HUD’s Broken Promises: The Entrenchment of Private Interests and Financialization of Low-Income Housing Policy in Nixon’s Housing Regime

Shai Karp, Ursinus College
Jacob Ball, Rutgers University

This paper examines how the promise of greater federal authority to address America’s housing needs and enforce fair housing standards, following the establishment of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the late 1960s, was quickly undermined during Richard Nixon’s administration. Drawing on archival records, this paper analyzes the role of HUD in changes to American housing policy during the early 1970s. In this period, HUD secretary George Romney oversaw policies that deepened inequities and initiated the financialization of America’s low-income housing policies. By reducing the supply of public housing and relying more heavily on subsidies for solutions to low-income housing, Romney began a long-term shift toward financialized housing policies. This paper focuses on two interrelated dynamics found in the archive. First, it explores the entrenchment of private interests within HUD through the analysis of speeches and correspondences with private industry. Rather than support robust public investment in housing, Romney promoted subsidized housing and decentralized decision-making structures to the benefit of the private housing industry. Second, it examines how the history of racial discrimination in housing interacted with these preferences, especially dismantling an innovative integrated public housing development that had the potential to alter public perceptions and provide a new model for federal investment in rental housing. This paper contributes to our understanding how the American political economy allows for institutionalization of power imbalances that entrench organized interest preferences into policy regimes.

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 Presented in Session 30. Housing Policy and Politics in the U.S.