Public Housing in Alabama

[Southron]

What public housing projects (the good, the bad and the ugly) are being developed or are in need of redevelopment in your Alabama city?

[DruidCity]

Hope VI is planned for McKenzie Court, west of Stillman College in Tuscaloosa.

http://www.tuscaloosahousing.org/Site%20Design.htm

[Southron]

Hope VI is planned for McKenzie Court, west of Stillman College in Tuscaloosa.

http://www.tuscaloosahousing.org/Site%20Design.htm

[Blazer85]

Here's a shot of just a very small portion of the Hope VI Park Place development (in the foreground) that's located on the western side of downtown Birmingham. They're actually very, very nice.

If you're in Birmingham anytime, you can get a good view of the scope of the project if you're on I-20/59 and get off on the Red Mtn. Expressway heading south. You'll see it on your right.

[DruidCity]

Great for T-Town -- I take it that McKenzie Court is in really bad shape.

[Southron]

Here's a shot of just a very small portion of the Hope VI Park Place development (in the foreground) that's located on the western side of downtown Birmingham. They're actually very, very nice.

[someguyfrombham]

Probably not a good idea to tear down all the public housing and replace it with Hope VI, as someone suggested, unless you make sure all (or nearly all) of the public housing units are replaced in the new developments. Sure it may help spruce up a community, but you don't want to end up throwing families and old people out into boarding houses or interstate overpasses.

[EXBubba]

Probably not a good idea to tear down all the public housing and replace it with Hope VI, as someone suggested, unless you make sure all (or nearly all) of the public housing units are replaced in the new developments. Sure it may help spruce up a community, but you don't want to end up throwing families and old people out into boarding houses or interstate overpasses.

[convulso]

I would say not a good idea to build it but to give vouchers and mandate that commercial apartments have set asides for those who need help to live in normal enviroments.

[Southron]

I'm very much in agreement with the last two posts. At the federal level, I think we need a policy of 100% demolishment for these old housing projects, with displaced tenants moved into HOPE VI (mixed-income neighborhoods) or reintegrated into the larger housing market ("mainstreamed," to borrow a word from our education system). We made a huge mistake in this country in the 1900s when so-called "slum" neighborhoods were demolished and poor residents forced into these lousy housing projects. We physically created the crime problem that we've had for the last few decades in this country. We would have been a hell of a lot better off, financially and socially, if we had created renovation programs to save those old run-down neighborhoods instead of bulldozing them and creating an even bigger and more expensive problem.

[convulso]

We would have been a hell of a lot better off, financially and socially, if we had created renovation programs to save those old run-down neighborhoods instead of bulldozing them and creating an even bigger and more expensive problem.

[EXBubba]

what's funny is that the system we've had is not only bad for subsidized housing recipients and bad for the cities; it has also served to promote corruption among the housing authorities that administer section 8 funds. in many cases (at least in smaller cities), no one wants to have anything to do with the local housing authority, so they don't inquire too pointedly about what the housing board does. that is further compounded by the fact that there's no financial incentive for local oversight under section 8, since the subsidies are federally-funded. so you have a director and a board who often collude to intentionally misspend the money. it can go on for years, because, left to their own devices, housing boards can tweak their way through routine audits. the overall lack of community involvement in block housing projects has segregated cities physically, and isolated (and protected) the people who hold the purse strings.