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Fresh Loaf

Atlanta news and views, one slice at a time

Last of the ghettos

July 2, 2008 at 2:58 pm by Mara Shalhoup in News

Atlanta Housing Authority Executive Director Renee Glover’s longtime wish is about to come true. It appears that four of the city’s last public housing projects — a total 1,200 affordable apartments — will soon come tumbling down.

This morning, the AJC published an op-ed by Glover in which she expressed confidence that Washington would grant permission to raze the few remaining public-housing projects in the city. According to a letter sent to the AHA today from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, permission for all but two of them has been granted. “I am pleased to approve your request to demolish,” the letter states.

In the op-ed, Glover wrote:

We anticipate quick approval for demolition of the remaining major projects: Bankhead Courts, Thomasville Heights, Hollywood Courts, Herndon Apartments, Palmer and Roosevelt. Those projects, together with Bowen, house about 2,400 households – families that can now look to bright futures in good neighborhoods.

When the last of those buildings comes down, we will have made history.

The letter gives approval to demolish all of the projects Glover cited except for Palmer House and Roosevelt House, which are senior high-rises. Approval for those demolitions is pending.

Starting in the mid-’90s, Glover and the AHA helped make Atlanta ground zero for public housing’s nationwide transformation. Across the country, housing authorities tore down blighted projects, replaced them with mixed-income communities and gave displaced residents vouchers for reduced rent.

No doubt, the old, dilapidated communities needed to fall. And many former residents are far better off.

But in Atlanta and elsewhere, there is reason to believe that not all families who once lived in the projects end up with “bright futures in good neighborhoods.” And in an era of growing economic distress, the loss of hard and fast affordable housing remains troubling.