Ben Carson Thinks the Only Way to Help Poor People Is to Make Their Housing Unaffordable
Ben Carson is a trooper. The neurosurgeon is carrying on at Housing and Urban Development, doing his level best despite publicly admitting he's unfit to run a federal agency. But he's willing to set his own incompetence aside and blunder forward.
And his latest blunder embodies the one-sided heartless of the administration that Carson has snuggled into. The Washington Post on Wednesday reported on a Carson proposal that would essentially force families out of federally-provided affordable housing. Per the Post:
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson proposed far-reaching changes to federal housing subsidies Wednesday, tripling rent for the poorest households and making it easier for housing authorities to impose work requirements.
Carson’s proposals, and other initiatives aimed at low-income Americans receiving federal assistance, amount to a comprehensive effort by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to restrict access to the safety net and reduce the levels of assistance for those who do qualify.
There are a few galling points here. Only a few months ago Republicans in Congress slashed taxes for the wealthiest Americans. It's a scam that gives away billions of dollars to people who don't need a dime of it to survive. And as soon as it passed, Paul Ryan shamelessly announced that Republicans would next be targeting programs aimed at people who do need help. And true to his word, Congressional Republicans have been making it easier for states to strengthen work requirements, giving them ways to kick people out of social safety net programs and restrict the access of those who still manage to qualify.
He's already expressed repugnant ideas about how to improve his agency, and like his claim that it's vitally important that HUD-provided housing be uncomfortable to live in. According to Carson, lazy poor people will never want to leave if they feel safe and at-home in their own homes. The only way to motivate them is to make their lives worse. But anyone who's barely knowledgeable on the topic knows that's wrong. In his meticulous book on Milwaukee tenants and landlords, Evicted author Matthew Desmond describes the ways that run-down, barely-livable housing demoralizes and demotivates the people living in it, driving up depression and making it exponentially harder for them to get out. In short, deliberately making people's housing worse does nothing to improve their life.
And now Carson is trying to make that official policy, claiming that the best way to get people out of federally-provided, affordable housing is to make it unaffordable. His reasoning isn't clear yet. Will a 200 percent rent increase inspire people to give themselves raises? Does Carson think fewer people in government housing is a win, even if they're homeless as a result? Was he too busy picking out $31,000 dining sets on tax-payer money then pretending his wife bought it to actually come up with a reason to justify this? All we know is what he told reporters according to the Washington Post: "The current system isn't working very well. Doing nothing is not an option."
So there's Carson's whole argument. This is his only option because he literally can't think of anything else.
