About Public housing

Public housing was created in order to provide quality and secure rental home for qualified low-income families, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities. Public housing comes in a variety of sizes and types, ranging from single, sparsely distributed units to large apartments. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides federal assistance to local public housing agencies that supervise and manage the housing program for low-income individuals at reasonable rates. The Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV) is a state housing aid program controlled by HUD and operated locally by Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) such as Pensacola Housing in Florida (Stoloff, 2004). The HCV program is commonly referred to as the Section 8 program.  The Section 8 Homeownership Program allows low-income households to own their own houses. Community centered organizations have the opportunity to take part in the formulation and execution of the program, customizing it to meet the requirements of the local residents. Section 8 Homeownership program over time has accorded houses to poor residents who would not have achieved through other means. This program has been in operations since 1987. In 2001, it was enlarged to permit the utilization of Section 8 voucher. This new Housing Choice Voucher Program - Homeownership Option offers the applicants with assets required to own homes. Since the rental assistance is offered on behalf of the family, members can find and rent private homes such as family homes, townhouse or apartments. They have liberty to selects any housing as long as it meets the requirements of the program and is not constrained to houses situated in subsidized housing plans.
The Section 8 rental vouchers, as well as rental certificate programs, allow the family to choose what they desire. When they find a house the like, the public housing agencies examine the place and analyze it before giving out the housing assistance contract with the owner. The key difference is ways in which the subsidy is computed. in the rental certificate program, the rent for a certain house normally might not be above the maximum rent agreed on by PHA, in regards to HUD standard established in a county and municipal area. A majority of rental certificate families ought to lease a unit where the whole rent inclusive of utilities is below the maximum stipulated rent. The participant pays thirty percent of its monthly income to rent and services. PHA determines a payment guideline for its area. The payment guideline is employed when calculating the amount of assistance, one shall be given, however, and it has no effect on the rent amount. A family might choose a unit that is above or below the payment guideline. They pay 30% more or less depending on what they choose. Rent voucher has advantageous as it allows the family to have a wider selection of housing opportunities.
Eligibility for Section 8 voucher programs is decided upon by the public housing agencies depending on the annual gross income, family size and is only for US nations and some specific categories of non-nationals with appropriate immigration status. Again the rates vary from one place to another. The PHAs calculate their figures depending on the living standards of that region. Generally, the income of the family might be beyond 50% of the median income for the county which they choose to reside in. The program rules state that the PHA ought to utilize the same waiting list for fairness. If a family in at the top of the risk it is offered the first form of assistance that is available. If they do no want that kind of assistance, they stay in the list until another kind of assistance avails itself. If they reject all offers, then they can be eliminated from the list and allow others the opportunity. Some PHAs allow families to change to other types of assistance when they request, however, a majority do not allow.
Rational choice theory is the view that individuals conduct themselves the way they do since they think that carrying out their chosen acts has more advantages than costs. Individuals make rational decisions based on their objectives and those decisions govern their conduct (Scott, 2000). Explaining public welfare housing using this is that people living in the abject poverty may not have much say in their lives. They do not have the financial capability to make some of the decisions they would wish to. When they choose to take part in public housing, this decision is very beneficial to them. Public housing, like welfare, is frequently condemned for allowing dependency amongst the residents.
Since the public housing project subsidizes the participants irrespective of their work effect, the project is seen as not providing strict motivations or requiring the participants to seek jobs. In contrast by having the residents pay a certain percentage of their wages in the rent, they are fined by raising their wages. Public housing beneficiaries are often viewed as not likely to improve their endeavors on enhancing or increasing their income or shifting to private housing. They seem comfortable where they are as they can afford a subsidized home (Massey & Kanaiaupuni, 1993). Critics argue that this program encourages the culture of destitution amongst the people by offering discouragements for earning a lot and not forcing them to embark on effort to advance their situation. Furthermore, the American philosophy fosters self-reliance on those who are physically fit grown-ups and hence long-haul reliance on any form of assistance counters such notion.
Whereas momentary incidents of bad luck requiring assistance when a person is adjusting heir lives are not criticized, long haul poverty is assumed to be a sign of flaws in a person and as a result, assistance is offered reluctantly in such instances. Minimizing dependency in public welfare housing is a key issue among the policy makers. Even though there is not much in the way of new public housing, 21% of the country is assisted housing stock is composed of public housing, and it is most probable to stay as a significant part of any approach to offer housing to low-income families (Massey & Kanaiaupuni, 1993).
The overall view that public assistance ought to be short-term was a key drive in the wake of welfare reforms and currently serves to generate numerous recommendations devised to encourage self-adequacy amongst the public housing beneficiaries. Some of the examples are the obligatory community service by participants; the Family Self-Sufficiency program which entails cut-off dates of the duration of residence and permitting them to pay a constant rent instead of 30% of the earnings (Weicher, 1980).Their transformations being taken into accounts for public housing have impacted on reliance. Changing the admission rules to catch the interest of the middle-class persons might revolutionize the nature of reliance on these programs.
The Jobs-Plus program, if executed, furthermore, has an ability to impacts the aspects of public housing residency if it can raise the earnings of tenants and such earnings means self-reliance. Apprehensions about reliance on public housing and the impacts of reliance for other recommended changes of public housing make data on the real facets of public housing residency particularly applicable. An example if HUD wants to make the public housing into an intermediary stop, and understanding which participants have a tendency of being dependent enable the resources to be targeted well (Freeman, 1998). Sadly there is minimal study into such efforts
Explaining this issue of dependency, Rational choice models has emphasis on economic options availed to these individuals. The theory stress that economic opportunities present and the effect on personal attributes, educations, and familiarity on earning capabilities. The rational choice models make the critical supposition that people are rational players who conduct themselves in ways to take full advantage of their economic welfare. At the personal level, the rational choice theory contends that a person's income is determined by his or her productivity. Therefore, highly productive employees receive a higher salary than less productive ones. Productivity, consecutively, is reliant on a person's human capital or knowledge, skills, a state of wellbeing, schooling, and knowledge they have in the job market (Freeman, 1998). The poor are different from the middle class because of the difference in human capital. The employment available to the people with minimal human capital have less income. Therefore persons with less human capital are in abject poverty and tend to stay in public housing for an extended period
Housing market inequity also correspond to one more structural aspect of the housing market that might have an impact on the aspects of public housing residency, if for black Americans and, to a small degree, Hispanics. An investigation by the Urban Institute showed that black Americans and Hispanics are likely to encounter prejudice in their house search. Furthermore, residential isolation, is linked to less movement out of underprivileged neighborhoods for black Americans. As a result, the prospective for housing discrimination to constrain the choices of black Americans and Hispanics implies they might be more vulnerable to experiencing long periods of public housing habitation.
The rational choice model can be taken a step further by contending that absence of well-paying employments shall keep people in poverty but also in some ethnically and economically segregated neighborhoods, cultural practices shall change, creating a state for the establishment of behaviors like public housing reliance. The decline of manufacturing job opportunities in the central cities has had adverse impact on the urban poor as such employments normally as a stepping stone to a better financial state. Overall, rational choice models of dependency claim that persons who may not afford private market housing due to their low wages shall have a dependency on public housing (Weicher, 1980). This varies from the cultural elucidations of dependency that states that particular childhood experiences shall result in a penchant for residing in public housing.
Rational choice theory emphasizes that economic factors determine the behavior of a person. People adapt automatically to changes in the society; however, there is also the need to improve their living conditions and enhance their lives by trying to improve their human capital. This can be done through advancing one's educations, as results their economic status improves and to shift from public housing dependency.

References
Freeman, L. (1998). Interpreting the dynamics of public housing: Cultural and rational choice explanations. Housing Policy Debate, 9(2), 323-353.
Massey, D. S., & Kanaiaupuni, S. M. (1993). Public housing and the concentration of poverty. Social Science Quarterly, 74(1), 109-122.
Scott, J. (2000). Rational choice theory. Understanding contemporary society: Theories of the present, 129.
Stoloff, J. A. (2004). A brief history of public housing. In annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA.
Weicher, J. C. (1980). Housing: Federal policies and programs (Vol. 275). AEI Press.

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