Economy
CityLab Daily: The Problem With ‘Humans of HUD’
Also: The neighborhoods buried in student debt, and the fight to integrate New York’s specialized schools.
Keep up with the most pressing, interesting, and important city stories of the day. Sign up for the CityLab Daily newsletter here.
Huddle for warmth: As the cliché goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but on “Humans of HUD,” the photos say just one thing: self-sufficiency. HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s favorite watchword looms over the agency’s new Insta-friendly campaign, which lifts a page from the popular “Humans of New York” photoblog by pairing photos of people receiving housing aid with testimonials. But, CityLab’s Kriston Capps writes, there’s a disconnect between the feel-good idealism of the portraits and the direction the department has taken under the Trump administration.