Housing And Urban Development: A Social Policy Analysis

Introduction The nature of the social policy that is addressed is Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is defined by DiNitto in Social Welfare Politics and Public Policy as the federal government’s main agency for helping low income Americans find housing (p.132). There are families, elderly people, and disabled individuals who live below the poverty line and are affected by the issues with Housing and Urban Development. According to the text there are 1.2 million families who live within 14,000 public housing developments within 3,300 communities in the United States (p.132). The supply of public housing is becoming scarce (p.132). There are many different forms of public housing, not just the clusters of housing projects that come to

This act allowed loans from the United States Public Housing Authority to be granted to local public housing agencies for the construction of lower- rent public housing expenses (HUD, 2007). Programs created by these Acts laid the foundation for federal housing for the next ten years (HUD, 2007). In 1939, the Public Housing Authority was transferred to the newly created Federal Works Agency and the Federal Loans Agency was created to take the place of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), the Home Owners Loan Corporation, and the Federal National Loan Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) (HUD, 2007). Three years later, the Federal Home Loan Banking Administration (FHA) and the Federal Public Housing Administration became agencies under the National Housing Agency (NHA) (HUD, 2007). 1940's In 1943, the Housing and Home Financing Agency (HHFA), which was also Housing and Urban Development HUD's predecessor took the place of the National Housing Agency (NHA) (HUD,

Housing and Urban Development decided that there needed to be some changes within their own system, this resulted in major cutbacks in staff and reorganization. This was known as the 2020 Management and Reform Plan of 1997. The plan was to cut staff and mold 300 HUD programs down to 70 programs. This is not too successful (HUD, 2007). According to Morton J. Schussheim's (1999), “housing is a tale of two cities”. In one city there are the American success stories of the two in three families that are owners of their own homes. The other city is full of those who live below the poverty line and finding affordable shelter is still an issue (p.31). Those that suffer from working low wages and rent burdens, overcrowded living quarters are usually residents of large cities such as Los Angeles and New York City but also in small rural towns and areas as well (Schussheim, 1999, p.31). Segregation also plays a huge part in the topic of housing. Low-Income families are heavily segregated throughout cities (Schussheim, 1999, p.