Marilyn M. Thomas-Houston and Mark Schuller, Homing Devices: The Poor as Targets of Public Housing Policy and Practice (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006)

摘要

The role of government in public policy is being redefined. Reflecting this change are the privatization of affordable housing, the redevelopment of low-income housing communities, the reduction in the amount of subsidized affordable units, and mandated citizen participation. Echoing the thinking of many critical thinkers on the left, Homing Devices is a contribution to the leftist critique of these current trends in affordable housing policy, and places the blame for both the above transformation and attendant displacement of the poor at the feet of neoliberal economic policies. Such policies, the editors argue, are occurring in a global economic context, and are the engine moving the Western (first world) formulation of the role of government in housing the poor from the welfare state to the security state, one that is more concerned with the protection of the individual and private property. The editors argue that this transformation frequently undervalues the meaning of house and home for those who are most powerless.