ABSTRACT
Public housing has existed in the United States since 1937, but through the efforts of the real estate lobby, segments of the business community and the press, its growth has been successfully stunted since its inception. Whether public housing will ever develop as a viable programme and rise above the stifling conditions under which it has operated only the future can tell. The major problem of the public housing programme has been in racial attitudes. Because black people are heavily concentrated among the lowest income groups and because they form a substantial part of this low-income population and low-rent housing need, the public housing programme would of necessity have included more blacks than a broad general programme. The original Housing Act contained a provision that no family would be eligible if its income exceeded five times the rent; in the case of families with three or more dependents, six times the rent.
