Demise of Vegas public housing ‘projects’ sought

Decision to seek federal OK for first demolitions expected to bring storm of protest

Tue, Jul 1, 2008 (2 a.m.)

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)

Housing Authority of City of Las Vegas

It was item small “e” on the agenda, and it sailed through with nary a nay from the board nor a peep from the public.

Still, on June 19 the Las Vegas Housing Authority’s board took the first step in what will be the biggest change to the Las Vegas Valley’s public housing since post-World War II.

The board approved seeking permission from the federal government to demolish 251 apartments of subsidized housing. During the next five or so years, the agency plans to reduce four times that amount to rubble, markedly changing the lives of thousands of poor people.

It’s the end of public housing as we know it, at least for the Las Vegas Housing Authority, the largest of the region’s three housing agencies. The other two, North Las Vegas and Clark County, have no similar plans.

Now that he has board approval to apply to the federal Housing and Urban Development Department for permission to demolish three sites known collectively as Ernie Cragin Terrace, Carl Rowe, executive director of the Las Vegas agency, has launched a complex plan aimed at replacing them with mixed-income, low-density housing. Under the plan, some tenants of the former will become tenants of the latter. Many others will use the federal Section 8 voucher program to locate new housing anywhere a landlord will accept the vouchers.

But Rowe doesn’t expect the next steps to follow as smoothly as the first.

“We’ve had none of the opposition so far, but there will be,” Rowe said.

Controversy has followed similar plans elsewhere since the first one was launched in Atlanta 13 years ago and then in Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Baltimore. Despite protests, HUD has come to back the idea, seeing it as a way to lift people out of the poverty it sees public housing as perpetuating.

The change has often been accompanied by protests from activists who say tearing down the buildings breaks up communities and can lead to homelessness. Jeff Crump, associate professor of housing studies at the University of Minnesota, said it “doesn’t really address the root causes of poverty, and just moves people around.”

Rowe is familiar with the criticism thrown at the idea, but insists on two things.

First, public housing is broken and leads to crime and other symptoms of social decay, instead of encouraging escape from poverty, he says.

In a Sun interview in March, when Rowe first made public his plan to get rid of public housing, he said the “projects” have helped create “generations of ... dysfunction, with a lack of education ... (and) wherewithal to function in society.” Places like Ernie Cragin, he said, are “concentrated blight.”

The second thing Rowe insists on is that no one need be left behind and most tenants will land in better housing than they are in now.

Rowe is also hoping most of them will take advantage of a program the Las Vegas agency plans to expand that helps families become self-sufficient and buy homes instead of depending on the federal government for housing. The program takes a few years and includes setting goals for getting good jobs and saving money.

The Las Vegas agency’s move occurred a day before the Atlanta Housing Authority got approval from HUD to demolish 650 apartments known as Bowen Homes. It was one of the last steps for the Atlanta agency after 13 years of demolishing 10,000 apartments.

Rick White, its spokesman, said his city was “the first to go down this road,” starting in 1994. HUD hosted a meeting last month in Atlanta to talk with housing authority chiefs from across the country about replacing public housing with mixed-income housing. The Atlanta Housing Authority’s president and executive director, Renee Lewis Glover, was the keynote speaker.

White said his agency determined in the 1990s that “public housing is a failed policy, and in many ways an immoral policy.”

That viewpoint and the decision to get rid of public housing have drawn plenty of controversy, including allegations by an Emory University law professor that the Atlanta agency’s approach violates the federal Fair Housing Act, not to mention the claims of causing homelessness.

White said, “There is not a single case of homelessness as a result of this policy.” As for more sweeping critiques — the idea that communities are being lost, for example — he echoed Rowe’s belief that the projects don’t build communities.

“No one would plan a ... community like this, with 100 percent poor people and 80 percent women and children,” he said.

The Atlanta agency points to 14 mixed-income developments that have been built on the ashes of public housing as evidence of success.

Larry Bush, a regional spokesman for HUD, said one of the keys to replacing public housing in any community is involving — and helping — tenants affected by the change.

Examples include creating contracts with tenants that give them the option to return to their neighborhoods once new housing is built or helping pay for transportation to look for apartments owned by landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers.

Rowe said his agency has already begun meeting with tenants’ groups in projects that will be affected, and he has plans to visit Ernie Cragin, where no such group exists.

“We’re going to be constantly reaching out,” he said. “We want this to be open as possible ... and stay ahead of the rumor mill.”

Bush also said “there will always be a need for public housing,” especially for the elderly and people with disabilities. In keeping with that philosophy, the Las Vegas agency has no plans to send the wrecking ball to its 1,000 public housing apartments for seniors.

The feds may take up to 90 days to answer the agency’s request for permission to demolish, and the demolition may not happen for another year.

From here on out, though, it won’t be easy, White said.

“It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By rittergirl44

7/1/08 at 8:37 a.m.

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The root of the problem is that the government set up these programs of all types to assist people who don't work and still keep having children. I have been trying to have floors put in my home for over a month. I was stood up oon 3 occasions by two different companies. But all I hear is that there is no work. Bull! There is plenty of work. People just don't want to do it. Stop giving everything away for free and maybe people would find out that they have to be responsible for themselves. They have 5 kids and don't even have a job. Why?
By boothmania

7/1/08 at 9:09 a.m.

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In the projects the more you make the more rent they charge, so how are you supposed to save money to get out of there?
That was the dilemma we had growing up, my mom worked and the more money she made the harder things got because rent goes up, health insurance is lost and food stamps removed and you end up just as poor and barely making it.
My mom worked very hard and finally made enough to buy a house, but it was very difficult for her.
I grew up in housing, and yes it breeds less responsible adults. I wish I had grown up in one of the mixed communities instead of the projects, I might have turned out better.
And to Rittergirl, no not all public housing people are lazy and have a lot of kids, but a lot of them are. There a reason for the stereotype, believe me I know.
By darthbry

7/1/08 at 11:29 a.m.

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What really stinks about this whole mess is the section 8 population moves into a neighborhood where a property owner takes the vouchers for guaranteed money, and they bring the public housing mentallity with it. In my neighborhood alone, where I work my a$$ off to pay the mortgage, these people come in and turn the neighborhood into a public housing looking area, and pay little if anything to live there. If my statement is stereotypical, so be it. My wife, a big liberal, asked me for the first time how to get a concealed carry permit to walk my children during the daytime. The new elements and type of people coming into the neighborhood on an everyday basis have brought more reported crime, burglaries, vandalism and car thefts. I work hard for everything my family has, and these groups of people don't and get to enjoy everything I work 40 - 60 hours a week for, for basically free. I say if you tear the public housing down, fine, but rebuild it and make the people earn the right to live there. It is not up to every other hard working person to give people who don't or won't work anything with our tax dollars. Great, no public housing is fine, just don't give them free rent to live in my neighborhood and drive the house values down even further, than the market is doing on it's own.
By casinokid

7/1/08 at 9:14 p.m.

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I too also agree with rowe these projects dont help I have an exwife who refuses to work for a living that i pay child support to because see has custody get this because she has more time to care for them, her housing in a three bedroom unit is twenty dollars her utilities is eleven dollars,food stamps is $560. and support that i pay is $375. I don't know how much the welfare is and her other childs support is. So comparing her disposable income to mine she comes out way ahead and doesn't go to a job!
This system is broken and when someone wants to fix it then out comes the oh the poor will suffer oh we cant do this to them (you know kill the golden goose).
Crimes are committed and the police try to find them and get no help from the residents who seen who did the crime or know where they are.
Then the ones who wont help the police want to get on a news camara and say stuff like We have no choice but to live here the authorities wont potrol here and stop the crime, when its you that has to stop the crime by pointing them out to the people that can stop it so thare fore you do have a choice!

Casinokid
By vdob

7/23/08 at 2:52 p.m.

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Mr. Rowe's comments concerning the public housing "blight" is interesting and in my opinion very myopic. His plan to solve the social issues that brought about public housing and the associated "cycle of social dysfunction" is nothing more than a band-aid, if that.

Tearing down public housing and then attempting to "integrate its dependents into mixed-income communities" in order to address the socio-economic problems is not the answer. Mr. Rowe is correct in suggesting that it is important to create "partnerships in the community" to develop or expand current programs to help people become more self-sufficient. However, to start by vouchering out current public housing tenants through the Section 8 program before really addressing the underlying problems is simply putting the cart before the horse. Why not revamp existing public housing using the tenants as partners, in many ways like a Boot Strap program or a model of Habitat for Humanity? Shouldn't we develop the community and allow the tenants to take part in the development, rather than just relocating them and the underlying socio-economic problems?

I do wonder if the use of a program to move public housing tenants into "mixed-income communities" would have been suggested during the real-estate boom here in the valley when houses were in short supply?

Is the program Mr. Rowe outlines social reengineering or gentrification? When he states "once we get rid of the housing, we can take that land and put something on the table that would attract folks with discretionary income, with jobs and paychecks". This is very simply gentrification. His program will do nothing to improve or help the displaced public housing tenants. This needs to be looked at very closely!