There is an old joke about a drunk who is searching for his car keys under a streetlight. A cop happens along and asks the drunk where he last saw the keys. The drunk points toward a dark alley. "Then why aren't you looking over there?" asks the exasperated cop. The drunk looks up and replies, "Because the light's better over here."

This joke comes to mind in reading a recent Sacramento Bee article on crime in North Natomas. ("Natomas crime wave raises questions about low-income housing", Aug. 8). Not only did the article provide absolutely no evidence of a link between affordable housing and crime, but it failed to even mention any of the multiple other possible causes of crime in the area. Natomas residents deserve real answers and solutions to crime, not a poorly researched guess, and families struggling to get by on limited incomes need support, not scapegoating.

Causes of crime are complex, and include everything from unemployment and poverty, to bad property management, lack of social services and policing practices (increased enforcement in one neighborhood can push crime to others). In the last year, the unemployment rate in Sacramento has risen from 5.4 percent to 7.0 percent. Home foreclosures in Sacramento County are up over 90 percent from a year ago. In 2006 (the most recent reliable data available), the poverty rate in the city of Sacramento was 15.4 percent for all people, and 23.4 percent for children aged 5 to 17, and this has undoubtedly gone higher in the current economic downturn.

While these broad economic and social trends do affect crime, there is no evidence that affordable housing does. In fact, the National Crime Prevention Council recommends affordable housing as a tool in decreasing crime.

One thing we have learned in more than 40 years of anti-poverty programs in the United States is that when large numbers of poor people are concentrated into single neighborhoods, it becomes much more difficult for them to get out of poverty. Thus, the whole thrust of U.S. housing assistance over the past 15 years has been towards helping people move to opportunity – such as the Hope VI program to demolish large public housing projects and replace them with mixed-income units, the Housing Choice Voucher Program to assist people to choose where to live, and inclusionary zoning ordinances, designed to ensure a mixture of market rate and affordable units in all new developments.

The sad truth is that the scale of our housing assistance to low-income people in this country is tiny compared with the need. We need more housing assistance and we also need investment in education and job training, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and more of the support low-income parents need to enter the job market including child care and health insurance.

In North Natomas the affordable units could have been more dispersed in the neighborhood, as the inclusionary housing ordinance intends.

The Sacramento Housing Alliance has long supported mixed income neighborhoods and inclusionary housing because we believe in increasing the opportunities for all people in the Sacramento region. Affordable housing helps young families getting on their feet, it helps seniors who are struggling in retirement, it helps people who are disabled and can't work. It helps many of the people we call family.

This is a challenging economy and a difficult time for many families in Sacramento. We may see crime worsen in the short term. What will make the difference is what has always made the difference: a strong community and the willingness to lend a hand to our neighbors.

Shamus Roller is the executive director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance. Chris Benner is associate professor of community and regional development at the University of California, Davis.