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PARTISAN REVIEW
Lindsay's narrow emphasis on race seems dated today. Consider the
current controversy in Baltimore over an ACLU lawsuit designed
to
move welfare families into integrated working-to-middle-class neighbor–
hoods in Northeast Baltimore with Section 8 vouchers. (Unsurprisingly,
the ACLU lawyer who initiated the suit lives in a tony neighborhood
entirely free of Section 8 tenants.)
City Council president Sheila Dixon and State Senator Joan Conway,
both black representatives of Northeast Baltimore, are fighting the deci–
sion. Their city, they note, has a terrible track record in these matters.
Keith Norris, a council member from the district who is also black,
explains that he grew up in Park Heights and "witnessed firsthand its
gradual decay. . .as a result of flawed pu blic policy." He sees property
ownership not only as an emblem of achievement but as a guarantee of
social stability that is now threatened by government action.
"As a homeowner now," says Norris, "I don't want wilting property
values
to
sap the spirit of residents. . .nor do I want to see the commu–
nity used as a stage for a courtroom drama."
If
people are to be brought
in "what must be different this time is the amount of support these fam–
ilies get. . .[such as] classes in home maintenance, landscaping, money
management, and child care."
When I spoke to people in Northeast Baltimore, they snorted that
"the government specializes in sending welfare populations into weak
targets." "You won't see any welfare families sent
to
Roland Park," one
black man snapped at me, referring to the Scarsdale-like neighborhood
that resembles Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia.
In
other words, Daley'S caution in these matters was more than a
matter of racism, it was also-as a recent Chicago experiment with
homeowners equity insurance suggests-a matter of helping lower mid–
dle class people protect their nest eggs . Derided as "black insurance"
when the idea was proposed thirty years ago by the radical Saul Alin–
sky, homeowners equity insurance enables low-income homeowners to
insure the current value of their property in order to prevent white
flight .
It
was initially defeated by pressure from both real estate interests
and black politicians, like Tim Evans, who were more concerned with
maintaining black political majorities than better housing.
In
the ten years since the program finally began under Daley Jr. in
1990,
only ten homeowners on the Southwest Side have filed claims.
Though the white population has shrunk
to
about
20
percent of the
total (with the rest divided almost evenly between blacks and Hispan–
ics), it is still far greater than in most surrounding areas. Perhaps most
telling, property values have steadily climbed. The only catch is that
