It's one of those things that probably sounds like a great idea in a sophomore political science study group, or at a tony yoga studio full of upper-middle-class non-profit workers: get rid of landlords, and convert the housing market to "social housing". Which is another term for "socialist housing", without the "ist".
I mean, like so many things coming from the ultra-left, it seems to wrap a solution to a difficult problem in a neat, simplistic, dare I say reductionist package that rolls right off the tongue, or the keyboard:
Essentially every argument against rent control.
— Kerch 🍉 (@matt_kercher) June 27, 2026
-It reduces new builds
-it prevents mobility
- it increases prices over time
Can be solved by having a public builder building social housing alongside the rent control.
Stop looking at every problem from a free market POV
To paraphrase the classic sophomore political science cliché, just like the problems with Marxism, "we've never tried "real" "public builder social housing".
But if you are old enough to have cognitive memories of Bill Clinton's administration, you know - yes, we have.
In the 1950s-1960s, when a previous, much more innocent generation of the left embarked on the "Great Society and the War on Poverty", there was a well-meaning campaign of building public ("social") housing.
The results were socially, criminologically, and economically catastrophic. Some of the projects are still synonyms for horribly misguided government interventions with horrific results.
For those that are too young to remember that more sensible age, and whose education ignored that history, I present to you...
...the Top Ten Worst "Social Housing" Fiascos Of the 1950s- 1990s.
These are the ten worst, most dismal examples of "social housing".
So far.
10, 9 and 8. Rockwell Gardens, Henry Horner Homes and Stateway Gardens
Chicago's housing authority was particularly aggressive at building "social housing" from the 1950s into the '70s; the city was (and remains) highly represented on lists of places with tight correlations between government housing and all manner of blight.
All three were demolished in the 2000s as even Chicago started to realize they had a problem:
Focusing on three housing projects--Rockwell Gardens, Henry Homer Homes, and Harold Ickes Homes--the authors interviewed residents, community leaders, and the staff of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) in the mid-1990's to the latter 1990's. Since the late 1970's, the high-rise developments of the CHA have been dominated by gang violence and drugs, creating a sense of hopelessness among residents. Despite a lengthy "war" on crime, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the CHA has been unable to reduce the violence that makes life intolerable in the CHA housing projects. Most families living in the three developments are headed by African-American single mothers. The book discusses the dilemmas facing women and children who are often victims or witnesses of violent crime, and yet are dependent on the perpetrators and their drug-based economy. The CHA--plagued by financial scandals, managerial incompetence, and inconsistent funding--is no match for the gang-dominated social order. Even well-intentioned initiatives such as the recent effort to demolish and "revitalize" the worst developments apparently have been ineffective in combating crime. The drastic changes leave many vulnerable families facing an uncertain future. Efforts to improve life in these housing projects are typically short-term, poorly funded, and often ill-suited to the nature of the problem. This book is a testimony to how ill-designed, albeit well-intentioned, efforts can often make things worse. 10 photographs, 5 figures, 2 tables, appended description of research methods, chapter notes, a 114-item bibliography, and a subject index
"Social Housing" not only warehouses society's problems in one gray, ugly, hopeless place, but it pools a lot of taxpayer money in a place where an army of government/non-profit palms inevitably line up to get greased, which would be Chicago's middle name if cities had middle names. What Minneapolis is to "learing", Chicago is for "housing".
7. Magnolia Projects (New Orleans)
One of the places that showed the world that "public" is to housing as it is to restrooms. Unlivable even without the crime that emanated from it. Demolished after Katrina.
6. Jordan Downs (Watts/Los Angeles)
Unlike many of the other entries on this list, this project - converted from temporary wartime housing - hasn't been completely demolished yet. Like all the others, and pretty much all "social housing", it had and still has crime rates well above the city's already bad average.
Los Angeles continues to try to revitalize the area.
5. Brewster-Douglass Homes (Detroit)
An early high-rise project, its collapse into crime, drugs, and abandonment coincided with Detroit's collapse in general. Demolition finished over a decade ago.
4. Desire Projects (New Orleans)
At one point the largest public / "social" housing project in the country, it was also synonymous with heroin- and crack-driven violence and addiction. They started demolishing it thirty years ago, replacing it with mixed-income housing which has, at least, managed to stay out of the news.
3. Robert Taylor Homes (Chicago)
Back to Chicago, for the biggest "Social Housing" project in the country. By some estimates, the project had a 95% unemployment/public assistance rate; the place was a miasma of gang activity, drugs, and violent crime. The place was demolished 20 years ago, replaced with more mixed-income housing.
2. Cabrini Green (Chicago)
If you grew up in the Midwest, "Cabrini Green" was the two word synonym for "government housing hell-hole" (aka "social housing"). A complex of high-rises and rowhouses on the Near North Side, the complex was plagued with almost biblical poverty, violence, and misery. The city essentially ceded the project over to the gangs. Fate: Phased demolition from the 1990s–2011 under HOPE VI and redevelopment plans; replaced with mixed-income housing. Crime in the area dropped significantly afterward.
And the #1 exemplar of the glory of "Social Housing":
1. Pruitt-Igoe (Saint Louis)
An early experiment from the 1950s, Pruitt-Igoe became an early example, with the crime and vacancy rates accelerating as fast as the facilities themselves deteriorated.
An early example of "social housing", it was also one of the first to be abandoned; its 33 high-rises were all demolished over fifty years ago.
But who knows? Maybe, like Communism itself, maybe one more try will do the trick.
