
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 8, 1994                   TAG: 9403100023
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOUSING BEYOND CITY LIMITS

ONE REASON why the Roanoke Valley should fashion a regional response to low-income housing needs, and to poverty generally, is evident in research and common sense, both of which suggest that the culture of poverty has a far greater impact when it is concentrated in public housing and isolated from the social mainstream.

Those who question the value of dispersal should consider data noted the other day in a New Republic magazine article. The article's author, Dante Ramos, was writing about Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Ciseros' timid efforts to promote policies to thin the concentration of the poor in urban centers and transplant struggling families in richer soil.

It's not a new idea. Ramos cites a study, by Northwestern University Professor James Rosenbaum, of Chicago's pioneering Gautreaux program, which began in 1976.

Rosenbaum looked at what happened after 5,000 poor black families in Gautreaux were given rental assistance and help finding apartments elsewhere, in suburbs and mixed-income neighborhoods, compared with what happened to families who remained behind in public housing where low-income residents were concentrated.

His findings: ```dispersed' mothers found employment in greater numbers (64 percent) than those who stayed in the city (51 percent). Likewise, dispersed children went to college more frequently than city-bound kids (54 percent to 21 percent), found full-time employment more often (75 percent to 41 percent) and were more likely to work in jobs with benefits (55 percent to 23 percent)."

These are startling statistics. What they suggest is that, with a boost from subsidized rent and local housing policies putting the suburbs within reach of the urban poor, the chance to get out of housing projects is often the chance to break free of a lifestyle of dependency.

Which makes sense. More jobs are created in the suburbs than in poor urban neighborhoods; there are also more role models of upwardly mobile, working adults there. The schools are often better. There are fewer distractions such as crime and drugs.

All of which should give added impetus for action by Roanoke Valley localities. They already have given lip service to the wisdom of a regional approach to low-income housing, even while acknowledging that subsidized and public housing remains concentrated in the city of Roanoke.

Sixties-style projects - where the poor were clumped together efficiently, out of the way of middle-class America, and given shelter but no active role in running their neighborhoods - are being reformed in fits and starts. It is vitally important that the poor be empowered to gain greater control over their lives, and more ownership of their housing.

But just as important, and likely more so, are policies, federal and local, that can open the way for poor people to settle in middle-class neighborhoods and suburbs, where their prospects for a good education and a good-paying job improve considerably. Those with the courage to leave familiar places can find new opportunities, and a greater chance at the good life for their families. This is an American tradition.

by CNB