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Galveston Vows to ContinueFailed Policy; Lack of Successno Reason to Change!
by David Stanowski30 March 2009
 
The Galveston Housing Authority was formed on 08 April 1940,in the heady days of the New Deal. The idea was simple; it wasbetter for low-income people to live in properties owned,controlled, and subsidized by the government than to live inprivately owned properties that they paid for themselves. Thisnew formula would give them a hand up and out of poverty.
“In this conception—articulated by Catherine Bauer in her influential 1936"Modern Housing" and embraced by PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt in the National Housing Act of 1937— public housing authorities were to run apartment buildings as permanent public utilities, with publicly financed construction keeping rents low.It's hard to exaggerate how mistaken this idea was, evenwhen Bauer and other advocates first formulated it. From theend of the Civil War up until 1937, private builders had erected a dizzying variety of housing for the striving poor asthey improved their condition over time.”
How Charlotte is Revolutionizing Public HousingThis philosophy was reinvigorated and reinforced by the GreatSociety in 1964.Next week will be the69th anniversary of the GHA, so it maybe time to actually ask the question; how well has it worked?Have many of the previous residents of GHA housing projectsused their stay there as a stepping stone to successfullybecome self-sufficient in the private sector, or have many
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families remained in the projects for generation aftergeneration?Here’s whatStar Parkerhas to say about public housing:
"A benevolent Uncle Samwelcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those whoaccepted the invitation switched mindsets from "How do I take care of myself?" to"What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?"  Instead of solving economic problems, government welfaresocialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems--the kind of problems that are inevitable when individualsturn responsibility for their lives over to others. The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities,dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families. I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our  poor black communities and replacing it with wealth- producing American capitalism. But, incredibly, we are goingin the opposite direction.Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, withtriple the incidence of single-parenthomes and out-of-wedlock births." 
Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation 
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One of my "mentors",Dr. Thomas Sowell, has done some of thebest work on the legacy of public housing projects:
"Once, after giving a talk, I was confronted by a lady in theaudience who asked what some people regard as the ultimatequestion:"What is YOUR solution?" "There are no solutions," I said. "There are only trade-offs." "The people DEMAND solutions!" she shot back angrily.The people can demand square circles if they want. But thatdoesn't mean that they will get them.What they are morelikely to get is the illusion of a solution by someone seekingtheir vote.Nowhere have illusions been more abundant than indiscussions of housing -- especially that ever-elusive"affordable housing" that so many people wring their handsover -- often while passing laws that make it virtually impossible to achieve.It has become axiomatic in some quarters that only thegovernment can provide affordable housing to low-income people. Often the people who talk this way do not leteconomics cramp their style or history distract their attention.Within living memory, there was a time when there were no
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