Public housing

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts. In the United States, public housing developments are classified either as housing projects that are owned by a city's Housing authority or federally subsidized public housing operated through HUD. Social housing is any rental housing that may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Social housing is generally rationed by a government through some form of means-testing or through administrative measures of housing needs. One can regard social housing as a potential remedy for housing inequality. Affordable housing goals can also be achieved through subsidies. Subsidized housing is owned and operated by private owners who receive subsidies in exchange for providing affordable housing. Owners may be individual landlords or for-profit or nonprofit corporations. Social housing had existed sporadically prior to modern developments. The oldest still in use is the 16th-century Fuggerei in Augsburg, Bavaria. The origins of modern municipal housing lie in the dramatic urban population increase caused by the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. In the large cities of the period, many social commentators, such as Octavia Hill and Charles Booth reported on the squalor, sickness and immorality that arose. Henry Mayhew, visiting Bethnal Green, wrote in The Morning Chronicle: roads were unmade, often mere alleys, houses small and without foundations, subdivided and often around unpaved courts. An almost total lack of drainage and sewerage was made worse by the ponds formed by the excavation of brickearth.