Should the Government Provide Affordable Housing to the Poor?
By
Michele McKnight
For
Political Science 3320
Minority and Ethnic Group Politics
Baylor University
Fall 2018
Affordable housing would be granted to those who have a certain median income
according to the national government. The federal government spent close to 30 billion dollars
on Section 8 subsidized housing in 2015. That number has since grown since 2015. That is a vast
amount of money for a country to be spending that is in debt. It causes more problems for the
government than it solves. The government should not guarantee affordable housing to the poor.
The cost of guaranteeing affordable housing to the poor is significant for the government.
They would first have to determine who is poor and who is not. The poverty line in the U.S.
differs for each household. The government assigns your household one of the poverty
thresholds. A household is considered in poverty when their income is lower than their poverty
threshold. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2017, 12.3% of households were considered
in poverty.
