screwed. They might find a good tenant now and then that takes care of the place for 3-4 years but in the end the house is ALWAYS trashed. Not coat of paint and new carpet but holes in doors and walls, animal piss soaked to the sub floor. They always leave at least 1 dumpster full of trash. Any slight profit you can make on a monthly basis is spent 10 times over rehabing. These are high rise ghetto apartments they where nice single family homes or town homes. It's a lesson I have seen numerous friends learn, they fall for the temptation of governemnt paid rent till they learn it comes with a huge price.

On paper it is a great program, in reality you can't afford to rent nice homes cause they will be destroyed. Then again your not concerned about reality just what sounds good on paper.

Oh, I hear you, Jim (and I'm no expert either) - it's just that in my experience, subsidized housing complexes (prettified Hope VI ones included) are even worse. The motivation behind public housing reform shouldn't simply be to scatter poor people so thinly that they can't make trouble. Rather it should be to provide affordable housing close to service sector jobs, and to do so in a way that helps bring new families and neighborhoods into the middle class. Section 8 has its problems, but at it has the right orientation to achieve these goals: it is focused on the people who need affordable housing, rather than on the buildings themselves.

Consider a program oriented the other way such as, say, a planned neighborhood with some number of "permanently affordable" units. Any housing built to be "permanently affordable" will have a serious structural problem: the most successful residents will be forced to leave due to income requirements. And they probably won't be able to jump straight to a non-affordable unit in the neighborhood, because otherwise what would be the point of the affordable units to begin with? So strivers and entrepreneurs, rather than staying and investing in their community, would get pushed out, draining the community of talent and resources. What's left is a neighborhood without a middle class, structurally unable to stabilize, cohere, and improve. You can see this happening in both poor and gentrifying urban neighborhoods all over the country.

Rent subsidies, on the other hand, can simply be phased out for families whose income rises; and moreover, such programs allow the affordable housing supply to track job growth without the lag time of government planning and construction (not to mention nimbyism).

I should add that such a proposal - to gradually replace "The Projects" with a well-managed rent subsidy program - would also make political sense. Framed correctly, it sounds a hell of a lot like welfare reform, only better.

(I'm just echoing Jacobs's argument here. If there's a plausible and concrete alternative proposal out there, I'd love love love to hear more about it. It has to be better than what we're doing now.)

Come on people . . . Senator Obama is a Progressive with unprecedented experience in poor communities. . . When he has the power of the Presidency he will do the right thing! . . . There is no need for him to talk much about it now and just give the haters more ammo for their attack ads. . . If you do not trust Senator Obama on this issue you are simply stupid!

Consider a program oriented the other way such as, say, a planned neighborhood with some number of "permanently affordable" units.

Ummm....liberals passed this type of federal housing in the past and it was, expected, a miserable failure. The unintended consequence was the crime that it bred in "the projects". So, now we have Sec 8 where the poor are mainstreamed and, again, the left whines and complains. It's really a great program.
I might add that when you consider the 'poor' in the US, they are rich by world standards.

In this thread everyone starts by saying they aren't housing experts. They then post their uninformed opinions or snark filled self serving jabs.

Everyone except the first commenter. Who mentions he's a housing advocate, and then points out how much more specific and good the proposals actually are. Luckily all the subsequent commentators don't let this stop them from spouting.

Blogs have such a high level of discourse.

Consider a program oriented the other way such as, say, a planned neighborhood with some number of "permanently affordable" units.

Ummm....liberals passed this type of federal housing in the past and it was, expected, a miserable failure.

El Viajero, that's wrong on a number of levels. First of all, modern HOPE VI revitalization projects do contain a number of permanently affordable units mixed with market rate and partially subsidized units, and usually some units that can eventually be purchased. Hence HOPE VI is described as creating "mixed-income communities", which includes permanently affordable housing units. Of course, if you'd spent 5 seconds researching the issue before spouting off your claptrap, you might have avoided looking like an ignoramus.

Your second mistake is in thinking that public housing is an unequivocal failure. Of course there have been notorious public housing projects -- for instance the old Cabrini project in Chicago -- but there are also projects all over the country that have been operating fine and continue to provide some of the only units of housing that are affordable to the lowest income Americans. Preserving those public housing projects is much better than the alternative offered by Reagan and Gingrich republicans, where we defund affordable housing and encourage the shift from public and subisidized housing to the most affordable housing of all: the sidewalk.

The first commenter, Norm, should be seconded. Establishing the national housing trust is indeed a high priority for getting dedicated funds for affordable housing.

HOPE VI is funded irregularly. HOPE VI, as administered, also leads to a net decrease in affordable units. And tax-credit housing doesn't do much for the lowest income Americans.

Obama's statement addresses the dire shortage and ever-shrinking stock of affordable housing. Along with foreclosures, these are the top two housing problems in the country and addressing them both simultaneously is the only sensible way to do it. We need to stabilize neighborhoods by stopping foreclosures AND increase the stock of affordable housing, or we're going to continue to see declines from the lower middle class back down into poverty, especially for racial minorities.

Obama is nowhere near as good as Edwards is on this issue, but at least he's hitting the top priorities.

I've worked on affordable housing issues in community development (in a volunteer capacity and as a board member) for a lot of years.
My father owned Section 8 housing. He offered it to tenants whose luck went bad--factory layoffs, stuff like that.

Nate is just wrong to say "Personally I would never rent through section 8 because I don't know a single person that didn't get screwed. They might find a good tenant now and then that takes care of the place for 3-4 years but in the end the house is ALWAYS trashed."

Section 8 property gets trashed when landlords don't vette tenants or inspect the property. I see it on a regular basis. Landlords who get the reputation for screening tenants have far fewer problems. There are Section 8 properties in my area that are very well kept up and some that I expect to collapse on the tenants any day now.

Remember, bad tenants are not limited to Section 8. Britney Spears was just called out for trashing a $35,000 a month rental that was used as a party house.

The downside is that Section 8 vouchers do not take you far from rundown neighborhoods, simply because housing in better areas can attract market rate tenants. Not many landlords are trying to avoid increased profits.

To Jim of Portland:

There basically are two Section 8 programs: an older project-based program in which project owners get subsidies to house low income tenants. Then there's a second rental voucher program which provides a portable subsidy to families.

Both have a large number of elderly and disabled persons who can't afford other types of housing along with families.