Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8)— The Unseen effects
Residential segregation and its widespread, cumulative effects on underserved and disadvantaged communities has been a focus of the United States government ever since the Civil Rights Movement. Extensive action has been taken in order to reverse the significant governmental efforts to promote residential segregation and economic inequality that occurred through de jure segregation ever since the beginning of the nation with peaks in the early to mid-1900s. No one truly understands the extent to which residential segregation was enforced through policies and laws backed by federal programs and agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The cascading effects that have enforced and built up over the decades of oppressive actions undertaken by the United States government are on such a massive scale and have such far reaching effects throughout society and the economy that it is truly impossible to completely reverse the self-perpetuating system of discrimination and inequality that has been built up on pillars of racism, segregation, separation, and cascading effects. This is especially true while our society still believes the myth of de facto segregation that different racial groups are separated through circumstances, facts, and customs instead of governmentally-enforced policies.
What government agencies and lawmakers don’t take into account is that every policy involved in housing no matter the purpose takes a specific stance on either promoting or eliminating residential segregation, and until we take as aggressive action to rid ourselves of this universal separator that disadvantages racial minority communities that are already under so much economic stress, inequality will always persist in the United States. Long-term solutions that would truly assist in reducing residential segregation in the long term are so often tossed aside and ignored for short-term solutions that seem to achieve their goals but always result in exacerbating the issue.
One of these governmental programs that requires significant reform in order to truly achieve its purpose is the Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), which is a federal government program with the goal of providing low-income households with the ability to gain decent, quality housing. The family is given a housing voucher issued normally by a Public Housing Agency (PHA), and the participants in the program are allowed to choose a suitable housing unit that meets the programs requirements and the owner of which agrees to rent under the program.
There is obviously a massive amount of information to be discussed on this federal program, and while there are some benefits to this program, there is an extensive set of disadvantages to society that are introduced through this program. Specific subsections of the Section 8 program in distinct cities have been widely criticized for their use of this program and many others to promote residential segregation instead of eliminating it. Some of these have been subject to reform after lawsuits filed by certain groups that were involved in or saw the effects of these harmful programs.
First, there is the fact that most recipients of Section 8 vouchers do not use the assistance to move into higher-quality, non-segregated neighborhoods, which would promote integration. The overwhelming majority of households, which are widely Black and Hispanic, that receive the voucher use them to either finance their own house or move into other highly-segregated neighborhoods.
Further heightening this problem is the fact that not many households actually end up receiving the assistance of the Section 8 voucher. Section 8 budgets are far too small, and the program is barely able to actually promote integration.
Government agencies such as the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other specific housing authorities in cities such as Baltimore and Dallas have been sued for using the Section 8 program and many other federal housing programs to promote segregation by forcing recipients into highly-segregated areas with low amount of economic opportunities. A common process would for these agencies would be to destroy public housing projects and disproportionately force minority residents many of which possessed Section 8 vouchers into low-income, segregated areas.
Extensive reforms are necessary to remold the Housing Choice Voucher Program in order to create a federal program that genuinely achieve the goals of promoting integration on our neighborhoods, decreasing residential segregation, and providing low-income, largely minority households with suitable economic opportunities.
