Vouchers, not projects, for Aurora

For more than a year, the Aurora Housing Authority has been talking about demolishing the Jericho Circle complex and building a new complex on the same site. This new AHA project would be mixed-income. This may be possible, but has shown difficult to achieve where it has been tried.

A number of studies have shown public housing projects fail. Research indicates this is because public housing is disproportionately located in neighborhoods where incomes are low and unemployment and poverty rates are high. Rather than fostering racial and economic integration, public housing appears to foster segregation.

Crime and social disorder occur at disproportionately higher levels in public housing complexes. University of Virginia Professor Ed Olsen has studied public housing since the 1960s. He asserts public housing projects have typically made their neighborhoods worse places to live. He adds the housing voucher program has outperformed the public housing program in every respect.

A University of Minnesota study found “scattered site” housing programs using vouchers will generally not have adverse community impacts and will not have negative impacts on nearby property values. The University of Kentucky's Martin School of Public Policy and Administration posits that a well-operated scattered site housing program won't lead to increased crime in the receiving neighborhood.

Importantly, scattered-site programs have had generally positive affects on the families who volunteer for a voucher program. Families using vouchers were generally more satisfied with their new neighborhoods and housing. The success of scattered site programs is greatly increased with mobility counseling and housing search assistance.

The AHA may mean well, but Mayor Weisner and Alderman Lawrence are correct in rejecting the building of another housing project and their call for the use of vouchers.

The city and residents of Jericho Circle deserve better than another public housing project.

Dean Myles

Aurora