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What is the effect of public housing on the rest of real estate prices?

I hear there is a 3 to 7 year wait for people to get into public housing. A friend of mine is in an apartment that qualifies. My question is, what would happen if public housing were to be entirely eliminated so that the government didn't have any control over that anymore? Or what would happen if there were twice the number of public housing units so that the waiting list was cut down to something like 3 to 6 months? I'm just curious as to the economic repercussions, coming from a very non-economic background. Your opinion please?

Public Comments

1. It would not happen, the economic repercussions with all those people being homeless would be devastating. No one wants that, and we all pay a lot of money to keep that from happening. Doubling the projects (the only actual public housing) would not lower the wait period. The tax burden would be tremendous, likely bankrupt the country, even though it look like Obama is determined to do that anyway. What would more likely happen is the strain on the prison system would be cut way down, as they would release the less dangerous inmates and put them into the projects, which is a lot cheaper then housing them in a prison. Even without the inmates I do not think the wait list would cut down, the amount of welfare fraud would simply increase.