Reagan made Section 8 Housing a version of South Africa’s Apartheid Homelands. ½ Century later: Change is coming.

Reagan's legacy: "Immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian."

These were the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, spoken on Capitol Hill at a House hearing in late 1984…

Tutu received an unprecedented standing ovation by the committee. Even Reagan's Republican allies told the South African Embassy they would reluctantly support sanctions if Pretoria did not move to end apartheid.

Reagan was not moved. Over the remainder of his presidency, at least 3,000 people would die, mostly at the hands of the South African police and military. Another 20,000, including 6,000 children, according to one estimate by a human rights group, would be arrested under "state of emergency" decrees….

Later in 1986, Reagan made his greatest demonstration yet that black bodies were "expendable." Congress had finally had enough of the carnage to vote for limited sanctions. Reagan vetoed them. Congress overrode the veto. Reagan proceded to put no muscle behind the sanctions. Mandela remained in jail and at least 2,000 political prisoners remained detained without trial.”

FROM:

Reagan's Heart of Darkness

by Derrick Z. Jackson

Published on Wednesday, June 9, 2004 by the Boston Globe

The basis of Section 8 housing is to integrate poor with middle class so that poor people are not isolated in islands of poverty. The Section 8 program was to enable low-income families to live seamlessly interspersed in a cosmopolitan manner among middle class families. Instead of living a segregated life in low-income neighborhoods and needing to travel to another area to interact with middle class people.

Chester County's Section 8 housing is concentrated in Coatesville, in part because the rent allotment per renter is too low for most of Chester County.

President Reagan trashed Section 8 housing when he halved the allotment per family to make Section 8 housing practical only in areas where property values are low. Reagan created a version of South Africa's Apartheid Homelands in the United States. 

“The most dramatic cut in domestic spending during the Reagan years was for low-income housing subsidies. Reagan appointed a housing task force dominated by politically connected developers, landlords and bankers. In 1982 the task force released a report that called for “free and deregulated” markets as an alternative to government assistance – advice Reagan followed. In his first year in office Reagan halved the budget for public housing and Section 8 to about $17.5 billion. And for the next few years he sought to eliminate federal housing assistance to the poor altogether.

In the 1980s the proportion of the eligible poor who received federal housing subsidies declined. In 1970 there were 300,000 more low-cost rental units (6.5 million) than low-income renter households (6.2 million). By 1985 the number of low-cost units had fallen to 5.6 million, and the number of low-income renter households had grown to 8.9 million, a disparity of 3.3 million units.”

FROM:

Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness inAmerica

 By Peter Dreier

ALSO SEE:

 Developer is Indicted in H.U.D. Investigation

AP

Published: July 13, 1991

The indictment stems from an inquiry begun 15 months ago by a special prosecutor into allegations that Federal grands were steered to politically connected developers during the tenure of Samuel R. Pierce Jr., who was the Housing Secretary for all eight years of the Reagan Administration 

 I believe absentee landlord's influence in Chester County Republican Party politics partly control Section 8 housing and thus control real estate values in Coatesville.

 So here in Chester County we have are three basic groups:

 1. Politically connected slumlords that want property values in Coatesville very low.

 2. Major drug dealers and their supporters among County and State public officials that draw from a pool of poor mostly young black people in Coatesville. Those poor people are held in place by public housing policy. The combination of expendable drug workers and excellent transportation links make the City of Coatesville an ideal place to run a Southeast Pennsylvania drug enterprise. 

3. People who see Coatesville as the economic, transportation and social hub of Western Chester County.

 For one half century the slumlord/drug dealer coalition has been winning.

Part of the concentration of Section 8 housing in Coatesville is the reluctance of wealthy municipalities to accept Section 8 housing.

Below are some of Coatesville City Council President Ed Simpson's comments at Coatesville City Council Meeting on April 26, 2010, concerning subsidized housing and HUD:

“It seems like everything is funneled toward certain geographic areas. And what that does is goes against, I think, everything that HUD stands for which is; to try and eliminate segregation.  But right now what you are doing by funneling into certain areas. You’re basically segregating… I think we need to jump on this.”

Listen to Ed Simpson’s comments here:

There absolutely IS discrimination in HUD housing in Chester County

Change is coming. HUD is waking up from its long sleep:

“As ProPublica documented in a series that ran late last year, the federal government has spent the last 45 years largely neglecting provisions of the Fair Housing Act that require it to take affirmative steps to eradicate housing segregation. The chief way to do that has been to cut off federal funds to communities that act in ways that maintain or increase housing segregation. But HUD never did.”

Until Now:

HUD Finally Stirs on HousingDiscrimination

"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has accused Dallas, one of the nation’s largest cities, of violating civil rights law through housing practices that discriminated against black, Latino and disabled residents."

MORE AT:
 http://www.propublica.org/article/hud-finally-stirs-on-housing-discrimination?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter