NOLA Housing Crisis: HUD bulldozing projects?
Jonny_Paycheck
17,825 Posts
And replacing them with fewer low-income apartments and more "market rate" apartments?Is this for real?Some serious post-Katrina "cleansing" going on it seems.Foul shit...
Comments
And that's the point Cyril Neville was trying to make last year when I interviewed him...that this "revitalization" plan has been in effect for a long time. Katrina merely accelerated the process.
Unfortunately this is a completely predictable outcome of the whole thing. People have been shouting about this from the jump, that this would be the established order. The poor folks have been vacated,so what obligation do the political fathers at City Hall feel to a non-existant tax-base? None. Same shit happened in DC, it just took longer under Mayor Williams. Shut down the major hospital, get land/housing speculation humming, tout major re-vitalization, etc, get as many of the poorest folks to move to Maryland.
I'm not a Brad Pitt fan. But it's nice what he's doing. Tho, it's kinda sad at the same time to know he's doing way more on an individual basis, than the GOV is it seems.
According to thisNYT article, the demolition was already in progress pre-Katrina.
Pass the tinfoil.
So you're suggesting that the demolition of all 4 of NOLA's major public housing developments was not hastened by Katrina and the resulting evacuations? Doubt it, dude.
Fucked up shit going on and no one cares.
Do you want your tax dollars being skimmed to support people living in crime-infested, unhealthy neighborhoods? I don't.
What is the effectiveness of low-income housing as far producing functioning members of society, anyhow?
They excel in lowering human life-expectancy. That I know.
what do you suggest we do for the people living in these crime infested, unhealthy neighborhoods?
Why keep the same ineffective trend going?
I'm fine for subsidizing mixed-income housing. I have no problem being taxed for that.
You sound white. Like Edward Norton, American History X, white.
who says it ineffective? People who can only afford low income housing are able to have themselves a house to live in. If it were not for these homes there may be a chance that some of these people (and families) would be homeless.
and just because the community has a reputation for being bad doesn't make the entire community evil.
It's not the best way of life but its at least an option for those that need it.
and to mirror my idea heres soemthing a little personal:
When I was younger, my family didn't want to be on welfare and it was defintely a hand to mouth lifestyle, but I'm glad we had the option to be on it. Without it who knows how we would of ate, lived, or ended up.
truth.
Is it the best option we can come up with, though? Packing a bunch of poor people into the same high rise? I'd like to think not. Maybe it gives people a place to sleep, but it creates so many nightmares.
I'm not saying that the community is evil, but it certainly isn't healthy.
I'm just trying to say that there have to be better options out there. If not, come up with something better than low-income housing projects -- anything will be better than that.
Condobrini Green
Im fine w/ getting rid of the projects, but not so fine w/ the 'solution' thus far. mixed-income developments sound nice until you realize that they only make room for an extremely small percentage of residents. In chicago most project residents have been forced to the inner burbs - Dolton, Cicero etc. - so that in effect instead of highly visible urban blight you have nearly-invisble but still very real suburban blight
You're right. I spoke too rashly with the "sooner the better" comment. There needs to be something in place before they bulldoze those hellholes.
So yeah, the area obviously needed work...but not at the expense of turning a traditionally black part of town into Starbucks territory.
City planners long ago forced blacks from city proper regions out to the Lower 9th...where twice within 40 years residents have faced government-sponsored flooding of epic proportions.
So any of you who allow yourselves to get caught up in quality-of-life concerns when facing issues of projects being bulldozed really need to realize that these unfortunate trends aren't just a side-effect of some greater good. It is through and through, and especially in the case of New Orleans, black people getting fucked out of everything they've known and come to love.
And without black people, New Orleans ain't shit.
Black people have come to love ancient woodsheds, high crime and being isolated in "projects"?
Of course you do...because you expect black people to hate themselves as much as you hate them.
A loss close to the heart
AARON LYNETT/TORONTO STAR
Long-time friends Virginia 'Ginger' Gibbons, left, and Hazel Reaman reminisce as they revisit the site of the buildings where they lived for years in Regent Park.
Renovating Regent Park 'Regent Park was full of life. Here, I see nobody and I know no one'
Hazel Reaman, 63, former resident Renewal of Regent Park is like losing 'a little piece of the world'
May 19, 2007 04:30 AM
Sandro Contenta
Almost two years into the redevelopment of Regent Park, relocated residents insist their community bonds are being bulldozed in the name of gentrification.
The $1 billion project has stressed out most of the 1,160 people displaced so far in the redevelopment of the subsidized housing project.
Residents initially thought they had the right to return to an apartment in the area. But they're now realizing the city-owned landlord, Toronto Community Housing, is counting on many not coming back. "People are worried that it will only be for the rich," says relocated resident Sureya Ibrahim, 29.
There will be about 400 fewer rent-geared-to-income units in the new development compared to the 2,087 now in Regent Park. Derek Ballantyne, head of Toronto Community Housing, believes there will enough subsidized units for anyone who wants to return. Other countries that redeveloped housing projects found 30 per cent of displaced residents don't return, he adds.
Four per cent of Regent Park's displaced residents have already left subsidized housing. Others are expected to grow roots in new neighbourhoods. Many relocated seniors lack the energy for another move.
Regent Park's residents' experience has become more relevant as another subsidized housing complex at Lawrence Heights faces redevelopment.
"Just because you put in new buildings doesn't mean you have a community," says Andrew Allan, United Church chaplain at Regent Park.
The move has been hard on the elderly. Some were separated from close friends, others from the network of social agencies near Regent Park that helped give meaning to their lives. Many feel isolated.
In one case, Allan had to perform a kind of exorcism for a senior terrified her new apartment was filled with ghostly vibes. "I went in and said a prayer for the place and asked God to banish the evil spirits," he explains.
Allan says five seniors have died since they moved. The deaths aren't being blamed on the relocation, but St. Michael's Hospital is studying the health effects of the move.
Problems emerged from the start. A "first come, first served" policy caused residents to be relocated to line up in the middle of the night in front of the Regent Park housing office. Jostling sometimes broke out, and those unable to attend ??? the disabled, the elderly, single or working parents ??? missed out on the best units.
Despite the problems, many involved have expressed grudging support for the redevelopment. The area has a high crime and poverty rate. And social agencies in the neighbourhood credit Toronto Community Housing for consulting with residents and trying to make relocation as smooth as possible.
Ballantyne dismisses thoughts the redevelopment is part of a trend to rid the downtown core of the poor. Regent Park will always have low income housing, he says. "You fear gentrification if a neighbourhood is going to become exclusive only to people who can afford to live there."
REMEMBERING REGENT
Virginia Gibbons never imagined silence could be so unsettling.
But after 45 years at Regent Park, the quiet of a new apartment in the east end made her long for lively banter, crying babies and even sirens. It also gave her plenty of time to reflect on the place where she spent the best years of her life.
"I told my kids, 'When I die, you cremate me and throw my ashes across the ballpark at Regent Park,'." says Gibbons, 70, her cat Rufus purring at her feet.
"People say I'm crazy, but I loved Regent. It was my little piece of the world." Gibbons was relocated to a one-bedroom apartment on Kingston Rd. near Main St. She used to travel regularly to her old neighbourhood, to see her doctor, pharmacist and friends. But a knee replacement forced less frequent trips. Now she's bored and nostalgic.
"When I moved to Regent Park, I moved to paradise," she says, recalling the day in 1962.
Her love affair was kindled by a baseball that flew through her window, bounced down the hall and crashed in her living room. She became an organizer of Regent's Sunday ball games, a family affair that had her daughter giving hair cuts on the sidelines.
"People looked after each other," she says. "If my neighbours didn't see me for a day, they???d knock on my door."
Gibbons doubts she'll live in Regent Park again. She dismisses the redevelopment as a money-making scheme to "keep riff raff from the downtown area."
Marjorie Fleming, 73, lived in Regent Park as long as Gibbons before being relocated to an eighth-floor apartment in St. James Town. She says Regent Park was "a Godsend" when it was first built for working families, replacing slum housing with buildings that had running water and laundry rooms. "My younger sister thought she died and went to heaven."
Mothers would spend hot summer nights soothing crying babies outdoors. But in the 1970s, outsiders began using Regent Park to sell drugs, she says. One day, someone snatched Fleming's purse.
But Fleming, who gets around in a battery-powered scooter, says Regent Park's community spirit was stronger than its troubles. When misfortune befell a neighbour, "we used to take up a collection and send flowers," she says. "We watched over each other and helped each other."
PROBLEMS THAT WON'T GO AWAY
Back in Regent Park, Letty Teclay awaits her relocation with trepidation. A single mother, she moved to Regent Park in 2004 after a failed marriage. She credits the nearby Yonge Street Mission, which serves low-income people, with rebuilding her sense of well-being.
Now she fears being moved too far from the agency.
"Canada is my country and Regent Park is my home," says Teclay, 32, noting she initially hated the housing complex.
But she can't understand why some of Regent Park's problems aren't dealt with. "In Eritrea, we don't have much education and we don't have much money," she says of her native land.
"But we don't have garbage in our buildings, we don't have poop in our stairs and we don't have sick people sleeping in the laundry rooms."
Residents insist city officials, by neglecting maintenance and being indifferent to security, should bear much of the blame for Regent Park's overall deterioration.
"In other areas they keep drugs and crime away with security, not by tearing down the buildings," says Sureya Ibrahim, who was relocated with her husband and three children to a unit within Regent Park.
For some of the 6,340 people left in Regent, security is getting worse. The first phase of the redevelopment involved the demolition of six apartment buildings, pushing drug dealers, the homeless, and youths who used those stairways to conduct their business and hang out in the few remaining ones. In January, Siddique Rahman Akon sent a petition to city officials, signed by 37 tenant s in his Parliament St. building, complaining about the increased concentration of unsettling characters in his stairway.
As a minimum, the tenants want authorities to place a lock on the main entrance. "We complain and they do nothing. We just have to put up with it," said Akon's 21-year-old son, Safiqur.
MOVING OUT, MOVING ON
Low-income people are nothing if not resilient. Many have made the most of their new homes, despite missing Regent Park.
Marjorie Fleming describes getting satisfaction from simple pleasures, like watching the sunrise between two St. James Town towers. "I'm an upbeat person," she says. "I won't sit around and groan. I'll do the best with what I got."
She says she's too old to move back. "There's quite a few here from Regent Park and they're all dying to go back. But what they don't realize is that it won't be the Regent Park we knew."
Amersia Thompson is also resigned to staying in her new apartment, even though it has made it harder to follow her life's passion ??? the Blue Jays.
Thompson, 36, suffers from epilepsy and lives on Ontario disability payments. The Jays give her free tickets to every home game and pre-game access to the players. "I go to my games early," she says. "I got to meet my boys."
Instead of a short TTC ride to the Rogers Centre from Regent Park, Thompson now treks from a subsidized apartment at the Scarborough corner of Birchmount Rd. and Finch Ave.
Her apartment walls are covered in framed pictures of the Blue Jays ??? all of them autographed and dedicated to Thompson. "This is my favourite," she says, pointing to one of pitcher Roy Halladay, who dedicated it to "the biggest fan."
Her mother still lives in Regent Park and Thompson visits regularly. But the support of two sisters living nearby in Scarborough is convincing her to give up her right of return.
Hazel Reaman, 63, remains undecided.
"Regent Park was full of life. Here, I see nobody and I know no one. It???s only now that I'm getting used to it," she says of her new subsidized apartment near Yorkville.
Her biggest regret is to find herself separated from her dearest friend, Virginia Gibbons, who was relocated across town. "We miss each other a lot."
Reaman's apartment is a tidy but cramped place, with a zebra carpet on the floor, a Bible on her dining room table and a sign by the door, "Have faith in God."
Choir practice on Tuesdays and bible class on Thursdays, both across the street from Regent Park at the Yonge Street Mission, are important parts of her life. She used to walk there but now takes the TTC ??? a noticeable expense for someone on a fixed income.
A further expense is the taxi ride back from the Sherbourne St. grocery store she used to walk to. Shopping in Yorkville is way out of Reaman's league.
She toys with the idea of moving back when the new buildings are up, but fears her diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and arthritis may get the better of her. "By the time they're finished building, I'll probably be dead," she says.
The problem is they are not given an alternative place to move that is better than where they were. It's basically just, 'move somewhere we don't care about'. They will just add to the already overcrowded low income community in another area. But once that area becomes prime real estate they will be moved again.
Of course....if I didn't hate black people I would have proven it by marrying a black woman.
^^^TEPID^^^
Dude...where do you come off stating that I "hate black people".
Seriously, that is some absolute, holier than thou, bullshit with no basis outside of your overly shaded private mind garden.
Maybe you think you don't hate them, but your responses on this board to ANY issue involving black people clearly indicate otherwise.