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Comment by npo9 | Hacker News Reader

I am anti housing projects. To me, creating a housing projects is like sweeping the problem under the rug. It concentrates poverty and crime into the area in/around the projects.

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A) ghettoization in the form you describe is a zoning problem. Mixed-rate zoning is a thing, even in major cities in the US, and there's no reason social housing needs to be geographically isolated from market rate housing. As you point out, that's really unhealthy. I submit that the US has just implemented public housing extremely poorly, especially on the federal level, and Section 8 vouchers are going to be a much larger bill to pay to the American taxpayer than simply building public housing to begin with.

B) From a healthcare perspective, both housing and rehabilitation are necessary for the person to be able to function stably. I would argue that this type of housing as well as drug decriminalization is necessary to treat the underlying poverty (and resulting crime).

EDIT: wording.

This is why nothing gets done.

- Dealing with petty crime that makes everyone miserable is insensitive to the homeless/addicts/etc who are stealing people's stuff and selling it.

- We should send people to provide garbage pickup to people occupying spaces that don't belong to them, but make sure that they aren't disturbed.

- We should be housing first, but not with housing projects.

What would you suggest be done?

Obviously, we need to make sure NO ONE has any kind of quality of life. Large US cities should keep being shit shows and keep getting worse for everyone until 100% of people, no matter their socioeconomic situation, can live like kings.

I can’t tell what you are communicating.

Seattle spreads the housing projects around the city. In fact they just opened one in the South Lake Union area last year (just behind the Neptune apartments). They replaced a parking lot with something like 10-15 sheds for housing. They are in the 100-150 sq ft range, have electricity and a shared bathroom(s). I'm a touch fuzzy on the particulars because they also erect a very tall privacy fence around the whole thing, which feels like a good idea if for no other reason than a touch of privacy for its residents.

Not really they are still mostly concentrated in pockets because developers are allowed to buy out of building subsidized housing units

I’m glad to learn some places are doing this!

I don’t think anyone wants the projects of the 50-70s. See the navigation centers in sf. It works.

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