For more than a decade, a steady stream of housing officials and city planners from across the country have visited Atlanta to view the future of mixed-income housing.

They tour sites such as Centennial Place – where vast public housing blocks were torn down in 1994 to make way for a pioneering $150-million mixed-income community of garden apartments and town homes – and then they go on to carry out similar projects in cities such as New Orleans and New York.

Despite Atlanta’s reputation as a leader in rethinking public housing, City Council members are to vote Tuesday on whether to ask the Atlanta Housing Authority to delay demolition of three of its last remaining public housing projects.

Some council members say they worry about where the projects’ 3,800 displaced residents will go.

“People who live in these projects have no idea where they will end up,” said City Councilwoman Felicia A. Moore, whose district includes the Bankhead Courts, Bowen Homes and Hollywood Courts projects. “Before these buildings are demolished, I want to be comfortable that they will find a home.”

The City Council’s intervention could present an embarrassing setback for the Atlanta Housing Authority, which pioneered the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI program more than a decade ago. The agency has torn down more than 10,000 public housing units and plans to eliminate all of the city’s public housing by 2010.

The housing authority has long maintained that warehousing the poor in vast complexes is a failed social experiment.

Yet now, with 10 nationally acclaimed mixed-income projects under its belt, the agency faces the prospect of lengthy public forums with worried Atlanta residents, and legal disputes about how much authority the City Council has over the razing of public housing.

Though there is little doubt that the sites of Atlanta’s former projects have undergone dramatic revitalization – property values have gone up and crime rates have gone down – the issue is that few former public-housing residents actually live there.

So far, about 17% of Atlanta’s former public-housing residents have returned to the mixed-income communities, which are funded primarily by private investors. The vast majority are scattered across the region and use Section 8 housing vouchers to help pay their rent.

For Atlanta housing officials, this is a measure of success: The strategy of the program is to fight the “cycle of poverty” by breaking the concentration of poverty, said spokesman Rick White. Profoundly poor, unemployed public-housing tenants can improve their lives, the theory goes, if they are given the means to live in better neighborhoods.

During the first phase of the program, former housing-project residents were given the right to return to the mixed- income communities.

The majority of residents chose to take the vouchers, White said.

“It would have been a failure if everyone had returned,” he said. “What we want to do is make sure families can make choices about where they want to live. Government bureaucrats are not telling them where to live.”

Those who want to return must meet strict criteria and agree to regular house checks. In 2004, the agency required all able-bodied adults, 18 to 61, to have a job, receive job training or enroll in school. Residents cannot return if they have a history of falling behind on rent, or if they or any relatives on the lease have recent criminal convictions.

Residents of the last-remaining projects would not have the right to return, and some council members say they are concerned that former project dwellers would end up shuffled to other poor, racially segregated areas.

“We know revitalization is necessary to achieve investment, but redevelopment can’t be done totally at the expense of senior citizens and low-income families,” said Councilman Ivory Lee Young Jr., who is asking the City Council to set up a task force to study the housing authority’s plan.

Many worry that voucher holders would end up struggling to pay higher rents and utilities. Failure to pay bills can mean that residents drop out of the Section 8 system, with little chance of returning.

The Atlanta Housing Authority closed the Section 8 waiting list several years ago, with more than 20,000 people on it.

Conswayla Gardner, 35, who supports seven children with a $7-an-hour cleaning job and struggles to buy items such as washing powder and toothpaste, said she simply could not afford higher rent or utility bills. She lives at Bowen Homes, a 1960s-era public-housing complex with two-story brick buildings that is among those scheduled to be torn down.

“I live from paycheck to paycheck, and I’m barely getting by,” she said. “Am I going to end up homeless?”

Among city planners and economists who track those who left the housing projects, there seems little consensus about the benefits of the program for low-income residents.

A national 2004 study by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution that monitored HUD’s HOPE VI projects concluded that most voucher holders moved to better neighborhoods but that some still lived in poor, racially segregated areas, struggled to pay higher rent and utilities and battled with unreliable landlords.

With the population of Atlanta’s African Americans declining for the first time since the 1920s, public housing has become a sensitive political issue.

Last week, housing authority Chief Executive Renee Lewis Glover sent a note of personal apology to Moore after a spokesman for Glover allegedly told the Atlanta Journal- Constitution that the councilwoman’s objection to the demolition was motivated by fears that it would remove from her district voters likely to reelect her.

In August, a resident advisory board filed a civil rights complaint with the HUD, alleging that the Atlanta agency was pushing low-income blacks out of the city in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Shirley Hightower, president of the residents association at Bowen Homes, said the housing authority had not provided residents with opportunities to give input and had refused to comply with requests for public records.

“Residents stop me in my truck to ask questions, and the saddest thing about it is I don’t have any answers,” she said. “The housing authority hasn’t really told us about anything. They don’t care where the residents go. They don’t care if we make it or not.”

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“Atlanta rethinks housing changes”

Los Angles Times. 2008. <http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/21/nation/na-housing21>

Frustrated that downbeat national reporting on the state of the housing industry was a turnoff for prospective buyers in its local marketplace, the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association last week succeeded in using the news media to inform readers of prime home buying opportunities in the area.

“Our positive ‘Get Home Atlanta!’ public relations campaign was being overshadowed by national housing statistics reports,” said David Ellis, the association’s executive vice president. Housing in Atlanta has been down, but local builders haven’t been suffering nearly as much as their counterparts in more distressed parts of the country.

Looking to increase the sales numbers of its members, the HBA decided to launch a campaign to directly address the media’s inaccurate portrayal of the local market.

Leveraging the Myth Buster resources from NAHB, the association worked with a public relations firm to develop solid economic statistics and convincing information on why now is a good time for looking at what the Atlanta housing market has to offer.

“The PR firm really helped shape our perspective,” said Ellis. “Being outside the housing industry, they were able to keep us grounded and help us see what would make sense to the average prospective home buyer.”

That effort paid off with double coverage in the Tuesday, March 25 edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The business section ran a national Associated Press story on an increase in existing home sales for February in which Ellis reported an uptick in model home visits in his market and price declines that have been milder than in comparable cities. “Buyers are starting to wake up to the fact that there are some great buys out there,” Ellis told the AP reporter.

The media exposure generated by the remarks of Ellis to the press was expanded on the newspaper’s op-ed page by a fact-filled opinion piece authored by Steve Palmer, the association’s president and chief financial officer of Bowen Family Homes. In the article, Palmer urged leaders in Washington to get behind efforts to preserve the health of the nation’s economy by stabilizing housing.

Ellis said that feedback from the news coverage was immediate and positive — from both members and the community.

“The local news media are starting to use us as a resource to provide a local perspective to their coverage of national housing industry statistics,” said Ellis.

Ellis added that implementing a quarterly press conference is another tactic that has been successful for the association.

“We ask economists from local universities and representatives from the mortgage industry, the board of Realtors® and the home building industry to participate,” he said. “And we’re careful to maintain our credibility and not sugar-coat the numbers — but we provide context and make sure our messages are heard.”

Ellis said that after their most recent conference, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a front-page story full of direct quotes from the panelists.

Members and local associations finding themselves in a similar situation as the builders in Atlanta can turn the situation around by employing information and resources from NAHB to combat negative media stories and restore the confidence of hesitant buyers. Click here to be linked to Myth Buster Resources.

For more information, e-mail Gwyn Donohue at NAHB, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8447. For information on legislation, contact Michael Strauss, x8252.

Here is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that last week helped to generate positive buzz, establish local home builders as a leading authority on conditions in their market and outline a solution to harness the strength of housing to preserve the health of the nation’s economy:

Housing Industry Needs Congress’ Help

Few can argue that the home building industry is a critical component of the economy, both in metro Atlanta and the nation as a whole. In fact, housing represents 15.2% of the U.S. gross national product. As housing goes, so goes the economy, and this statement has never been more accurate.

It was encouraging to learn Monday that the sales of existing homes rose by 2.9% in February, marking the biggest increase in a year and the first month-over-month rise of the annualized pace since July. But several key indicators pertaining to the housing industry show that we are on the brink of recession. The mortgage delinquency rate on all homes stood at nearly 6% in the fourth quarter of 2007, an all-time high. And the Federal Reserve reports home equity debt is greater than equity for the first time since 1945.

The housing contraction of the last couple of years is weaving its way through the entire economy, wreaking havoc on the credit markets and causing job losses. Nearly one in six jobs is connected with the housing industry in the metro Atlanta area. There were a reported 63,000 jobs lost nationally in February, the fastest falloff in the labor market in five years. Great concern also remains about the 1.3 million subprime loans that are due to reset this year where 165 of borrowers have been behind on their mortgage payments.

An additional impact is being felt by state and local governments that are losing money for their operating budgets as a result of lower property values and reduced tax bases. Roughly half the states in the country are facing serious financial difficulties linked directly to declining home values and the credit crunch.

National retail sales are being affected as well. Lower home prices prompt consumers to buy fewer TVs, digital cameras and other electronic equipment. Analysts note that, unlike many other products, electronics sales have weathered all downturns in recent years until now.

The message coming from the housing industry at this point is urgent, yet simple. Congress must move now to enact a temporary home buyer tax credit. This will pay huge dividends, with three immediate results: a stimulation of home buying activity, a drop of excess supply in housing markets and a halt to the erosion of housing prices and mortgage credit quality.

There are several other measures that lawmakers should take into consideration. The revitalization of the Federal Housing Administration would provide reasonably priced, low-downpayment mortgages to millions of home owners and potential home buyers. Comprehensive government-sponsored reform for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will enable these financial institutions to greatly relieve liquidity and inventory pressures in the mortgage credit markets, help stabilize home prices and boost consumer confidence.

An expansion of the mortgage bond program would help strapped borrowers refinance existing mortgages. Lastly, allowing tax-free withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k)s for the purchase of a first home would also be a tremendous boost for home buyers.

The voluntary industry-government approach to help stem the tide of foreclosures clearly is not working. We’re still seeing hundreds of billions of dollars in write-downs, and there is great uncertainty in the private securities markets. The Bush Administration claims it is waiting until the stimulus package kicks in before doing more, but by then it will be too little, too late. We just can’t afford to wait any longer. During the congressional recess, home builders will be setting up meetings with key members in their home districts to talk about the importance of moving ahead with legislation that will address this crisis and provide immediate relief.

The Fed has been our biggest ally and understands the gravity of the situation along with the need to stabilize financial markets and increase liquidity in the credit markets. Its first move was to back the acquisition of Bear Stearns, thus increasing the flow of funds to other banks squeezed for credit. Last Tuesday’s decision to cut interest rates another three quarters of a point should help. We encourage the Fed to continue to assess the need for further rate cuts as they help spur growth.

It is the Fed and Congress we turn to as they hold the keys to averting a national recession and placing momentum back into the housing industry, one of the vital engines in the U.S. economy.

“In the News, Atlanta Builders Promote Housing Turnaround”

National Building News. 2008. <http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/2008-03-31/Front+Page/index.html>

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The Department of Redevelopment LLC, and/or its subsidiaries, provides leasing and property management services to the owners of residential and commercial properties. The Department of Redevelopment LLC lists and sells residential properties in the same areas. We offer you experience, expertise, and excellent service. Our broker has owned and managed rental property since 1976. Our company has been in business since 1967. We currently manage over 150 properties and manage over 500+ assets. Our experience will help you make better decisions about how to handle your properties.  We participate in and provide training and continuing education relevant to our specialties to stay at the leading edge of our field. Our expertise will help you maximize the return on investment you receive from your properties. Our clients can choose from several options, including direct deposit and receiving their statements via email, which enables them to tailor our services to their needs. Our Residents can reach us 24 hours a day in the event of a maintenance emergency. And all of our fees are performance based. In summary, the Department of Redevelopment LLC and/or its subsidiaries offers excellent service!

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The streets of downtown Atlanta became deserted after dark in the past. Then came the revitalization of the downtown area and suburbs. Since then the boom of the live, work, play communities has drawn residents to Atlanta’s newest downtown developments. Vine City, Castleberry Hill, West Lake, Hunter Hills, English Ave and Pittsburg neighborhoods are among these developments. Downtown offers everything from the nation’s first public housing project at Centennial Place to amazing skyline views, with shopping and restaurants at practically every doorstep. Downtown residents are minutes away from art galleries, the new World of Coca-Cola, the Georgia Aquarium, and much more. Castleberry Hill, the city’s most complete warehouse district, is full of lofts, new age restaurants and art galleries. DOR Homes is a big part of the development that is taking place throughout the greater Atlanta area. Stop by and see for yourself what steps DOR Homes is taking to make your Atlanta neighborhood a better place to live, work and play.

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Now is a good time to do a move in the Atlanta area. The home rental market is still active and there appears to be a good supply of desirable houses and condominiums on the market and rents are very reasonable. If you see a property you like, then be prepared to place a rent holding deposit and secure it.  Use DOR Homes as your base of operations in locating your Atlanta or Myrtle Beach home now.

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The Department of Redevelopment has built a team of experienced, dedicated professionals with backgrounds in law, real estate, finance, marketing, and the hospitality industry.

The success of the Department of Redevelopment results from comprehensive and carefully coordinated urban planning, market research, design, architecture, construction, finance, merchandising, tenant mix, property management, and consumer marketing. At DOR, we treat each of these functions as a specialty.  Our approach to the development process integrates each crucial step with experience and creativity to produce the greatest satisfaction, success, and profitability.

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