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It's a good article, in that it exposes the utter failure -- and threat to the larger community -- of Section 8 housing subsidies (which began in Chicago, of course, with a "prettified" study) -- but it draws the wrong conclusions.

It uses two females -- the young one who got her GED, and says “I know I have to venture out in the world,” she said, running through her options: Go back to school? Get a job? Get married? Have a baby? “I want more. I’m so ready to have my own. I just don’t know how to get it.” (Hint: how about working for a living?)

Then there's the older woman: "11 years crack-free and, at 47, eager to take advantage of every free program that comes her way—a leadership class, Windows Vista training, a citizen police course, a writing workshop." (Hint: How about working for a living?)

Of course, the article doesn't suggest that maybe, just maybe -- these two women should try getting an actual job, but that this experiment is has become "baffling and disappointing" and "When the projects came down, the residents lost their public-support system—health clinics, child care, job training. Memphis’s infant-mortality rate is rising, for example, and Betts is convinced that has something to do with poor people’s having lost easy access to prenatal care. The services remained downtown while the clients scattered all over the city, many of them with no convenient transportation."

So, after all, the problem is the government's fault -- besides move these people out of rat-infested "projects," they should have followed them with all those services they were accustomed to....with no accountability or responsiblity required from the recipients, as usual.