WHAT ABOUT THE MULE?:

Support Voiced for a Giveaway of Public Apartments (ELIOT BROWN, May 21, 2007, NY Sun)

A Nobel-prize-winning economist, three former officials of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the head of one of the city's largest social-service agencies, and the chairman of the tenants council of a Harlem public housing project are among those offering at least guarded support for the idea of turning apartments in the city's public housing projects over to the tenants to own or sell.

The concept, floated on May 15 in a New York Sun editorial, "Paupers to Millionaires," envisions giving about 200,000 residents of the city's low-income public housing units ownership of their apartments, which often sit on high-priced land. The tenants, who average a 17.7-year stay, could then decide whether to keep or to sell their apartments, some of which could fetch as much as $1 million.

"I don't like public housing — I think I should be privately held, and I think this is a good way to get it into the hands of the private sector," a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, Gary Becker, said in a telephone interview. "These houses deteriorate quickly and badly over time, so giving them away would certainly be better than most other proposals."

Even better, sell the real estate to developers and relocate the tenants to houses of their own with the proceeds.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 21, 2007 7:57 AM