Reddit mentions of Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality

I would challenge the method of setting up social housing. I agree that there is totally a need for more housing supply in cities where rent in many neighborhoods is high, and vacancies are low, but using social housing (at least, only social housing) as your policy solution leads to many situations where the poor are not upwardly socially mobile and neighborhoods become stigmatized, leading to ghettoization.

What problems exist to social housing?

Social housing is often constructed in specific urban neighborhoods where there is less legitimate economic activity, higher crime, etc. This is because of a few reasons:

(1) Often, there just isn't a lot of available land where rents are high and economic activity is booming. Think of Manhattan, San Francisco, or a place like the center of Toronto/Vancouver. Social housing would be built in the urban periphery or ghetto, where there exists less opportunity for residents.

(2) Let's assume, for the sake of this point, that some level of government is going to control the social housing corporation you mention. That level of government is going to be pressured against building social housing in neighborhoods where more wealthy households/individuals or even middle-class households/individuals live. Those citizens are likely to rally against whatever level of government is in charge of locating the social housing, and those citizens have far more political capital than the poor citizens who would be benefiting from social housing. They understand how to call their representatives at municipal, provincial, whatever level of government and to complain. They understand (better) the process of zoning and constructing new housing projects. They will raise a fuss and the government, either in anticipation or in response, is likely to build social housing somewhere else. Somewhere where residents won't complain about it.

Because social housing ends up in poorer neighborhoods, the poorer citizens in those neighborhoods often do not have access to a lot of economic opportunity. Their schools may receive less funding (especially in the USA). Violent crime (whatever its cause) may prevent kids from receiving a productive education from day to day (see example of the South Side of Chicago). There are likely to be fewer legitimate businesses. And public services which give residents upwards mobility are few, because most public service expansions tend to go to those parts of the urban populace that has political capital and knows how to use it (above argument, #2). Things like libraries, public transport, even parks and recreation, all sponsored by the municipal governments of the kinds of cities we're talking about, end up in middle-class or wealthy neighborhoods, not poor ones. And the public services that do go to these neighborhoods might be more poorly maintained than the public services that go to wealthier neighborhoods. All this contributes to the creation of a relatively socially immobile poor neighborhood.

You may not agree that that is a problem, but I think it is. Governments have a duty to all citizens -- not just the citizens who have political capital and know how to use it -- to make possible the conditions of social mobility. Coming from an American perspective, I believe the government ought to allow all citizens to have equal opportunities, so that the American Dream can be more of a reality than it is at present. Immobile urban neighborhoods, which can be considered in a number of cases ghettos, strip opportunities away from residents. That's a horrible thing in my book.

Furthermore, creating socially immobile poor neighborhoods creates a social stigma related to a specific place. This affects the confidence and psyche of the inhabitants. See https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Outcasts-Comparative-Sociology-Marginality/dp/0745631258 and Wacquant's related work (libgen has the pdf).

What policy solutions help alleviate the problems created by creating social housing?

If you agree that creating ghettos is a problem, there have to be some solutions:

(1) Reducing crime. Unfortunately, there is not much consensus / some amount of heated debate about how reducing crime actually happens. Should there be more policing, or less? I personally believe that policing should be less aggressive, but others can disagree. This is a tangential point anyways.

(2) Increasing the public services which help these neighborhoods access economic opportunities. Extending public transport, so that residents can access jobs around the city. Creating more libraries and maintaining them better. Unfortunately, these solutions are often unlikely to be put in place. Promises are made and then broken. I wish I could find a better source for you; I've heard plenty of stories and researched quite a bit on this subject, but don't have access to many resources right now. That being said, the following link might help.

https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2018-04-24/transit-deserts-a-growing-problem-in-the-us

What alternatives exist to social housing?

The government can also mandate that private developers set aside a certain number of rent-controlled units for middle- and lower-class citizens to be distributed by lottery or by a comparable, equitable program. This solution avoids ghettoization and allows residents to access public transit in other neighborhoods. This might also be an unpopular policy, but certainly not AS unpopular as constructing all the housing for the poor in one middle-class or wealthy neighborhood.

The city of Boston has such a policy for middle-income residents called IDP http://www.bostonplans.org/housing/overview

This requires a fair amount of monitoring, and in my opinion Boston's municipal government is struggling a bit, but I think that this is a much fairer solution than constructing social housing, which isolates the poor. Note that Boston also has social project housing; but both solutions is certainly better in my opinion than doing social project housing alone.