Perhaps I misunderstood the concept behind the latest Tribune competition (“A call for new ideas in public housing”), but I can’t imagine anyone could still believe that people should be grouped together simply because they are low-income.
The reason Cabrini-Green fails is decent, hard-working families are forced to live next to criminals, drug pushers and gangs. Let’s use the money to blend low-income families into safer communities with good schools.
The families could help build the homes (like Habitat for Humanity) or work in any number of community projects in exchange for affordable housing. We need to take away customers from the drug pushers, recruits from the gangs and victims from the criminals. On second thought, make that victims of a bad environment.
Let’s use our tax dollars for job training, education and child care for families who want to become self-sufficient and stop building communities that perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
