# Is Section 8 housing causing a crime wave in mid-sized cities? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 22, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794 "2008-06-22T15:53:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/1 "2008-06-22T15:53:07Z")
I’ve always accepted the liberal conventional wisdom that crime does not follow poverty, it follows concentrations of poverty: Crowd poor people into a low-income neighborhood or a Cabrini Green project and they’ll just reinforce one another’s bad social habits. Spread them out among the more affluent and they won’t. But [this](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime) article from this month’s _Atlantic Monthly_ suggests they might actually take the new opportunity to prey on the weak. > [@](#): > > Lately, though, a new and unexpected pattern has emerged, taking criminologists by surprise. While crime rates in large cities stayed flat, homicide rates in many midsize cities (with populations of between 500,000 and 1 million) began increasing, sometimes by as much as 20percent a year. In 2006, the Police Executive Research Forum, a national police group surveying cities from coast to coast, concluded in a report called “A Gathering Storm” that this might represent “the front end … of an epidemic of violence not seen for years.” The leaders of the group, which is made up of police chiefs and sheriffs, theorized about what might be spurring the latest crime wave: the spread of gangs, the masses of offenders coming out of prison, methamphetamines. But mostly they puzzled over the bleak new landscape. According to FBI data, America’s most dangerous spots are now places where Martin Scorsese would never think of staging a shoot-out—Florence, South Carolina; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Reading, Pennsylvania; Orlando, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee. > > \ > > About five years ago, Janikowski embarked on a more ambitious project. He’d built up enough trust with the police to get them to send him daily crime and arrest reports, including addresses and types of crime. He began mapping all violent and property crimes, block by block, across the city. “These cops on the streets were saying that crime patterns are changing,” he said, so he wanted to look into it. > > When his map was complete, a clear if strangely shaped pattern emerged: Wait a minute, he recalled thinking. I see this bunny rabbit coming up. People are going to accuse me of being on shrooms! The inner city, where crime used to be concentrated, was now clean. But everywhere else looked much worse: arrests had skyrocketed along two corridors north and west of the central city (the bunny rabbit’s ears) and along one in the southeast (the tail). Hot spots had proliferated since the mid-1990s, and little islands of crime had sprung up where none had existed before, dotting the map all around the city. > > Janikowski might not have managed to pinpoint the cause of this pattern if he hadn’t been married to Phyllis Betts, a housing expert at the University of Memphis. Betts and Janikowski have two dogs, three cats, and no kids; they both tend to bring their work home with them. Betts had been evaluating the impact of one of the city government’s most ambitious initiatives: the demolition of the city’s public-housing projects, as part of a nationwide experiment to free the poor from the destructive effects of concentrated poverty. Memphis demolished its first project in 1997. The city gave former residents federal “Section8” rent-subsidy vouchers and encouraged them to move out to new neighborhoods. Two more waves of demolition followed over the next nine years, dispersing tens of thousands of poor people into the wider metro community. > > If police departments are usually stingy with their information, housing departments are even more so. Getting addresses of Section 8 holders is difficult, because the departments want to protect the residents’ privacy. Betts, however, helps the city track where the former residents of public housing have moved. Over time, she and Janikowski realized that they were doing their fieldwork in the same neighborhoods. > > About six months ago, they decided to put a hunch to the test. Janikowski merged his computer map of crime patterns with Betts’s map of Section8 rentals. Where Janikowski saw a bunny rabbit, Betts saw a sideways horseshoe (“He has a better imagination,” she said). Otherwise, the match was near-perfect. On the merged map, dense violent-crime areas are shaded dark blue, and Section8 addresses are represented by little red dots. All of the dark-blue areas are covered in little red dots, like bursts of gunfire. The rest of the city has almost no dots. I still think dispersion of poverty is better than concentration, but the salubrious effects might take a generation or two. What is to be done in the meantime? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/2 "2008-06-22T17:16:30Z")
The same article, BTW, points out that Section housing really has had some very good effects: > [@](#): > > Starting in 1977, in what became known as the Gautreaux program, hundreds of families relocated to suburban neighborhoods—most of them about 25miles from the ghetto, with very low poverty rates and good public schools. The authorities had screened the families carefully, inspecting their apartments and checking for good credit histories. They didn’t offer the vouchers to families with more than five children, or to those that were indifferent to leaving the projects. They were looking for families “seeking a healthy environment, good schools and an opportunity to live in a safe and decent home.” > > A well-known Gautreaux study, released in 1991, showed spectacular results. The sociologist James Rosenbaum at Northwestern University had followed 114 families who had moved to the suburbs, although only 68 were still cooperating by the time he released the study. Compared to former public-housing residents who’d stayed within the city, the suburban dwellers were four times as likely to finish high school, twice as likely to attend college, and more likely to be employed. Newsweek called the program “stunning” and said the project renewed “one’s faith in the struggle.” In a glowing segment, a 60 Minutes reporter asked one Gautreaux boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. “I haven’t really made up my mind,” the boy said. “Construction worker, architect, anesthesiologist.” Another child’s mother declared it “the end of poverty” for her family. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/3 "2008-06-22T17:27:00Z")
Let’s stick with Cabrini Green as you already brought it up. Essentially, you had a really high concentration of drug dealers in one central location. The government thinks that if it destroys the central location, then the drug dealers will move on. But, drug dealers are drug dealers, they moved but didn’t change at all. The problem being, they were relocated into areas that already had drug dealers and territories set up. That’s why Chicago had insane murder rates up until I think 2003. Anymore, it seems that the initial blood bath has all but ended, since the murder rate has fallen drastically since then. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/4 "2008-06-22T17:29:13Z")
> [@](#): > > checking for good credit histories Nowadays, that might get you accused of [racism](http://www.nclc.org/reports/content/InsuranceScoring.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/5 "2008-06-22T20:49:24Z")
Well, it’s only going to help people who want to be helped, people who probably wouldn’t have been there in the first place except the criminals took over and they didn’t know where to go or how to get out. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/6 "2008-06-22T23:33:45Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The same article, BTW, points out that Section housing really has had some very good effects: [/QUOTE] That study is the one that depended on cherry picking those given help to leave the projects. That is what led to the problem - they assumed that everyone in the projects would thrive outside - in reality it turned out that when everyone leaves, they take their problems with them. They could cherry pick and save some - but when everyone left it created new crime zones. The article is interesting. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/7 "2008-06-23T10:07:16Z")
[QUOTE=Algher] That study is the one that depended on cherry picking those given help to leave the projects. [/quote] I agree. I’m pretty confident that I could run a successful anti-poverty program if I were allowed to be very picky about the participants. Especially if I were allowed to use some objective standard, such as a multiple choice test or a credit score. Indeed, the success of that study underscores the problem that many poor people are not poor because of circumstances but because of who they are. That sort of person is likely difficult to help. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/8 "2008-06-23T14:53:45Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The same article, BTW, points out that Section housing really has had some very good effects: [/QUOTE] The article later says they heavily screened the families in that study before participation, and only families who really wanted to move actually did. > [@](#): > > If replacing housing projects with vouchers had achieved its main goal—infusing the poor with middle-class habits—then higher crime rates might be a price worth paying. But today, social scientists looking back on the whole grand experiment are apt to use words like baffling and disappointing. A large federal-government study conducted over the past decade—a follow-up to the highly positive, highly publicized Gautreaux study of 1991—produced results that were “puzzling,” said Susan Popkin of the Urban Institute. In this study, volunteers were also moved into low-poverty neighborhoods, although they didn’t move nearly as far as the Gautreaux families. Women reported lower levels of obesity and depression. But they were no more likely to find jobs. The schools were not much better, and children were no more likely to stay in them. Girls were less likely to engage in risky behaviors, and they reported feeling more secure in their new neighborhoods. But boys were as likely to do drugs and act out, and more likely to get arrested for property crimes. The best Popkin can say is: “It has not lived up to its promise. It has not lifted people out of poverty, it has not made them self-sufficient, and it has left a lot of people behind.” > > Researchers have started to look more critically at the Gautreaux results. The sample was tiny, and the circumstances were ideal. The families who moved to the suburbs were screened heavily and the vast majority of families who participated in the program didn’t end up moving, suggesting that those who did were particularly motivated. Even so, the results were not always sparkling. For instance, while Gautreaux study families who had moved to the suburbs were more likely to work than a control group who stayed in the city, they actually worked less than before they had moved. “People were really excited about it because it seemed to offer something new,” Popkin said. “But in my view, it was radically oversold.” ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/9 "2008-06-23T16:04:07Z")
It has always been true that crime flourishes in poorer areas. this is because: 1. when middle-America wants drugs, it prefers to buy them outside their ‘nice’ neighborhoods 2. poor people traditionally have filled the role as purveyors of illegal commodities (drugs, sex, guns, gambling). This because other careers haven’t been open to them 3)law enforcement is lax in poor areas Once again, and indictment of america’s hypocrisy: why doesn’t the 7-figure wall Street executive score his coke in his own neighborhood? He wants his high, he just doesn’t want the lawlessness that comes with drug traffiking, in HIS neighborhood! ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/10 "2008-06-23T16:22:02Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] It has always been true that crime flourishes in poorer areas. this is because: 1. when middle-America wants drugs, it prefers to buy them outside their ‘nice’ neighborhoods 2. poor people traditionally have filled the role as purveyors of illegal commodities (drugs, sex, guns, gambling). This because other careers haven’t been open to them 3)law enforcement is lax in poor areas [/QUOTE] 4)poor people need money, and two ways to get money are theft and robbery 5)poor people need money, and another way to get it is prostitution 6)poor people want drugs, too, and need money to get them (see 4 and 5 above) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/11 "2008-06-23T17:12:46Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Once again, and indictment of america’s hypocrisy: why doesn’t the 7-figure wall Street executive score his coke in his own neighborhood? He wants his high, he just doesn’t want the lawlessness that comes with drug traffiking, in HIS neighborhood! [/QUOTE] A 7 figure income individual doesn’t go to the bad part of town to score his drugs. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/12 "2008-06-23T17:22:59Z")
Poverty is not a lack of money, it’s a lack of social will. The lack of money is the end result. My parents lived through the great depression without any government assistance. They had less in terms of amenities than poor people have today. However, they were spiritually wealthy. By that I mean they had character, a sense of right and wrong, and a social group who were similarly motivated to a high standard. The result was a good work ethic and a desire to succeed without harming others. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/13 "2008-06-23T17:43:36Z")
[QUOTE=Magiver] Poverty is not a lack of money, it’s a lack of social will. [/quote] Sorry, define “social will”? If you lack money, I don’t care how much “social will” you may have, you’re poor. Some people may be poor because of a lack of drive. Some are poor because of a lack of opportunities. Some are poor because of lack of ability. Where do you get the great wisdom to tell one from another? Not all poverty is the result of a moral failing, nor is all wealth the natural result of moral virtue. (Though it may be comforting to the well-off to believe otherwise.) > [@](#): > > My parents lived through the great depression without any government assistance. They had less in terms of amenities than poor people have today. However, they were spiritually wealthy. By that I mean they had character, a sense of right and wrong, and a social group who were similarly motivated to a high standard. The result was a good work ethic and a desire to succeed without harming others. No offense, but how the hell do you know? How do you know your old man didn’t steal hubcaps to make it through hard times? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/14 "2008-06-23T17:47:04Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] A 7 figure income individual doesn’t go to the bad part of town to score his drugs. Marc [/QUOTE] Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/15 "2008-06-23T18:22:17Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] Cite? [/QUOTE] I have an uncle who was making well into the six figure range who would go to bad areas to score drugs. But see, he wasn’t making SEVEN figures, so obviously… -Joe ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/16 "2008-06-23T18:23:03Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] I have an uncle who was making well into the six figure range who would go to bad areas to score drugs. But see, he wasn’t making SEVEN figures, so obviously… -Joe [/QUOTE] If you’re making SEVEN figures, you can send your butler to score. ---
**Author:** ![Burton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Burton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/17 "2008-06-23T18:29:38Z")
The murder rate in my small city is increasing and I think every murder so far this year is associated with a section 8 housing project. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/18 "2008-06-23T18:32:03Z")
As is seemingly the problem with CCTV, ‘crime crackdown’s’ tend more to disperse the problem, than actually solve anything. ---
**Author:** ![MeanJoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanjoe/32/5693_2.png) [@MeanJoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanJoe)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/19 "2008-06-23T21:08:30Z")
Interesting debate and I’m going to keep reading as this issue touches on where I live. I’m in a mixed neighborhood, commonly refered to by the suburbanites as “the hood” here in Columbus. We’ve had a lot of gentrification but we also have the highest concertration of poor and of social services for the poor in my little neighborhood. What I find interesting is… We actually have a lower crime rate in this neighborhood than the surrounding “affluent” neighborhoods. Of course being the funny-guy that I am, I always say this is because our poor criminally minded folks go over there to steal stuff then bring it back to their homes here. 😛 I do wonder if there is some truth to it though… certainly the folks in those neighborhoods are of the opinion that “they” come over from here to break into their BMW’s Completely unscientific but I have noticed a substantial increase in crimes (based purely upon news coverage, etc.) being reported in the suburbs areas that were originally founded in the 50s as white middle class neighborhoods and have seen shifts in demographics as the urban poor have pushed outward from the city center. It is not uncommon for me to see a headline “Two shot outside bar” and whereas I’d previously automatically assume this maybe in my neighborhood that I now am no longer surprised when it is out in the burbs. Anyway, not very GD of me tossing out personal observations and thoughts but hopefully it’ll stir more convo in this thread as it is of interest. MeanJoe ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794/20 "2008-06-24T02:37:32Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] No offense, but how the hell do you know? How do you know your old man didn’t steal hubcaps to make it through hard times? [/QUOTE] How old are you? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-section-8-housing-causing-a-crime-wave-in-mid-sized-cities/453794.md?page=2)