Black Run America: Public Housing

Credit Image: © Taidgh Barron/ZUMA Press Wire

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Blacks are about 13 percent of the population, but occupy just under fifty percent of all American public housing. It’s about the same for Section 8 and other voucher programs, which spread the overflow from public housing.

The numbers in different locations bear out the common view that public housing is largely black. Here are percentages of units occupied by “minorities” — I couldn’t find a breakout for blacks — so this includes Hispanics and some Asians:

• Puerto Rico — 100 percent
• Washington DC — 99 percent
• Delaware (22 percent black) — 91 percent
• New York — 91 percent
• California — 87 percent
• U.S. average — 71 percent
• Minnesota (78 percent white) — 45 percent
• Idaho — 15 percent
• Vermont — 3 percent

Non-whites live in public housing at between double and triple their percentage of the population, and wherever non-whites are 30 or 40 percent of the total population, public housing is close to 100 percent non-white.

Outside of New England and the Mountain West, public housing in America is largely non-white and especially black. Blacks use public housing at about four times their percentage of the population. The program costs the public $60 billion a year.

Black from the start

Lyndon Johnson set up the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a cabinet-level agency in 1966. Johnson’s choice of Robert Weaver as the first HUD Secretary gives us a clue as to its purpose. Out of twenty-nine men (no women) who served in Johnson’s Cabinet, Weaver was the only non-white.

The current HUD secretary is a black woman and so was her predecessor. Ben Carson, also black, was HUD secretary under President Trump. Of 18 HUD secretaries, there have been six blacks and three Hispanics, but minority leaders are not found only at the highest levels of this massive transfer of wealth.

There are about 3,300 local public housing authorities in the United States, spending cash from Washington. Administration is by state and carried out locally. Each of those 3,300 is a bureaucracy, and the proportion of blacks in the top positions reaches absurd levels.

Black from top to bottom

I’ll use my home state of Florida as a proxy for the country. Its black population is slightly above the national average (15 percent) and it has a higher Hispanic population (25 percent). It’s in the middle of the pack in employment and wages, has a good mix of urban and rural populations, and is a good stand-in for checking 30 or so authorities instead of 3,300.

The following personnel from Florida’s largest cities are all black:

• President of the Tampa Housing Authority
• The director of Hillsborough County Affordable Housing Services (Tampa)
• The executive director of the Tallahassee Housing Authority
• Chief executive officer of the Gainesville Housing Authority
• President of St. Petersburg Housing Authority
• Five out of seven of the directors of the advisory board to the St. Petersburg Housing Authority
• President of Orlando Housing Authority
• Director of housing and community services for Osceola County (Orlando)
• Executive director of Palm Beach County Housing Authority
• Executive director of the Housing Authority in West Palm Beach
• Chief executive officer of Jacksonville Housing Authority
• Forty percent of the housing commissioners in Fort Lauderdale

Miami is the one exception among Florida’s big cities. Its public housing boss is Hispanic — no surprise, since it is 70 percent Hispanic.

There are plenty of agencies in smaller towns that somehow ended up headed by blacks:

• CEO of Ocala Housing Authority
• Executive director of Bradenton Housing Authority
• Executive director of tiny Plant City’s Housing Authority
• Director of housing for Leesburg (population 30,000)
• Executive director of public housing in Fort Walton Beach (20,000 people)
• Four out of five commissioners on the board of the Housing Authority of Palatka (10,000 people)
• Executive director of the Winter Park Housing Authority (2,000 people)
• About a quarter of the 55,000 people of Winter Haven are black. The executive director of the Housing Authority is black. These images from the authority’s website show whom it serves.

• These are from the Tarpon Springs Housing Authority. Only 6 percent of the city’s 26,000 people are black.

Photos like these would not exactly encourage whites to apply for housing, even if they qualified.

Also, compare those staged scenes with this one of a Tampa Housing Authority leader handing over keys to a new “client.”

Why so many blacks?

I searched only Florida and just under half of the housing authorities. Some didn’t include photos of executives. Some names sounded unquestionably black, but I didn’t include them unless I could find photos. In other words, I barely scratched the surface and have probably undercounted black agency heads, but a look at about one percent of all the housing authorities in the country shows them everywhere.

Something else struck me: Blacks are often at the top of the pyramid but not so common just below. When photos are available for chief financial officer, senior administration manager, or chief technology officer, they are almost always whites. Where do the blacks in top jobs come from if they don’t work their way up?

Most of these jobs are filled by appointment from governor, mayors, county commissions, etc. They are essentially patronage jobs that involve hardly any “leadership.” In housing, the feds call the shots on eligibility and the states just implement federal guidelines.

Another reason I think there are so many black agency heads is for the same reason an absurd percentage of police chiefs are black — it’s political cover for local governments to avoid the appearance of whites being in charge of or controlling blacks. A white president of a housing authority is a plantation master. A black president is wonderful diversity and a role model for kids.

Likewise, these “presidents” and “executive directors” can’t do any real harm because all important decisions are made for them. So why not put a black in charge and look progressive? And at election time, they can help get out the vote — unofficially, of course.