Some of you who know me might know I spent the last three years serving on the Iowa City Housing and Community Development Commission (HCDC). And I’ve been the chair of HCDC since July 2021. As I finish up my 3-year term, I wanted to write a bit about all that and about housing in Iowa City (and elsewhere!).
The short version: HCDC does great work on community problems, but it’s not built for solutions to deep or structural problems.
Housing Commission
For the longer version, there are certain things HCDC does really well. And certain things that the city of Iowa City does really well. We allocate funds in many useful ways. A few recent examples: funds to Domestic Violence Intervention Program to house victims of domestic abuse, funds to Inside Out Reentry to house people returning from prison, and funds to Shelter House to support the fight against homelessness.
These are all great things. And these projects solve a lot of specific problems. Readers might even enjoy a video of me talking about these things to our city council. When the city doesn’t address these issues with public services, these orgs are essential.
Housing Ideas
But in the end, these are public problems. And they require public solutions. We should solve them with democratic, participatory, public orgs. Iowa City’s cornucopia of non-profits work effectively at what they do, but they won’t solve our housing and community issues. We won’t solve those issues by sending federal and local money to them. Only by building public power.
Of course, none of that should shock any regular readers. I wrote previously about why only public housing – and not affordable housing – can solve our housing issues. But those reasons are both practical and philosophical. On the practical side, only a mixed income housing program can reach the right size without taking steps (either onerous taxation or, much more likely, service cuts) that undermine the program. And on the philosophical side, it’s the only real way to organize people to turn into a force that engages in democratic management and solves problems.
I’ve certainly enjoyed my time with HCDC. It’s provided a certain ‘inside’ look at how the city operates. And at how, ultimately, their mission is one of managing funds and projects within a system that needs much deeper political changes.
