The Hub is a relic of the ’50s, built by legendary Charleston developer J.C. Long back in the day when his Beach Co. was known for affordable housing. In the post-war boom, Long built scores of these little cement duplexes on Azalea Drive as short-stay housing for sailors and their families.

Sixty years later and long after Beach sold it off, The Hub is still standing, nothing short of a three-acre, low-rise slum. Even the liquor store is out of business. 

The people who live here aren’t welfare queens … Most of his tenants are the working poor, he says, and he has people standing in line for the 160 or so apartments they own in some of North Charleston’s poorest, most violent neighborhoods.

What’s happening in North Charleston is happening all over America. The federal government got out of the business of building public housing two decades ago…

Read the full Post & Courier opinion article by Steve Bailey by clicking the following link.