Atlantic magazine on housing and crime

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed: I have gotten a couple of messages on this, and am passing it on to 
COMM-ORG.]

From: "Peter Dreier" <dreier at oxy.edu>


Colleagues:

When journalists and social scientists write about poverty, crime, race, 
and housing policy -- especially when they stir them together -- it is 
bound to provoke controversy. Journalist Hannah Rosin recently stirred 
up a hornet's next with her cover article, "American Murder Mystery," in 
the July/August issue of The Atlantic magazine 
(http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime) , arguing that two 
federal programs designed to give poor families more housing choices are 
responsible for a major increase in crime. She claimed to show that 
efforts to "deconcentrate" poor families (particularly families of 
color) out of high-poverty areas backfired by spreading crime into 
otherwise stable neighborhoods, using Memphis as an example, but 
generalizing about the entire country. Her larger point is that liberal 
do-gooders failed to anticipate the harmful consequences of their 
well-intentioned but naive policy ideas. Rosin's article has generated a 
lot of interest on the right-wing blogosphere and in the mainstream media.

Well, guess what? Rosin got her facts, analysis, and conclusion wrong. 
She not only got the facts-on-the-ground in Memphis wrong, but she also 
misled readers by generalizing from the Memphis example. She 
mischaracterized the housing programs and credited them with a much 
larger impact than they really have, given their small size. Professor 
Xavier de Souza Briggs (at MIT) and I pulled together some of the 
nation's leading housing and urban policy researchers and experts to 
examine Rosin's claims. Our response to her article, "Memphis Murder 
Mystery? No, Just Mistaken Identity," is now available on the National 
Housing Institute website: (http://www.shelterforce.org/article/print/1043)

In this election year, when the nation is in the middle of a sustained 
debate about the proper role of government in addressing social and 
economic problems, it is less than helpful when a respected magazine 
publishes such a misleading, irresponsible story. The leading housing 
researchers and experts who have signed this document -- which rebuts 
many of Rosin's major claims -- felt compelled to set the record 
straight. Rosin interviewed some of the experts who signed this document 
and drew on their research; some are even quoted in the article. The 
experts who drafted and endorsed this statement don't all agree with 
each other on every aspect of housing policy, but they do share a strong 
belief that public policy (and journalism about policy) should be guided 
by the facts and by rigorous research. In drafting this statement, we 
drew on the latest research about the Section 8, HOPE VI, and Moving to 
Opportunity programs, as well as data about poverty and crime, in order 
to examine Rosin's claims.



The controversy over Rosin's article is not simply about the causes of 
crime in Memphis, but also about how we formulate and evaluate policy in 
general and , in particular, policy to help address the dilemma of 
poverty in America. It is also about the use and abuse of social science 
research by the media. In offering a critique of Rosin's article, we 
hope to contribute to a spirited debate about these issues.



As we write in our article, academics and policymakers have learned a 
great deal from both the mistakes and the successes of anti-poverty 
programs, including those focused on high-poverty neighborhoods, since 
the 1960s. Housing policy is a vital piece of the agenda, but now more 
than ever, we understand why it can’t lift people out poverty on its 
own. We know that the best anti-poverty program is a good job. Full 
employment at living wages is the best solution to America’s poverty 
quagmire. We also need to invest in education and job training, to raise 
the minimum wage at least to the poverty level, to expand the Earned 
Income Tax Credit so it reaches more families, and to provide low-income 
parents with the support they need to enter the job market, such as 
child care and health insurance. Redoubled efforts to fight crime in the 
most violent neighborhoods, and to protect those places, which tend to 
be poor racial ghettos, from an utterly disproportionate share of our 
society’s environmental hazards, are vital too. Giving the poor a strong 
voice in the political arena -- through community organizations, unions, 
and other vehicles -- is also critical.

Section 8 vouchers, especially when tied to counseling for tenants and 
recruitment of landlords, can be an important tool to help families 
choose where they want to live and pay the rent, so long as there’s an 
adequate supply of rental housing and so long as the relocation programs 
are run carefully alongside efforts to strengthen vulnerable or 
declining neighborhoods.

Feel free to circulate this statement to others, post it on your 
website, and (for those of you who teach) use it in your classes (along 
with Rosin's original article) .



Peter Dreier

----------------------------------------

Peter Dreier

E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics

Director, Urban & Environmental Policy Program

Occidental College

1600 Campus Road

Los Angeles, CA 90041

Phone: (323) 259-2913

Email: dreier at oxy.edu

Webpage: http://employees.oxy.edu/dreier



"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great 
moral crises maintain their neutrality" -- Dante


 > From: Lois Cantwell <lcantwell at nhi.org>
 > Date: July 23, 2008 4:01:02 PM EDT
 > To: lcantwell at nhi.org
 > Subject: Breaking News from NHI -- Housing Experts Respond to The =20
 > Atlantic "Memphis" Article
 > Reply-To: lcantwell at nhi.org
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > National Housing Institute
 > July 23, 2008 .... Breaking News....
 >
 > Housing researchers and policy experts
 > respond to
 > The Atlantic magazine's
 > "American Murder Mystery"
 > A group of the nation's leading scholars and policy experts, led by =20=

 > MIT's Xavier de Souza Briggs and Occidental College's Peter Dreier =20
 > (an NHI board member), have prepared a response to "American Murder =20=

 > Mystery," an article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic =20
 > magazine. In the story, journalist Hanna Rosin presents a wave of =20
 > violent crime in Memphis neighborhoods as the unintended consequence =20=

 > of a "grand experiment" in low-income housing
 > policy. The story has generated a storm of response, from right-wing =20=

 > blogs to the mainstream media. Read the response from the urban and =20=

 > housing policy experts here
 > The National Housing Institute (NHI) founded in 1975, is an =20
 > independent nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering decent, =20
 > affordable housing and a vibrant community for everyone. In its =20
 > magazine, Shelterforce and www.shelterforce.org, Web site =20
 > www.nhi.org, blog, www.rooflines.org and research, NHI focuses =20
 > attention and encourages action on progresive, high-impact housing =20
 > and community-development policies and practices through the lens of =20=

 > such subjects and social and economic equity, racism, poverty, =20
 > health, the environment, education and sustainability.
 >
 > For further information or media requests please contact:
 > Lois Cantwell, Director, Marketing & Communications
 > 973-763-0333, lcantwell at nhi.org
 >
 > www.nhi.org www.shelterforce.org www.rooflines.org
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > Also of interest . . .
 >
 > Rooflines.org 7.16.08
 >
 > Who Dun It in the "American Murder Mystery?"
 >
 > by Nandinee Kutty
 >
 >
 >
 > *
 >
 >
 >
 > Rooflines.org 7.01.08
 >
 > Memphis's Unwelcome News
 >
 > by Miriam Axel-Lute
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >