While I was growing up in Tuscaloosa, Ala., one of the happiest days of my life was when we moved from a three-room wooden shack on 15th Street, called a shotgun house, to McKenzie Court. My new home was called the housing project, but unlike its Northern counterparts, there was no stigma associated with living in projects. If anything, there was a reverse snobbery; we looked down on people who didn't live in the projects. We were proud to live in single-level, brick townhomes that had hot and cold water, indoor toilets, and front and back yards.

Public housing did exactly what it was supposed to do: It provided safe, sanitary and affordable housing for people such as my parents, who never earned more than $5,000 a year, and their four children.

The federal public-housing program was created by the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 as a public-works program during the Great Depression. Initially, it was a way to provide temporary housing for low-income citizens.

It changed over the years as it became a permanent source of housing, requiring federal operating subsidies to various housing authorities. In fiscal 2006, more than $6 billion was appropriated for public housing.

Today, 2.6 million people live in public housing, many of them elderly, disabled or having children. The median household income is $10,738, only 23.2 percent of the national median income of $46,326.

All three presidential candidates talk about the housing crisis created by the subprime meltdown. However, none of them adequately addresses the impending crisis surrounding an inadequate supply of affordable housing. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D., Conn.) calls it "the silent crisis." While the American Dream is defined as owning a home, the American Nightmare is being poor in America and not having anywhere to live.

Revenue-challenged public-housing administrators already have raised rents and cut back security and maintenance to try to keep afloat.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

* The Public Housing Operating Fund will require $5.1 billion in fiscal 2009, which is $920 million above the 2008 level and $820 million above the amount in the president's budget.

* The renewal of Housing Choice vouchers for two million low-income families will cost $15.5 billion in 2009, which is $868 million above the 2008 level and $1.3 billion above the president's request. A failure to meet this need will mean 100,000 fewer families with access to vouchers.

If, as the president proposes, 1,800 of the 2,400 housing agencies that administer vouchers are forced to use their reserves to renew vouchers, nearly 1,000 agencies will be left without any reserves in 2009 and an additional 320 will be left with reserves of less than 5 percent.

Congress has failed to address a one-time, $3.4 billion shortfall in the projected Section 8 rental-assistance program.

"Our nation is confronting dual housing crises," Dodd said at a recent hearing. "One is the crisis of foreclosures, falling home prices, and the deteriorating of the overall housing market ... The other housing crisis is what I would call a silent crisis [that] has been affecting low-income families for years. As rents and home prices have significantly risen over the last decades, millions of low-income families have been priced out."

A study by the Joint Center for Housing at Harvard University found last year that the number of households devoting more than half of their income to rent had increased 1.2 million over the previous year, reaching a total of 17 million - or 1 in 7 households.

President Bush and former HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson have done too little to stem the crisis.

For a variety of reasons, Congress will need to do more in the next fiscal year.

"For 2009, Congress will have to provide a substantially larger increase - $6.5 billion - above the administration's request - just to avoid cuts in core programs that help millions of low-income families secure decent housing at affordable rents," the center's report said.

The report said $15.5 billion would be needed to renew all Section 8 vouchers used in 2008. That's $868 million more than what was used in 2008 and $500 million less than the $14.6 billion proposed in the Bush budget.

To decrease densely populated housing projects common in the North, Congress approved a Hope 6 program designed to replace high concentrations of tenants with town houses or detached housing. Bush's budget defunds the program, but the money likely will be restored by Congress.

My old McKenzie Court has been torn down and replaced with new Hope 6 units. So, another generation will have another set of memories on my old home site. Their number will be determined by our nation's commitment to housing the people who can least afford basic shelter.