Throughout history, the United States government has been destroying Black people’s homes instead of building them. With rising costs, people need to maintain numerous jobs to afford to live comfortably. According to a report by the Fund by the City of New York, 58 percent of Black households in New York can’t afford to meet their basic needs. These financial injustices can trap African Americans into entering the welfare system, creating more hardships within their homes.
My household was divided by Section 8, a welfare program created by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that offers “rental subsidies to eligible tenant families residing in new construction, rehabilitated and existing rental apartments, and cooperative projects.” Established by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, Section 8 provides subsidies that are “project-based,” which means that HUD commits to grant assistance for the units of a “particular mortgaged property for a contractually determined period.”
Because of Section 8’s unfair requirements necessary to receive financial assistance, it has been designed for Black people, one of the largest populations in the program, to fail. Being too young, I didn’t understand how limited my family’s life was because of Section 8. I grew up with no luxuries because Section 8 only covers household payments and limits the number of hours an individual can work. So, with five kids, my mother struggled tremendously.
There wasn’t much for me to accomplish as a child growing up with a mother heavily attached to the welfare system. If I hadn’t disconnected myself from her lifestyle, I wouldn’t be a college student today. From a young age, I witnessed how the system drained my mother, and I didn’t want that for me or my children.
Consequently, the requirements of Section 8 are one of the reasons the Black community’s division seems unmendable. When it comes to housing, Black communities are highly likely to suffer from housing insecurities. We constantly fear the police or coworkers ripping us away from our children and placing the children into the foster care system if we open up about household concerns and habits or financial struggles. Our homes are deemed unsafe because we have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet or put the leasing agreement before our children.
The resolution to all of this is to close the gaps in the lives of African American people. Gender inequality and the welfare system must change. Children can grow up in a nurturing environment with love or affection if the requirements of Section 8 are softened. This would lessen the need to withhold tenant counts from the welfare system, ensuring peace on all fronts. As a result, by building homes instead of destroying them, criminal activity, violence and assault can decrease rapidly. The stress of finding shelter would lift drastically, creating homes with positive family-oriented ideologies in children and adults.
