One problem may be the extreme restriction of autonomy that sometimes accompanies public housing. You see this tendency to treat adults receiving any sort of aid as if they were children.

It also tends to be the case with VA housing. The way they treat veterans living in VA condos is absurd. It's on par with what you'd expect to see in like a halfway home, except these folks usually haven't done anything illegal. They signed their lives away, came home with PTSD, and get treated like trash by the VA for their troubles.

The strings that go with public housing often make the idea of looking for another way to get a leg up more appealing.