Jacob Riis Quotes

We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.

The slums will be but a memory.

Working on the film really made me confront my opinions about change and gentrification.

If you've seen one city slum you've seen them all.

A ghetto can be improved in only one way; out of existence.

You can't find your way to social reform through the forces that made social reform necessary.

I know we haven't cleaned up all the slums, but I didn't create the slums, did I?

I am not looking for people to be more kind to the homeless; I want to put an end to homelessness.

There can be no peace in the world so long as a large proportion of the population lacks the necessities of life and believes that a change in the political and economic system will make them available.

To begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble.

I just don't think the moon is going to be an adequate substitute for the fact that we haven't addressed ourselves to clearing up the slums.

We should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of the city.

Poverty is not inevitable. It is a human ill that we can fight if we decide to do so together.

I was a little lacking in vision as mayor - I failed to understand the significance that housing and the revitalization of housing means for a city.

In the housing projects, people talked of ways to reduce crime, relieve overcrowding, and they were good ideas that we plan to study, and possibly implement.

You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless, or you can spend it on a football stadium or a golf course.

I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

I don't get up in the morning and think my mission is to end Britain. I do get up in the morning and think that my mission is to end poverty.

This nation has always struggled with how it was going to deal with poor people and people of color. Every few years you will see some great change in the way that they approach this. We've had the war on poverty that never really got into waging a real war on poverty.

There are thousands on thousands in New York who have no assignable home.

Local government cannot resolve the health care crisis in America. Local governments cannot resolve the affordable housing problem in America.

Look what we have built ... low-income projects that became worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.

I cannot believe that human beings live that way.

The old simplifications about "more" schools and "more" housing, or even "better" schools or "better" housing, have not proved very successful in breaking the cycle of poverty or in dealing with the Negro family structure.

Perhaps our generation … will live to reflect … that our hard times were not in vain. They should make us more conscious of the conditions which we wish to eradicate.