The Sarasota Herald-Tribune is elated that more of your and my tax dollars are going to support the renovation of failed public housing projects like Janie Poe in Sarasota, Florida.

In their op-ed piece, Public housing stimulus: Federal funding will help clear up a backlog of needs they state, "The center of that overhaul is the Janie Poe family housing complex. Once so blighted that it became the focus of a documentary film, it is being transformed into a mix of new subsidized and market-rate units."

Yes is was blighted and will again be blighted. Why? Because that is what experience tells us. Government run public housing does not work.

In the Sarasota Herald-Tribune editorial they state, "To be sure, it takes more than subsidized housing to solve the problem of poverty, a condition that reflects many ills. But safe, decent public housing helps stabilize families as they address the roots of their -- and the nation's -- economic distress."

The editorial board is drinking the Kool-Aid on public housing. Public housing does not stabilize families it makes families dependent on government largesse. Janie Poe is neither safe or decent housing because it has been and will continue to be over run with individuals and groups who are not reliable, on welfare and in some cases dangerous.

In my previous article Public Housing a Public Disaster - when will we learn? I pointed out the following:

Individual responsibility stops when government takes over. Government makes individuals and families dependent, what we used to call slavery.

In practice when housing subsidies are provided on the basis of need, rather than effort or accomplishment, such a policy does not solve our social problems but rather makes them permanent.

As we have said over and over again public housing does not work because it goes against the market system, creates dependency, subsidizes bad behavior, and destroys families.

Howard Husock, the Director of Public Policy Case Studies at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, points out that current public housing policies are flawed at their core and rest on three myths:

* Myth 1: The free market cannot provide housing for the poor - a bedrock myth that supports all federal housing programs.
* Myth 2: By taking profit-driven landlords out of the equation, state-supported housing can offer the poor higher-quality housing.
* Myth 3: The moral qualities of the poor are a product of their housing environment.

Husock debunks each of these myths and powerfully argues for a realistic housing policy that would strive for a non subsidized world in which many different sorts of housing form a housing ladder.

The shining model that Husock uses for housing the poor is Habitat for Humanity, the faith based initiative of founder Millard Fuller, the onetime Montgomery, Alabama, lawyer and direct-mail entrepreneur.

"Habitat's emphasis on values and character in selecting its families is in sharp contrast to what might be called the entitlement view of assistance...In this view the poor are an undifferentiated victim group, surplus labor manipulated by the American economic system." says Husock.

Husock believes that, "Helping families who can make a solid commitment to their community, and who carry that commitment out by repaying their loans, is a far better way to rebuild poor neighborhoods than pouring in capital indiscriminately."

Habitat offers the hope of building self-sustaining poor neighborhoods with a strong core of homeowners. Herein lies the key revolutionary concept: a poor neighborhood can be a good neighborhood.

Sarasota needs more good neighborhoods not a upgraded Janie Poe public housing project. Public housing is a disaster waiting to happen, over and over again. It is doing the wrong thing and expecting good results.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune's editorial focuses on "need" rather than "effort" or "accomplishment". The Sarasota Herald-Tribune believes that by subsidizing failure and not individual responsibility America will be a better place to live. I respectfully and strongly disagree.