Some thoughts about the U.S. Housing Act

At risk of sounding like a total jerk, I’d like to make a statement/pose a question. I ask that you hold off on any judgments in the interest of productive discussion. So, here goes…

City of Rhetoric makes mention of the U.S. Housing Act (of 1937 and of 1949), which got me thinking. I looked up some info on the Housing Acts, and I read through transcripts of some speeches, which made me wonder about a statement Harry Truman made in his State of the Union Address: "Five million families are still living in slums and firetraps. Three million families share their homes with others." Now, granted, living in slums and firetraps is definitely not a good thing, and safety is certainly a concern worth doing something about. However, I’m not sure why there is cause for concern because three million families share their homes. My family grew up sharing homes in the Chicago-area. Much of my family now still share homes with others—in fact, I recently shared a home with people. And my paternal grandparents and great-grandparents never owned homes; they lived in family groups and rented their entire lives. (And, no, I'm not getting all "bootstrappy" on you here...

I guess what I’m really wondering is why it was/is considered a right to live in a space that is exclusively one’s own. Also (and here is where I especially ask you not to judge…), is it also a right to own one’s own home? It almost seems that this way of thinking could have led to Flemings admonition that “We are the products of an insistent ‘privatism,’ a way of life focused on the individual, his or her family, and their private search for personal happiness” (14). Could this communal living (as generations of Americans had done) have assisted in teaching people “the art of living with different others…and rendering and negotiating difference?” (14). Seems like it might have. Seems like it might have taught us to “acknowledge, even celebrate conflict but also attempt to resolve that conflict through debate, deliberation, and adjudication” (14). But now, instead of having commonplaces at the most basic levels (shared homes), we are free to simply live alone, thus encouraging individualism and discouraging interdependence.

I also found the following passage of interest: “There appears to be a relationship between one’s tenure in a given location—the stability of one’s geographical experience, which is tied to such things as homeownership—and one’s involvement in local politics” (187). As I ponder this statement, I respond in various ways. On one hand, I think to myself: “Yeah, sure. That makes perfect sense. If one is tied to an area, and invested—both financially and emotionally—in the neighborhood/town/city/state, he or she is more likely to become involved in the governing of said neighborhood/town/city/state.”

On the other hand, I think I might get pissed off by the simple assumptions of this statement. I can only fall back on my prior experience living in Back of the Yards. The neighborhood was mostly Hispanic, and many homes on my block were owned by the residents. However, those on my block and in the immediate vicinity had a palpable fear of authority, and didn’t even feel comfortable calling the police in cases of emergency. For the most part, the neighborhood was not very involved in local politics. In fact, when a pregnant woman was killed by gunfire several doors down, people came from outside of the neighborhood to march and protest the violence. The residents stayed in their homes. Now, part of this might have to do with that fact than many of my neighbors were undocumented and had well-founded fears of deportation. However, I suspect a lot of it had to do with hegemony and the reluctance of those in power to “allow” others to step into the roles that rightfully belonged in the neighborhood.

I suppose it is possible that some of this hegemony took root because of a language difference; Mostly Spanish was spoken in the businesses, on the streets, in the library, and in the homes. Fleming, in his discussion of the ancient Greeks, states that "language...was a distinctly political way of being...it was...a social practice of simultaneous separation and connection" (13). This "way of being" for my neighbors might have placed them in a position of less power because of communication challenges that arose when they stepped outside of the community. But, the more I consider it, while the the problems in my old neighborhood were certainly exacerbated by a language barrier, it must be from more than just that. Some of the problems might also have stemmed from the lack of "an accessible, diverse, self-governing community, free from both external control (so that members could direct their collective future without interference) and internal domination (so that each member had an equal say in that future)" (13). I guess I wonder what good it did my neighbors to have had community organizations (of where there were some), if they had no way of successfully representing themselves to outsiders who assumed positions of power and represented the community. So, I guess what I'm getting at is that even if/though my neighbors did have decent and safe housing, it is/was still unlikely that they will become involved in local politics.

If you are interested, here is a bit of background on my old neighborhood (www.nhschicago.org):
Back of the Yards is a working class neighborhood best known as the setting for Upton
Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, which exposed conditions in the slaughterhouses around the turn of the 20th century. The original Union Stockyard gate still stands at 42nd and Halsted as a permanent symbol of the neighborhood’s working class history.

Today, Back of the Yards is a racially and culturally diverse community that boasts a newly developed industrial park and thriving commercial center. The housing stock is mostly one-to-four unit frame buildings that offer ownership opportunities for working families priced out of other markets. Directly to the south is Garfield Boulevard, where large greystones and other interesting architectural housing stock on the boulevard and the immediate blocks to the north and south make it an attractive area for new
homeowners.

While the neighborhood offers many amenities, it faces several challenges as well. Deferred maintenance on the older, frame housing stock in Back of the Yards depresses housing values making it vulnerable to investors who buy buildings, do shoddy rehab, and act as absentee landlords. In both Back of the Yards and Garfield Boulevard, high rates of foreclosure contribute to the already large inventory of vacant and susceptible buildings, which promotes gang and drug activity.