Commercial Real Estate News / Insight / Cities and States With the Worst Public Housing

Cities and States With the Worst Public Housing

Published: 05-10-23 Category: Insight

Specializes in providing actionable insights into the commercial real estate space for investors, brokers, lessors, and lessees. He covers quarterly market data reports, investment strategies, how-to guides, and top-down perspectives on market movements.

Cities and States With Worst Public Housing

The issue of public housing in the United States has been a persistent problem for decades. While the goal of providing decent and safe rental housing for low-income individuals and families remains a priority, many public housing units are plagued by issues such as substandard living conditions and maintenance problems.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) conducts regular physical inspections to ensure that families are provided with safe, clean housing, but the results of these inspections can be concerning. In this article, we take a closer look at public housing in the U.S. and highlight some of the cities with the worst public housing based on HUD inspection scores.

Let’s start by taking a closer look at public housing: what it is, who needs it, and who owns and/or manages it.

“Decent, Safe, Low-Cost Housing”

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), public housing provides decent and safe rental housing for low-income individuals and families. These often include the elderly and persons with disabilities.

The first public housing projects were a result of the Housing Act of 1937. It served a dual purpose: to help eliminate slums and other substandard housing while providing construction jobs during a time of high unemployment.

Conditions of Today’s Public Housing & Federal Involvement

Today’s public housing exists in all sizes and types, from single-family houses to high rise apartments for the elderly, the disabled, and low-income families. These may be owned or subsidized by HUD. Maintenance and upkeep is managed by local housing agencies, with the assistance of federal aid.

However, federal involvement in public housing doesn’t guarantee that every unit provides safe and sanitary housing or is kept in good repair. This is evident by the regular physical inspections carried out by HUD and the variety of scores recorded.

About 20,000 HUD inspections are conducted each year to ensure that families are provided with safe, clean housing.

While a perfect HUD inspection score is 100, many buildings score considerably lower. More than a few score a 25 or even worse, displaying classic problems: leaking ceilings, garbage-filled hallways and cockroach populations that rival Joe’s Apartment.

States with the Worst Public Housing in the United States

Here is a table that ranks average public housing inspection scores from worst to best:

State	Average Inspection Score	Rank (Worst to Best)
USA Average	84.10	--
North Dakota	77.61	1
Montana	78.60	2
Oklahoma	80.29	3
Iowa	80.56	4
New York	80.90	5
New Jersey	81.11	6
Hawaii	81.49	7
Georgia	81.57	8
Wyoming	81.67	9
Nebraska	82.52	10
Mississippi	82.67	11
Louisiana	82.85	12
Delaware	82.92	13
Illinois	83.08	14
Texas	83.10	15
Wisconsin	83.29	16
Idaho	83.38	17
South Carolina	83.41	18
Indiana	83.59	19
Ohio	83.67	20
Nevada	84.05	21
Missouri	84.16	22
Virginia	84.25	23
Tennessee	84.30	24
Alaska	84.35	25
Kentucky	84.47	26
Florida	84.47	27
Pennsylvania	84.52	28
Maryland	84.54	29
Arkansas	84.73	30
Minnesota	84.74	31
Kansas	84.86	32
West Virginia	85.01	33
Colorado	85.14	34
Connecticut	85.18	35
New Mexico	85.27	36
Michigan	85.55	37
Alabama	85.67	38
California	85.75	39
Washington	85.83	40
Maryland	85.87	41
Oregon	86.16	42
Arizona	86.76	43
Utah	86.79	44
North Carolina	87.27	45
Rhode Island	87.34	46
Maine	87.58	47
South Dakota	87.74	48
New Hampshire	88.12	49
Vermont	88.46	50

Cities with the Worst Public Housing in the United States

Here are the cities with the worst average public housing inspection scores:

Rank (worst to best)	Metro	Average Inspection Score
1	Hilton Head Island-Bluffton, SC	72.55
2	Fargo, ND-MN	74.00
3	Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA	74.48
4	Ocala, FL	74.88
5	Charleston-North Charleston, SC	75.03
6	Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA	75.35
7	Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA	76.61
8	Macon-Bibb County, GA	76.79
9	Cleveland-Elyria, OH	77.48
10	Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL	77.78
11	Waco, TX	77.94
12	Clarksville, TN-KY	78.43
13	New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA	78.69
14	Shreveport-Bossier City, LA	78.94
15	Lake Charles, LA	79.00
16	Merced, CA	79.00
17	Green Bay, WI	79.18
18	South Bend-Mishawaka, IN-MI	79.18
19	Champaign-Urbana, IL	79.19
20	Columbia, MO	79.20
21	Modesto, CA	79.20
22	Yuma, AZ	79.33
23	Jackson, MS	79.35
24	Savannah, GA	79.44
25	Oklahoma City, OK	79.50

Cities with the Best Public Housing in the United States

Here are the cities with the best average public housing inspection scores:

Rank (best to worst)	Metro	Average Inspection Score
1	Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC	92.58
2	Prescott Valley-Prescott, AZ	92.50
3	Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA	92.46
4	Visalia, CA	92.27
5	Norwich-New London, CT	92.22
6	Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA	92.16
7	Jacksonville, NC	92.14
8	Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent, FL	91.41
9	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	91.38
10	Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL	91.30
11	Salinas, CA	91.05
12	San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA	91.00
13	Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA	91.00
14	Bellingham, WA	90.83
15	Burlington-South Burlington, VT	90.82
16	Johnson City, TN	90.46
17	Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN	90.42
18	Naples-Marco Island, FL	90.20
19	Provo-Orem, UT	90.11
20	Las Cruces, NM	89.47
21	Springfield, MO	89.45
22	Chattanooga, TN-GA	88.80
23	Medford, OR	88.67
24	Appleton, WI	88.67
25	Gulfport-Biloxi, MS	88.62

There Goes the Neighborhood: The Biggest Losers

As a result of HUD inspections during 2018 to 2020, here are locations and details of public housing addresses that were assigned some of the lowest HUD physical inspection scores (from 3 to 20).

While most are located within boroughs of New York and New Jersey, other states’ buildings earned embarrassing inspection scores. Cities in Missouri, Texas, South Carolina, Illinois, Minnesota, and Connecticut are also guilty of sub-par public housing.

All but one of the very worst-scoring buildings were in New York’s Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Bronx neighborhoods.

At the bottom of the barrel: the William Reid Apartments, a 20-story building at 728 East New York Avenue, Brooklyn. HUD inspectors awarded it a 3.
Eight additional properties in various New York neighborhoods earned HUD inspection scores of 4 to 10.
New Jersey’s public housing development at 300 Marshall Drive, Hoboken, earned a 6 inspection score.
1547 Wellston Place in St. Louis, Missouri was awarded an 11 inspection score by HUD. This two-story building has 48 units.
Buildings earning HUD inspection scores of 13 to 19 were located in New York’s Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Yonkers boroughs.
San Antonio, Texas appeared next. The HemisView Village Apartments at 401 Santos Street was given a HUD inspection score of 19.
Two other buildings earned a 19 score after HUD inspections: 1 Roanoke Court in Newark, New Jersey and Joseph Floyd Manor, 2106 Mt. Pleasant Street in Charleston, South Carolina.

Public housing remains a complex issue in the United States. While it serves an important purpose of providing affordable housing for low-income families, the conditions of some public housing units are often substandard. The results of regular HUD physical inspections highlight the need for greater investment in public housing, and for local housing agencies to better manage and maintain these properties.

For investors considering multifamily real estate investment properties, it’s crucial to research the surrounding neighborhood and take into account potential issues such as crime rates and financing difficulties. By staying informed and diligent, investors can make smart investment decisions and help improve the state of public housing in the U.S.

Methodology

To compile a list of cities with the worst public housing in the United States, we reviewed HUD physical inspection scores conducted between 2018 to 2020. We analyzed data from HUD’s Physical Inspection Scores (PHAS) online database, which contains information on over 1.2 million public housing units managed by over 3,200 housing agencies across the U.S. We then cross-referenced these addresses with their respective states and cities to determine the locations with the highest number of low-scoring public housing units. Metros included had a population of at least 200,000.