As Education Secretary Margaret Spellings pointed out in the Washington Post today, Democrats, in principle, are mostly opposed to school vouchers. However, they have been for "Section 8" housing vouchers. This federal voucher system, enacted in the early 1990’s and carried out by the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, is designed to get predominantly black families out of the urban projects and into safe neighborhoods.

But in a controversial Atlantic magazine piece, Hannah Rosin explores whether the HUD program is actually leading to yet more urban danger zones. Rosin speaks with residents in Memphis who say that when residents move away from high-crime housing projects the gangs and violence move with them. Therein lies a hugely contentious assertion: no government housing program can stop poor, urban black people from being associated with crime.

Of couse, there are a number of mitigating variables, some of which Rosin goes into, and others (like the urban gentrification boom of the last 20 years) that she really doesn’t. From a federal government perspective, though, it should be noted that Section 8 has not exactly been well-executed. Someone who applies for a Section 8 voucher today may be on a waiting list until 2018. Or if they live in a certain neighborhood, they could be forcibly removed tomorrow.

It’s lame to argue HUD incompetence about a problem as fraught as urban housing. But the lack of leadership and execution at HUD at the very least furthers the frustration of tenants caught in Section 8 limbo. -MB

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