A video clip from a 2017 Frontline PBS news report has recently gone viral showing a Texas woman explaining why she doesn’t want section 8 residents in her middle-class neighborhood.
Frontline and PBS investigated the billions of dollars spent on affordable housing, and why so few get the housing help they need, in an NPR video called “Poverty, Politics And Profit.”
Certain communities resist allowing Section 8 housing in their midst.
Created by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1978, Section 8 — also known as the Housing Choice Voucher program — offers assistance to eligible low- and moderate-income families to rent housing in the private housing market versus public housing. Eligibility for this program is based on a family’s gross annual income and family size.
The resistance to Section 8 is often based on race and classism. This is evident in the viral clip in which a Texas woman explains why she doesn’t want section 8 residents in her middle-class neighborhood.
“The lifestyle that goes with Section 8 are usually single moms and people who are struggling to keep their head above water and it’s not, I feel really bad saying it, but…not the same class as us,” the woman says.
She adds, “I am definitely not a racist, not a bigot but I think I hold a little bit of a stigma against people who are different…I just don’t want that to be what my community is about.”
Of course, the conversation on Twitter heated up.
“this woman is struggling not to say ‘i don’t want black people here'” b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie tweeted.
Sterling @SterlingEstill tweeted, “Just 5 years ago, this woman would’ve never said these things publicly.tRUMP has made these types feel more comfortable sharing their prejudices.You wonder, if she says this publicly, what does she say privately.She’s not an enigma.”
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Party’s sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.
Darlene with an A @evans_darlane tweeted, “Imagine thinking that a selfish bastard wanting a yacht and a private jet is the same thing as a single parent wanting a better education and safer neighborhood for his/her children.”
The Frontline PBS investigation found that there is less and less affordable housing being built for Section 8 qualifiers. In fact, in 2107 while the cost to taxpayers to fund the program went up due to increased construction costs, few units had been built. Between 1997 and 2014, the annual number of units dropped 16 percent, from 70,220 to 58,735. But between 1997 and 2014 the annual cost to taxpayers increased 66 percent in tax credits.
