Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing

Public housing harms can drive out positive community contributors

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• Bootstraps Good, Help Bad

Public housing harms can drive out positive community contributors Husock 2003 [Howard; Vice President, Research & Publications, Contributing Editor, City Journal], “How Public Housing Harms Cities”, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, 2003 http://www.city-journal.org/html/how-public-housing-harms-cities-12410.html Fear of those who live in housing projects can drive neighbors who can afford it to move—another drain on urban vitality, since these are often the striving, upwardly mobile people who make neighborhoods flourish. Torres remembers a day three years ago when the valued tenants living in one of her apartments—“a professional couple,” she says—moved out, after finding blood splattered on their stoop from a drug dispute that had (quite literally) spilled over from the projects. “They got up that morning,” recalls Torres, “and said, ‘This is enough.’ ” It’s her upwardly mobile minority tenants, says Torres, who complain most about the “undesirable element from the projects.” Bootstraps Good, Help Bad State benefits discourages work and doesn’t solve poverty Tanner 2013 [Michael; domestic policy researcher, author], “When Welfare Undermines Work Ethic”, New York Times, May 5 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/05/denmarks-work-life-balance/when-welfare-undermines-work-ethic There is nothing to suggest that people on welfare are lazy. But there is also nothing to suggest that they are stupid. If you pay someone as much for not working as you do for working, it should come as no surprise that many take advantage of the offer. We know that one of the most important long-term steps toward avoiding or getting out of poverty is a job. Even a low-wage job can be the first step on the road to self-sufficiency. Yet, around the world, welfare states provide benefits well in excess of the entry level wages that an individual with limited skills can expect to earn. The case of “Carina,” earning $2,700 per month on welfare, is not unique, or limited to Denmark. In the United States, a person who receives a full package of welfare benefits (T.A.N.F., food stamps, Medicaid, public housing, W.I.C. and free commodities) can receive more in every state than they would earn from a minimum wage job, according to a forthcoming Cato study. This discourages recipients from moving from welfare to work, especially if, as the Congressional Research Service points out: “Leisure is believed to be a “normal good.” That is, with a rise in income, people will “purchase” more leisure by reducing their work effort.” In other words, an increase in benefits could encourage people to reduce their work hours. We’ve seen this with unemployment benefits, which increase both the rate and duration of joblessness. Download 95.74 Kb. Share with your friends: