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Shea Hampton-Earl and her children lived in two public housing projects in Las Vegas before moving into this home using a Section 8 voucher.
Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sun Archives
- Demise of Vegas public housing ‘projects’ sought (7-1-2008)
- Subsidized apartments could change hands (5-28-2008)
- His dream: A Las Vegas without public housing (3-25-2008)
- Closing means fewer homes for poor (5-29-2007)
Beyond the Sun
Beyond the Sun
Shea Hampton-Earl’s living room is empty, but her head is full of ideas.
This spring, she will plant a garden with tomatoes and collard greens in the back yard of the house she just moved into. And in a few years, the 36-year-old mother of seven wants to buy the house with its path that leads to a park in the back and a tree-lined street in the front.
Only two months ago, Hampton-Earl’s front door opened onto the pop of pistols and the hum of police helicopters overhead. There were no gardens, no parks.
Hampton-Earl’s family lived in one of the 250 apartments at Ernie Cragin Terraces, a public housing complex scheduled to be turned into dust early next year.
The single mother and her children are living through the biggest change in Las Vegas Valley public housing since the 1940s.
During the next five to 10 years, the newly-formed Southern Nevada Housing Authority plans to reduce about 850 public housing apartments to rubble, changing the lives of thousands of people. The complex plan includes replacing those apartments with mixed-income, low-density houses. Some public housing tenants will move into those houses. Many others, like Hampton-Earl, will use the federal Section 8 voucher program to rent wherever landlords accept the vouchers. And a minority — up to 30 percent in other places where public housing has been demolished — will not be eligible for vouchers. They will have to move into what little public housing remains in the valley or find places on their own.
It is too early to know how the plan is working out, but as families like Hampton-Earl’s move on, it is the beginning of the end of public housing as we know it, at least for “the projects” the Las Vegas Housing Authority managed for decades.
The Las Vegas agency was the largest of the region’s three agencies until it was folded into one this year. For now there are no plans to demolish the public housing formerly under the other two, North Las Vegas and Clark County.
But controversy has followed similar plans elsewhere since the first one unfolded in Atlanta 13 years ago, followed by Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Baltimore. To date, nearly 100,000 public housing apartments have been scheduled for demolition. And despite protests, the federal Housing and Urban Development Department backs the idea, seeing it as a way to remove people from the poverty that builds up in public housing.
The opposition has been based on the idea that tearing down the buildings breaks up communities and can lead to homelessness. Initial research in Atlanta suggests that most people have used Section 8 vouchers to move so close to the torn-down projects that they wound up staying in poverty. Also, according to Erin Ruel, a Georgia State University researcher following the Atlanta experience, demolishing public housing may lead to a net loss of affordable housing.
There are no comparable studies planned yet for the Las Vegas Valley, but Carl Rowe, interim executive director of the Southern Nevada Housing Authority, says he is optimistic about the plan, noting that 137 families have found places to live with vouchers.
Hampton-Earl beams while describing her current situation, with “nothing pulling me in the wrong direction.” The tall and wiry former Wal-Mart manager sits on one of the few pieces of furniture in her new house, contrasting her recent past with the future she wants.
She grew up on family-owned land in Mississippi and later, in Detroit, never depending on government programs for housing. But when she broke off her relationship with the father of her children three years ago, she found that her $11-an-hour job wasn’t enough to cover all the bills, so she sought help. She wound up first at Sherman Gardens, another public housing project slated for demolition, and then Ernie Cragin.
“This was our first time living like this,” Hampton-Earl says. By ‘this,’ she means seeing teenagers sporting gang colors and police officers daily outside her door, not to mention shootouts. One of her sons, then 13, “got into it with bad kids.” He was arrested for burglary after breaking into a school. Her son is now on probation, in a court-ordered plan made while they still lived in the projects that includes staying with his father. She hopes to have him back with her in January, in the new house, where she thinks all of them “have a better chance at growing.”
About 15 miles north of Hampton-Earl’s house near Tropicana Avenue and McLeod Drive, Larry Garrett is still unpacking after his Sept. 1 move to a house near Cheyenne Avenue and Pecos Road.
Garrett is a rare single father to come out of public housing. Like Hampton-Earl, he sees his new house as a new start.
Garrett slid into public housing shortly after his now 7-year-old son developed nephrotic syndrome, a condition that leads to swelling all over the body. Garrett, who works laying carpets and tile, had to take care of his son nearly full-time for about four years. They moved into Ernie Cragin in 2002, where the rent was free.
He learned about Section 8 from working on houses rented out voucher holders. Now he lives in one of those houses, which he hopes to fix up and eventually own.
At Ernie Cragin, Garrett wouldn’t let his son and now 10-year-old daughter out of the house unless he could watch them. Now neighborhood children come in the house after school, drop off their backpacks and run back out to play.
“It’s a huge difference,” he says. “There was no community feeling there (at Ernie Cragin) ... Everyone was out for themselves, with bad language, chips on their shoulders, gang colors.”
Hampton-Earl and Garrett both pin their hopes in part on a housing authority program called Family Self-Sufficiency. It pairs caseworkers with voucher holders, drawing up five-year plans to get better jobs, repair credit and learn about buying a house. The idea is to break free of government assistance.
Deidre Oakley, who is working with Ruel on the $146,000 grant to study the effect of the Atlanta experience on hundreds of former public housing tenants, says such programs can play a vital role in achieving the best outcome from tearing down public housing — not just dispersing poverty, but helping families overcome it.
But such programs are chronically underfunded, and often poorly run, she says. Rowe, of the Southern Nevada Housing Authority, says there are 352 people on the self-sufficiency program waiting list.
Rowe also points out that not everyone is cut out for such programs. More broadly, he says, not everyone will see moving out of “the projects” as a step up and some may not change their lives at all.
Garrett thinks of the lack of motivation he saw in some young men he offered part-time work at Ernie Cragin, and wonders if they won’t wind up in the same lifestyle somewhere else, or even wind up in the same neighborhood. “It really depends on the family whether or not this move is a good thing,” he says. “I can’t see a lot of people from there living in houses and acting as if they can do whatever they want all the time, because they can’t.”
Rowe has been working with some families to develop what he calls “soft skills,” which include such simple things as housekeeping, reading leases and handling such bills as utilities, often not a part of life in public housing.
Also, he notes, “even though a family has a voucher that allows them to move into a an upper- or middle-class neighborhood, they don’t always do so for various reasons, not the least of which is they don’t feel comfortable.”
To date he has seen no evidence of large numbers of former public housing tenants staying in the neighborhood surrounding Ernie Cragin, which stretched out in the area where Bonanza Road meets 28th Street.
“We know they’re not concentrating in any one area,” he says. “But we know little else.”
The sea change coming over public housing in the Las Vegas Valley is only in its first wave, but it will most likely avoid one problem seen elsewhere — the disproportionate effect on senior citizens. In Atlanta, for example, Oakley says there has been a “clear demarcation” along age lines when it comes to the demolition of public housing and subsequent relocation of tenants. “Younger people saw it as an opportunity, older people were less enthusiastic,” she says. Older, low-income people tend to rely on nearby friends and family for help with everything from shopping to doctor appointments and breaking such ties can be a setback.
But the valley’s 800-plus public housing apartments for senior citizens formerly under the Las Vegas Housing Authority will remain untouched, Rowe says.
He also has an answer for those who criticize the demolition of public housing and increased use of Section 8 vouchers because it results in a loss of brick-and-mortar, affordable housing. First, Rowe says, up to 20 percent of the mixed-income housing that will rise from the rubble is going to be set aside for low-income families. And second, the valley has an abundance of housing available for voucher-holders. In fact, “there is some evidence that the economy has helped” by increasing the number of houses that owners are seeking to rent out. The agency’s list of landlords willing to take vouchers has increased by about 10 percent in the past year, Rowe says.
In the years to come, the valley will become another laboratory for answering the decades-old question of how to fight poverty, particularly when it comes to the most basic of needs, housing.
It will be compelling if more families wind up like Garrett’s, or Hampton-Earl’s.
“I see myself having a bright future,” Hampton-Earl says, talking of her plan to go to Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts so she can someday open a restaurant. She owes that optimism to her new house, where she says she sleeps easier and worries less.
“Here, you can look out your window and have something to smile about ... It’s like someone’s giving me a chance.”
Very uplifting story. One concern I have is that when they tried moving the Section 8 people back East into housing in lieu of high density buildings,it turned out that many of them have no idea what maintenance and upkeep of a single house involves. As a result, the housing stock starts to decline, and whole neighborhoods, too.
Really, do you think Section 8 people will buy lawnmowers, or here, at least pull weeds in the yards? Repair broken windows, remove trash in the street? There is a lot more to Section 8 housing than just moving people in. That's why so many landlords won't accept it. But best of luck to all of them.
this is for bdover section 8 housing is for any one that is trying to get on there feet I had it Calif. and I am Veteran. the way you say Section 8 people are low lifes that is not true. Why are you so upset you could'nt get it
nice neighborhood,i'd like to see my kid get a house there w/section 8 money,where do i sign him up
KLW45..Really, have you seen Section 8 houses? Not alot of upkeep. Why would they have any respect for something that they don't own. I know that isn't the case for every single one..but it's the majority.
The fact that I am a hard-working taxpaying citizen and still can't afford my own home, it infuriates me to see this woman single-handedly trying to populate the earth. Seven kids? Try some birth control. These women pop out kid after kid, and then expect the rest of us to foot the bill.
I think there are lots of bloggers here that are not that familiar with public housing or section 8 programs. Public housing units are usually concentrated in one geograpical neighborhood so almost all the residents are low or lower income families. Public housing inspections and maintenance are performed almost free by public housing employees. Section 8 families are all over the area and most likely some of our neighbors are under this program. They are not concentrated in lower income neighborhood but they can be found in upscale communities and all it takes is the owner getting their properties contracted to section 8 program. The big difference is that their landlords are the property owners, inspections are done by housing section 8 inspectors but repairs will be done by the landlords. These section 8 houses are inspected and maintained regularly so most of the time, we won't even know them as section 8 units.
Great we get to pay for a house for people who dont work. Why should anyone work if you get a nice 2 story house just for having kids and no dad.
Illegals are not the problem people. These free loaders are the problem.
unclegig is a hopeless dreamer. I wish it were true that by having Section 8 inspectors around, all the lower income types would fit right in an upscale community. I built condos for the Catholic Church back in the day, with public funding to pay for the construction. They were mostly designed for single mothers on welfare. Weeks after opening, the condos were besieged with cars parked everywhere, music blasting during the day and night, drunken parties on porches, and rumors of whorehouses on site. The police were on call all the time.
The point is that you can have all the inspectors you want, but you cannot make certain people conduct themselves responsibly if they are not into that lifestyle. What's the inspector going to do if the landlord refuses to remove grafitti and junk cars from the property? Sure, remove the Section 8 renters.
And then what? Where do they go? It's like trying to herd cats, especially at night. Sorry, unclegig, but that's the facts.
unclegig
I believe MANY of us are VERY familiar with Section 8 housing having experienced it in cities we were living in back east. As bdover stated, the majority of Section 8 housing inhabitants have absolutely no idea on how to keep a house. Back in Chicago, when they tore down the housing projects, they wanted to put these people into middle class neighborhoods all over the city - both Black and white - (and they did!!) The BIGGEST uproar at the time came from the African Americans themselves. Many of my coworkers at the time were furious because they did not want these project people living in their neighborhoods because they had no idea what a broom was let alone a lawn mower. They did not want the lazy ones who start drinking out of the brown bag at 11:00 am, nor did they want the 19 year old welfare mommy with her 7 kids with 7 different daddies. Let's not talk about the gangbangers.
Yes, not all Section 8 familes are lazy or sloppy. They do have pride and would take care of the homes but most are not, even in Vegas. In the one community my ex and I lived in back there, there were quite a few Section 8 houses and ALL were filled with gangbangers, drug dealers and 14 year old whores and their 16 year old pimps. Finally, the HOA did step in and made the owner of these house evict these tenants, which is very hard to do but he did it. The community went back to being a nice middle class community.
Also, again back in Chicago, the aparatment building I lived in had Section 8 apartments but for the elderly. No problem there whatsoever, but I think it is called something else when the elderly are involved. However, I remember this one young black woman who lived on my floor , obviously she had a job that paid something because that is one of the provisions of being eligible, but was living in one of the Section 8 aparatments paying a fraction of what I was paying for the same unit. This broad had AT LEAST 4 different fur coats that I saw her in, had fantastic clothes and never seemed to want for anything. Who knows, maybe she had a little side job going on! But it used to really make me angry that she was paying $200 a month while I had to pay over $900. I surely couldn't afford all those fur coats!!
bdover is right - inspectors don't mean a damn thing. My guess is they don't have enough of them to check on all these places. Look around your own neighborhood. Any houses that are messy, not taken care of? Blinds off the windows, etc? Odds are it is a Section 8 house.
During the next five to 10 years, the newly-formed Southern Nevada Housing Authority plans to reduce about 850 public housing apartments to rubble, changing the lives of thousands of people.
Right now, there is PLENTY of available houses to convert into Section 8 housing!!! Some are in very nice areas, too. Why tear down anything?
Rowe has been working with some families to develop what he calls "soft skills," which include such simple things as housekeeping, reading leases and handling such bills as utilities, often not a part of life in public housing.
WTF!! Everything is always PAID FOR so why would they have needed to know how to pay a frickin' bill?? You know the cable we all pay some serious bucks for? Not necessarily premium channels but your expanded basic - you think these people pay for that even though it is there so they can hook up their 42" flat screens to???
Interesting points. The other factor is when some of them are lucky enough to score section-8 housing, their friends or relatives are not too far behind. The silver lining from the LV recession is the likely increase of available section-8 housing. The downside however is that with no jobs these tenants are not likely to find jobs and thus will always be on the dole. The hurricane that flooded the Ninth Ward in New Orleans effectively dispersed their dependent residents to other parts of the country. I don't think that even now New Orleans is doing anything to bring back the ninth ward, onstensibly because it is in a flood zone.
I beg to differ again from bdover's blog on section 8 tenants. Like everything else there are few exceptions to the rule, Chicago is one of the worst example, but there are more nice section 8 tenants in our neighborhood that we don't even notice. There are thousands of section 8 families all over the valley but we tend to pick on the few non-conforming tenants as example. It's not right to assume that all section 8 tenants are bad because there are lots of people with college degrees, who used to be homeowners like you and me, who now needs section 8 assistance because they were laid off from work and banks foreclosed their homes. There are also lots of ways in getting the landlords to do the repairs and one of them is witholding their payments until the problem is fixed. Again, we are nitpicking on the few bad ones and lumping every section 8 tenants with them.
About 5 years ago, when home prices kept rising, my condo HOA proposed changing the CCR's to allow owner-occupied homes only - no rentals allowed. I was initially opposed to this, because it made it impossible for me to rent out my condo and use it as an investment. Howevever, the majority voted to change the CCR's and they were changed. Only a very few units that were renting before the CCR's changed are "grandfathered" and can still rent out their units.
After reading stories like this one, I am glad the change was made. I do not want to live next to a single mother with 7 children on public assistance. And I am not going to apologize for that! If you cannot afford to buy a home, you will not be my neighbor. Crime and vandalism are low, and I feel safe at night. I consider myself very fortunate.
By the way, I live in a diverse community with all races and ages. I also have a very strict HOA. Homeowners take care of their properties and look out for each other!
I have a very hard time understanding why people get rewarded for irresponsable breeding and behavior.