a c t i o n n e e d e d!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE POWERLESS AND WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT WITH YOU. (From Alliance friends at LSURJ - Louisville Showing Up For Racial Justice) The sentence formed in my head on June 26 as I tried to put together some thoughts about what I had just heard at a public hearing about a “rent reform study” in which the housing authorities in Louisville Metro and three other cities have volunteered to participate. By “volunteered to participate,” I mean the housing authority’s staff has agreed that its clients, all of whom for this study are Section 8 voucher recipients, will participate, but no one has asked the clients. There is no informed consent form for clients to sign and no way for them to say, “No thanks. I don’t want to be a part of your experiment.” If participation in the experiment turns out to be too much for a “volunteer” client to endure, the client may submit a hardship waiver. Well, that and piles of documentation proving she will be evicted within seven days, or that she’s about to have her utilities shut off. I use the pronouns “she” and “her” because women are far more likely than men to be enrolled in this experiment. Nationally, female-headed households comprise 83 percentof all households receiving assistance through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Section 8 voucher program. Most of these women are mothers, and in my city, most of them are also black. Hence, local housing advocates have called the rent reform study, “an experiment on black women and children.” It’s bad enough that the study is based on the false premise that people receiving Section 8 housing vouchers don’t work (presumably out of laziness). The study forces Section 8 voucher holders to suddenly start paying a minimum rent of $75, and it recalculates their utilities assistance by redetermining their annual gross income using a method that eliminates deductions for child care. As many housing advocates pointed out at the hearing or in print, it’s like HUD is thinking that increased misery is the best way to motivate people who aren’t working to work. Though I’m not a mother and I’m not in any public housing programs, I have grown tired of black women’s demonization. As a researcher and as a black woman, I find the use of stereotypes to drive research insulting, but the absence of consent is chilling. People who are already marginalized will be randomly assigned either to the group whose life will get substantially more difficult or the control group, whose rent and gross income won’t change. A woman will receive no benefit for participating, but she can’t say, “No.” That sends a message to black women and children: You are powerless, and we can do whatever we want with you. That’s not a motivational message; that’s a demoralizing one, and it serves only to compound all the negative messages they already receive about themselves. If you think this is a bad message to send, you have until July 13 to express yourself during the mandatory public comment period. Tell Sarah Laster at Louisville Metro Housing Authority how you feel in writing by emailing her at sarah.laster@gmail, or send regular mail to LMHA 420 S. 8th St., Louisville 40203.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 16:37:32 +0000