Octavia Hill was a nineteenth-century social reformer, who particularly worked with public housing. Growing up in poverty herself, she felt the only way to help the poor was for them to become self-reliance instead of receiving government hand outs. As such she herself managed several buildings in urban slums as a sort of experiment for her views, and her method became quite famous in the latter half of the 1800s. It heavily involved personal relations: Hill was the rent collector but also served as a social worker. Ultimately both Great Britain (and other countries like the United States) rejected her ideas and used governmental methods instead, like rent control or whatnot.

I was listening to a podcast about her today, and the show ended with a comment that her reputation since the 1980s has improved as people noticed problems with our current system, but I don't think her methodology was the best either. Remember, her idea was self-reliance. She worked out with the landlord that he would get a 5% cut from the rents and everything else would be invested in the building itself. And to show the tenants where the money was going, they themselves were personally involved in its upkeep. One person whitewashed the walls. One person was in charge of the flowers in the windows. One person fixed broken stairwells.

Nowadays we've become so specialized it's hard to imagine everyone living in a building having all the skills needed for this. Hill would approach a tenant and ask, "What do you do?" "I work at McDonald's." That's great for creating delicious French fries, but not so great at installing new windows. Also, we're so damned busy now. After coming home from a long day's work, the last shit I need is someone telling me I need to repaint in the lobby. Even on my days off, that shit sounds terrible. There were also social requirements, like communal after-school programs for children.

And if you didn't like it, you couldn't get away because they were all up in your business. Remember, Hill served a a rent-collector/social worker. She would literally enter people's homes thrice weekly to inspect it and ask about your family situation. There was no way to hide. Even though nowadays people are open with their lives on social media, I think we'd all freak out if your landlord's representative was having a long chat with you three times a week about why you aren't furthering your career better.

Doing this required a large staff; compared to the system nowadays which just needs one dude stamping paperwork, you need an army of people who can talk to parents, chase down truant children, find doctors and such for the sick. Although I guess it did create a community, I think nowadays people would just find that exhausting.