by john powell
Published Saturday, January 23, 1999, Minneapolis
Star-Tribune
The Star Tribune editorial on Dec. 14 was right in stating
that Minneapolis and St. Paul cannot solve the housing problem
facing the region by themselves and in pointing out the need to
address issues related to concentrated poverty. But we need to
be clear that simply dispersing low-income people or removing
them from their neighborhoods is not a policy to address either
the housing needs of the region or the issues of concentrated
poverty.
Under dispersal and removal policies, people are often reconcentrated
in new, strange, vulnerable neighborhoods -- once again isolated,
but this time not just from economic and educational opportunities
but also from friends and familiar surroundings.
There has been a growing understanding that focusing on concentrated
poverty is an important factor in addressing the serious lack
of affordable housing in the Twin Cities Region. If one simply
builds affordable low-income housing in the most receptive markets,
this will likely increase the problems associated with concentrated
poverty. Neighborhoods that are economically poor are often beset
with many serious social needs and isolated from opportunity.
As communities are gripped in the trap of concentrated poverty,
the overall population of the community actually diminishes as
many of the residents with options leave. Concentrated poverty
is defined when at least 40 percent of the people in a census
tract are living below the poverty level. We imposed the consequence
of high poverty neighborhoods on low-income people and especially
low-income people of color by limiting their housing opportunities
away from opportunities that most of us take for granted, such
as good jobs, strong schools and safe neighborhoods.
If concentrated poverty is not addressed, it spreads initially
at the urban core, then to the more vulnerable inner-ring suburbs.
We have witnessed this trend throughout the country and in our
own central cities and older suburbs. Even as our region has grown,
Minneapolis and St. Paul, and now the older suburbs, have continued
to lose population as middle-income people flee the central cities
for the developing suburbs. For example, as of the 1990 Census,
40 percent of middle-class African Americans lived in the suburbs.
Undoubtedly, this percentage has increased since then. Sprawl
is one of the main engines of concentrated poverty at the urban
core.
Our Institute has worked hard over the last six years to help
make the negative effects of concentrated poverty part of the
public dialogue. We believe that it is important and appropriate
that the media, policymakers and others have expressed concern
about addressing our housing needs in a way that focuses on the
problems associated with concentrated poverty.
Unfortunately, some have used the fear of concentrated poverty
as an excuse to not take an aggressive stance for addressing our
affordable housing needs and in some cases to make low-income
citizens the issue and not concentrated poverty. There are others
who would ignore the problems associated with concentrated poverty
and continue to build affordable housing in the most vulnerable
communities; there are others who would stop building, and even
destroy, existing affordable housing without any serious effort
to replace it.
All of these strategies are wrong. They hurt our fellow citizens,
and they hurt our region. We must address the problem on a regional
level. We need to make sure that we increase housing availability
that also affords meaningful opportunity.
We should consider plans like that adopted by Montgomery County
in Maryland, one of the richest counties in the country where
affordable housing is built in every neighborhood throughout the
county. We must also insist that as the region grows, housing
opportunities are considered integral to job and school opportunities.
For our central cities and older suburbs, they must not simply
push low-income people out, but strive to create mixed-income
housing that supports stable neighborhoods and exercise leadership
in expanding low-income housing opportunities.
We must be careful not to just focus on where low-income affordable
housing exists but look at where there is and will be a need throughout
the region. Success must be measured not simply by reducing concentrated
poverty in one community while it is increasing in another, but
by increasing housing opportunities and support stable neighborhoods,
while addressing the need to reduce the concentration of poverty
and increasing opportunity throughout the region.
We need informed leadership on this issue from our city council
members and staff, state legislators, community advocates and
our new governor. To do this right will require a change in the
way we address the issue of affordable housing, and there will
be some costs involved. But it will be a small price to pay compared
to doing the wrong things or nothing at all.
john a. powell, Minneapolis. Executive director of the Institute on Race & Poverty, and chair of the Minneapolis City Council Affordable Housing Task Force.