Public Housing in the North End was once relief from slums

A 2001 Scene article by Bill Carey provides some interesting historical context for Cheatham Place, which sits near Werthan Lofts and Salemtown:

In 1937, Congress passed a national housing act, authorizing millions of federal dollars for public housing projects across the country. Within a year, the Public Works Administration was building two projects in Nashville. One, for whites, was called Cheatham Place and was built in a North Nashville slum previously known as Cab Hollow [blog aside: as I have heard told, Cab Hollow was the former name for Salemtown]. The other, for blacks, was built adjacent to Fisk University. The city named it Andrew Jackson Courts.

With public housing projects now synonymous with high crime, broken families, and illicit drug use, it’s hard to imagine that they were ever viewed differently. But when public housing was new to Nashville, it was touted as a cure for society’s ills. “Like a breath of spring...a new and clean little town within Nashville is bustling toward completion to house people who formerly existed in dilapidated and unsanitary slums,” one Tennessean reporter wrote in 1937. “The spot will resemble a cozy English village covering approximately 22 acres...situated in a flourishing site flooded with green lawns, flower and vegetable gardens, parks, paved sidewalks, and an air of freshness and healthfulness.”

This positive perception of public housing would remain common until about the early 1960s. Decades after public housing came to Nashville, the family of 14-year-old Leo Waters left a run-down house in North Nashville to move into Cheatham Place. “Our house had no indoor bathtub, and the projects seemed safe, clean, and modern by comparison,” says Waters, now an at-large Metro Council member. “We didn’t really feel poor or deprived. We used to jokingly tell people that we lived in the biggest brick house in Nashville.”

Does Nashville Have Its Own TVA-Like Shadow Government in MDHA?

MDHA is much more than a traditional Public Housing Authority …. It’s an economic development authority as well, and as such it is an important political actor and buyer and seller of real estate …. MDHA is an empire.

Yesterday I had an enlightening meeting with SEIU Director Doug Collier. Among other information, I obtained a 2000 Financial Analysis of the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency.* That analysis (from which the empire quote above comes) found that MDHA maintains high reserve levels ($15 million in 2000; yesterday I was told that their reserve is up to $20 million in the middle of a recession) and earns over $1 million annually on the investment of reserve cash alone.

Even in years when the federal government could not fully fund other housing authorities, MDHA increased its base rate of subsidy according to increases in the cost of living.

MDHA is able to operate with a surplus because of

• High occupancy rates, which generate larger reimbursements from the federal government
• High return on Interest on reserve fund, which does not adversely affect operating subsidies MDHA gets from the federal government
• Underspending on maintenance

After giving credit to MDHA, the report ponders more critical questions:

Are they cheating anyone? MDHA seems to collect more from Uncle Sam and the tenants than it spends. That at least raises the possibility that the program may be hoarding money by shortchanging the tenants somehow, neglecting to do extraordinary maintenance tasks, for example. Or it may be ripping off HUD by getting more reimbursement than it needs. A third possibility is that MDHA may be cheating its workers by underpaying them for services rendered. Fortunately, there is no evidence against the agency on the first two counts.

I am told that soon after this report was released in late 2000 and became common knowledge at MDHA employee pay went up from $11 per hour to $17 per hour and tenants received $6 million in MDHA rent refunds. The SEIU union representatives I met with criticize MDHA for focusing strictly on growth-oriented development to the neglect of maintaining housing and without regard for job-creating projects. They are concerned about how MDHA is going to spend the Obama Administration’s infrastructure stimulus funds in the pipeline.

There are a couple of things that interest me about this report’s findings beyond SEIU's concerns. One is the recent scaling back of the Salemtown streetscape project due to higher unanticipated costs. Put aside good questions about how construction costs could be higher in a market downturn. If MDHA is awash in excess funds through their own investments why can't they kick in some funds for planting some trees to enhance the quality of life in the North End? If they were at fault in not following up with Public Works and the private landscape architect on delays in the project then they should be willing to make amends by putting down some canceled parking striping. Is MDHA devoting all of the $589,000 block grant to the Salemtown project or is any of it shunted into their reserve fund? During the three year period that MDHA was holding on to block grant funds, did any collect interest that might be used now to meet unexpected costs? I sent in a request to the MDHA representative to the Salemtown project for a copy of the minutes of the relevant board meeting and an itemized budget for the project.

The other interest I have in this concerns MDHA’s leading role in acquiring real estate for the Mayor’s proposed convention center. Will the housing authority use the occasion to load more assets into its fat reserve fund and expanding its growing empire? Is anyone watching how MDHA itself conducts business during the land acquistion process?

MDHA seems to be accountable to no one locally or at the state level while it meets its obligations to the federal government well enough to keep the subsidies flowing into its coffers. But some interpret its response to the 2000 SEIU report as covering past actions by raising pay and returning rents. Are we living with a monster in our midst that poses many of the same accountability problems we see at the Tennessee Valley Authority? Will it take a catastrophe on par with the Kingston coal ash spill to reign in MDHA power? Or can a group of organized people delving into MDHA finances and once again asking critical questions force it up a higher road?


*The analysis was conducted by the SEIU International Research Department in Washington, DC and it relied on original MDHA financial data obtained upon request.

Was Cooper Spoiling Dems' Attempts to Mitigate the Bush Budget Blows?

Tennessee Blue Dog Jim Cooper was one of 20 Dems joining 178 House Republicans today to vote against post-Bush attempts reinfuse and reinvest in worthwhile domestic programs for:

• Transit
• Public housing
• Development Block Grants for neighborhoods
• Health care
• Education grants

Chicago's Public-Private Housing Experiments Could Stretch Out to a Quarter of a Century

A huge issue I have with pulling in private developers to build public housing initiatives is that while the developers immediately benefit from an influx of tax money and free public land, projects designed to mix affordable housing for poor and working classes with middle class homesteads plod and languish.  A generation of families will pass in the time it will probably take Chicago to finish their public-private experiment in 2025.  Will demographics completely change the demand for housing that prompted the project in 2000?

Not everyone involved lacked foresight unblemished by the avarice for quick profits; residents themselves has concerns even before the project began:

Former residents may be the least surprised by the situation. From the start, many predicted they would be displaced and forgotten while developers grabbed coveted swaths of city real estate for re-development and private profit.

In pushing the plan, the Daley administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Habitat Co., the court-appointed overseer of public housing construction, placed what amounted to a high-stakes wager:

Upscale homes in the new developments would not only raise the aspirations of public housing families but also spur the construction of badly needed housing for the poor and affordable housing for working people struggling to buy a home.

Instead, the market-rate homes have proven in some cases to be an albatross.

From the beginning, construction at the new communities moved slowly, held up by bureaucracy, politics and complex financing.

Now, the downturn in the housing market threatens to bog down the plan even further because developers are struggling to sell high-priced homes amid a glut of new construction across the city.

Nothing is going to make this dog hunt, because the developers are making money and have no other investment in making it work. The politicians are supported by private money and have little incentive to help families that they claim to be helping. Privatization of public housing is a win-lose proposition and the losers are those without the money or power to leverage affordable housing.

Another Heckuva-Job-Brownie Bush Appointment?

Is Bush replacing one bad seed at Housing and Urban Development with another? Facing South wonders.

Local TV Coverage of New Orleans City Hall Unrest

New Orleans' WDSU-TV posts their coverage of the protests gone violent and has reaction from the Police, Mayor Ray Nagin, protest leaders, and a City Council member:

New Orleans City Hall Officials Gas and Tase Housing Protestors

Facing South has been doggedly following the deteriorating post-Katrina housing situation in New Orleans, and they provide updates on hundreds of people turned away from a City Council meeting held to demolish public housing in the city.

When protestors crashed the gates to City Hall, they were gassed (reportedly with mace and pepper spray) and tased by security forces:

Anybody Else See Possible Gang Connections In This?

Police pull over an SUV today for a minor traffic violation near the Napier Housing Projects, after being tipped off by the ATF, and they find assault weaponry, bullet-proof vests, and an improvised explosive device. On their 6:00 report tonight News 2 mentioned a possible connection to the President's visit to Nashville, while WSMV identified the motive as black-marketeering in area housing units.

Given the availability of high-powered assault weapons on our streets, the News 2 theory of some kind of connection to the President's visit seems pretty farfetched to me. Now, in my opinion, it might be plausible that the ATF wanted to get these weapons off the street before the President's visit, so they tipped the police off. But that doesn't mean that the couple in the SUV were a part of some clandestine conspiracy beyond outfitting urban youth with weapons with which they can commit crimes in their own neighborhoods. Unless the media does some more digging, we'll never know why here and why now. In Salemtown, we've recently become acquainted first-hand with the availability of assault weapons and continuing gang activities. Until another motive for the reported offense is produced with clear evidence to support it, I'm inclined to see this as an arrest of people who prey on the anger of disaffected youth in transitional neighborhoods by selling them assault weapons.

I sure wish the mainstream media would do a little more investigative work into possible connections to gangs in neighborhoods proximate to public housing, rather than floating speculative balloons or simply parroting what law enforcement officials tell them before moving on to something else. I hope the local police are looking into the gang angle, too.

Good Riddance, John Henry Hale. You'll Hardly Be Missed.

They're finally coming down in the neighborhood around Marathon Village. John Henry Hale was originally intended--when it were built in the middle of the last century--as temporary public housing. It turned into a awful permanent solution to dealing with poverty.

Thank goodness for Hope VI. It's going to lead to the revitalization of the Marathon Village neighborhood. It's a shame that the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have slashed Hope VI to the point that this development is probably going to be the last we see for some time here in Nashville. There are several other housing projects that still need to be demolished around the city to make way for single family homes and duplexes and to provide opportunities for a better life free of crime and trash for neighbors of all income levels.

Local Katrina Fallout: Delayed Construction Projects, Including Schools (Updated)

Adversity caused by the destruction of the Port of New Orleans continues to ripple across the country, including through Nashville.

A Louisiana legislator was heard saying that God helped him "clean up" public housing by sending Katrina. Does that mean that God also halted Nashville's plans to renovate or to build public elementary schools by sending Katrina to destroy New Orleans?

09/12/2005, 11:50 a.m. Update: Speaking of God and hurricane victims, Tim Wise relates his encounter at La Paz with a certain kind of god who blesses the chimichangas of the Range Rover set "while letting babies die in their mothers’ arms, and letting old people die in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street." Wasn't it Jesus who cursed the Pharisees who stood in public and thanked God that they were not like mortal sinners? How can people--who haughtily pray over their food and then sit back and harshly judge New Orleaneans in dire straights--honestly call themselves "Christian," when Jesus Christ taught otherwise?

Salemtown Neighbors Hear From Police That Crime Has Recently Spiked

At last night's Salemtown Neighbors meeting, the Community Affairs Officer with the Central Police Precinct reported that crime, especially burglaries and car break-ins, is lately up in the North End. Over a week ago, I reported here that I have seen an increased police presence in Salemtown. Others mentioned at last night's meeting that they have noticed an increase in criminal activity in the neighborhood.

The officer attending last night's meeting offered an explanation why crime is up: with Metro tearing down the John Henry Hale Homes (located at 16th Ave. and Charlotte Pk. near Marathon Village) to build new single family homes and moving residents elsewhere, many displaced gang members and young men looking for trouble have been making their way into the surrounding neighborhoods, including Salemtown. (Incidentally, news reports yesterday tell us that a police officer was shot by a young man hiding in a closet during police sweeps of John Henry Hale Homes). Accordingly, proactive police patrols in the North End have been increased, including patrols by K-9 units to discourage illicit drug sales. A K-9 unit was on proactive patrol on 6th Ave. this past Sunday afternoon.

I asked a follow-up question concerning the Crime Scene Unit that I saw last Saturday on 5th Ave., which was originally reported by police as a response to a shooting. The officer corrected the original information that police gave me: the unit was not responding to a shooting on 5th. He said that there had been a shooting in the neighborhood that was currently under investigation, but it was not on 5th, and it was not a present threat to anyone else's security. He did not comment on why the unit was on 5th Saturday morning.

We are apparently facing more transition than usual in the North End, and our Neighborhood Watches will need to be even more vigilant than ever to prevent crimes. Neighbors should be reporting any suspicious or unusual activities to the police at 862-8600 (non-emergency) or 911 (emergency).

More Effects of Proposed Bush Budget Cuts on Local Neighborhoods

I have been writing in recent weeks on the planned Bush cuts to the federal budget, including those to the Block Grant program and to COPS.

More and more bad news for urban neighborhoods is coming to the surface the more President Bush's planned budget cuts are analyzed.

The latest stats are from various sources via the Democratic National Committee:

• Bush’s Budget Cuts Funding for Tennessee’s COPS Program. Bush’s 2006 budget cuts funding for the Community Oriented Police program, which has put 2,351 police on the streets in Tennessee. [DOJ, 10/19/04; Budget of the US Government, 2/05]
• Bush Budget Eliminates Grants to Help Tennessee Local Drug Task Forces. “Two federal grants that have helped fund local law enforcement will be reduced 36 percent this year and may be eliminated from the budget next year, officials said. The Edward Byrne Memorial Grant, which funds the 26 judicial drug task forces across the state, and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant will be eliminated, officials said. … Ricky Smith, the director of the 12th Judicial District Drug Task Force, said his budget comes almost entirely from a $96,000 Byrne grant. ‘We can manage a year or a year and a half, but I think eventually you are going to see drug task forces across the state eventually go out of business,’ Mr. Smith said.” [Chattanooga Times Free Press, 2/12/05]

Also, the Bush cuts threaten to destroy the "Hope VI" program, which has rejuvenated the communities of Vine Hill, Preston Taylor, John Henry Hale Homes, and Sam Levy Homes in Nashville. Via the DNC:

• Bush’s 2005 budget proposes to eliminate the HOPE VI program, and requests that Congress rescind the $143 million it had already approved in the 2005 budget. Congress has rebuffed similar requests in the past to eliminate HOPE VI, which helps housing agencies replace dilapidated public housing units with mostly larger townhouses and detached homes to create mixed-income communities. [Washington Post, 2/7/05; Associated Press, 2/7/05; Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2006, 2/7/05]

Preston Taylor and John Henry Hale Homes sit in north-by-northwest neighborhoods. Hence, the Bush cuts hit close to home. We still have a number of very old and crumbling public housing projects in other urban neighborhoods that will only continue to deteriorate without federal help.
Hope VI represents a unique partnership where Metro government and other public, private and non-profit agencies match federal funds allocated to renovate and enhance the quality of urban life. It gives local institutions the opportunity for good works that they otherwise could not afford on their own.

03/06/2005 Update: Here's a piece I missed from Friday's Tennessean on Hope VI and the John Henry Hale Homes.