Quality of Low-Income Housing

The quality of American housing stock has improved vastly over the past few decades. The gains are so large that the 1980 Presidential Commission on Housing declared the problem of housing quality solved, and that future federal policy should concern itself exclusively with affordability. On this basis, the Reagan administration recommended virtual elimination of all production-oriented housing programs; it introduced instead a new approach based on the housing voucher.

In recent years, however, improvements in housing quality seem to have stalled. As might be expected, the poor—especially minorities—live in the worst housing. Approximately half of all inadequate units are occupied by poor families (see Appendix C), with nearly one-third of black households and one-fifth of Hispanic households living in substandard housing. Poor minority, elderly, and female households show at least twice the level of inadequate housing as all households, ranging from 14 percent inadequate among the elderly up to 30 percent among blacks (see Table 4).

The belief that problems of housing quality have been solved stems from the fact that the number of units with major deficiencies—lack of complete plumbing, complete kitchen facilities, or private bathrooms—has continued to decline over the past ten years. Yet units deficient in basic maintenance and upkeep rose from 1974 to 1981 (see Appendix D). The highest growth rate of all maintenance problems was in units deficient in heating equipment or infested with rats and mice.

Although the demolition of old stock and replacement with new construction has improved the quality of housing overall, the net gain is less dramatic than might be supposed. Between 1974 and 1981 approximately 4 million units were demolished or converted to other uses. Another