Housing for the Poor

Who builds housing for the poor?

There was a time when community-based organizations built much of the housing for the poor. For example, in Chicago in the 1980s, an organization called Bethel New Life built housing for thousands of poor Chicagoans.

What made a lot of that construction possible was the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, enacted by the federal government in 1986. The credit allowed organizations like Bethel New Life to access capital for its projects.

The tax credit it still around. But today, a new kind of organization captures the bulk of its benefits. This new kind of organization differs in important ways from the traditional CBO such as Bethel New Life. Whereas traditional CBOs are located in the communities they serve, are staffed largely by blacks and Hispanics, and come from a religious, advocacy, or social service background, the new organizations claiming the tax credits are usually located outside poor communities, are staffed mainly by whites, and come from a real estate, finance, or public administration background.

According to John N. Robinson III, an assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, these new organizations are generally more interested in furthering their own ends than serving poor communities. He calls the new organizations "grassroots for hire," or GHOs.

GHOs, he says, can potentially be as beneficial as traditional CBOs. As he points out, GHOs are "geographically rootless in a way that enables coordination of affordable housing policy on a broader geographic scale." In turn, that could actually "advance fair housing and reverse patterns of segregation."

But in fact, GHOs, he argues, largely represent the preferences of those who run them. As a result, "tax-credit dollars are less likely to go toward housing the most vulnerable residents and neighborhoods, the production of good-quality units in financially neglected areas, or the preservation of housing affordability after initial investor agreements expire or in gentrifying areas." Housing, rather than forming one part of the larger safety net for the poor, becomes an isolated benefit.

Professor Robinson is clear that his purpose is not to promote CBOs or denigrate the new organizations. In an ideal world, each would receive ample support. Still, GHOs do not—indeed, cannot—duplicate the services of the traditional CBO, and something important is lost in the bargain.

Professor Robinson bases his findings on 105 in-depth interviews, supplemented with ethnographic, archival, and secondary data. His results appear in the June 2020 issue of Politics & Society.