Fox News' Special Report criticized a plan to put affordable housing in affluent neighborhoods arguing that “a lot of people” in Baltimore “are not too happy about the plan,” while ignoring the benefits of the program.

On the April 4 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, correspondent Leland Vittert detailed a plan in Baltimore County, Maryland that would “spend $30 million over the next ten years to build 1,000 homes in more affluent neighborhoods.” Vittert started the segment discussing the crime rates that have “skyrocketed” in “the rougher parts of Baltimore,” adding that it is “no surprise, the folks who live” in low-income parts of Baltimore “want out of the poverty.” Vittert interviewed Maryland state delegate Pat McDonough who claimed the idea is “social engineering on steroids”:

The plan stemmed from a case where the City of Baltimore had been accused of “perpetuating segregated clusters of minority renters with government subsidies by failing to expand affordable options in prosperous neighborhoods.” While the segment focused on those who were “not too happy” about the plan, it ignored the benefits to the community. As Doug Donovan reported for The Baltimore Sun:

The agreement resolves a federal housing complaint filed in 2011 by the local NAACP branch, Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. and three county residents. They accused the county of perpetuating segregated clusters of minority renters with government subsidies by failing to expand affordable options in prosperous neighborhoods.

The complainants alleged that the county had maintained policies that kept low-income and minority residents out of the best neighborhoods by spending most of its federal housing money on housing for the elderly occupied primarily by whites, demolishing and failing to replace 4,100 subsidized housing units for families since 1995, and locating Section 8 voucher holders in poor and segregated neighborhoods.

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Housing organizations are hopeful that the work will help to provide more families access to better schools for their children. Research shows that can improve their chances of escaping poverty.

“What we have today is justice in housing in Baltimore County,” said Robert Strupp, executive director of Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc.

“The lives of residents in the housing development improved markedly after they moved to the affluent suburb,” according to The Atlantic which found that “location matters” when determining whether a child will escape poverty:

What's more, the lives of residents in the housing development improved markedly after they moved to the affluent suburb. An increasing amount of data seems to show that location matters just as much as income in determining a child's likelihood of escaping poverty. As I've written about before, children from low-income families who move to more affluent suburbs are more likely to graduate from high school, attend four-year colleges, and have jobs than their peers who stayed in the city. And cities that have made an effort to keep schools desegregated have enjoyed less race-based strife than peer cities.

Fox News has also criticized the broader federal plan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that aims to increase diversity in American neighborhoods, with some anchors saying the president's plan is strong-arming communities that are “too white [and] too privileged.”