The program began in 1992, with formal recognition by law in 1998. As of 2005, the program had distributed $5.8 billion through 446 federal block grants to cities for the developments, with the highest individual grant being $67.7 million, awarded to Arverne/Edgemere Houses in New York City.[2]
HOPE VI has included a variety of grant programs including: Revitalization, Demolition, Main Street, and Planning grant programs. As of June 1, 2010 there have been 254 HOPE VI Revitalization grants awarded to 132 housing authorities since 1993 – totaling more than $6.1 billion.[3]
History
The success of the mixed-use, mixed-income Columbia Point Housing Projects on Columbia Point in Boston, Massachusetts inspired and contributed to development of the HOPE VI model.[4] Built in 1954, and consisting of approximately 1,500 apartment units, these apartments had fallen into disrepair and become dangerous as a center of crime and dysfunction. By the 1980s, only 300 families remained in the complex, where the buildings were falling apart.
Eventually, realizing the situation was almost hopeless, in 1984 Boston turned over the management, cleanup, planning, and revitalization of the property to a private development firm, Corcoran-Mullins-Jennison, that won a competition for the project. The construction work for the new Harbor Point development began in 1986 and was completed by 1990. It was developed as a mixed-income community, called Harbor Point Apartments.[5]
Congress established the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing in 1989 to study the issue of dilapidated public housing. After it submitted the report to Congress in 1992, legislation creating the HOPE VI grants was drafted and passed.[6] The first HOPE VI pilot grant was given to the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) in 1993. This first grant was based on renovating/modernizing Techwood Homes, the nation's oldest housing project, and about a third of adjacent Clark Howell Homes. The grant envisioned Techwood/Clark Howell remaining entirely public housing. The mixed-income concept was not part of the first HOPE VI grant awards, which were made only to housing authorities.
The Atlanta-based The Integral Group partnered with McCormack Baron Salazar of St. Louis, and won a bid in the fall of 1994 for development of a new mixed-income project. They developed Centennial Place, which has continued as a successful mixed-income community. Instrumental in the process was AHA's new CEO Renee Lewis Glover, who over the next decade guided the agency through the demolition of its large, declining housing projects. They were replaced on AHA land by private-public ventures of mixed-use, mixed-income communities modeled on Centennial Place, with a portion of units reserved for former public housing tenants. The first HOPE VI mixed-income community (where public housing was a component) was Phase I of Centennial Place, which closed on March 8, 1996.[7] Glover distinguished the Atlanta program, which included providing vouchers to former tenants of public housing for privately held units, by requiring residents to participate in work or study programs to remain qualified for subsidized housing. These elements became known as the Atlanta Model.
Henry Cisneros, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, described the HOPE VI program as the last gasp for public housing.[4]
President George W. Bush called for abolition of the HOPE VI program, and Congress reduced funding for the block grants.[8]
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom proposed a local version of HOPE VI, using a $100 million public bond referendum to gather private money to rehabilitate outdated public housing projects.[8]
In FY 2009, HOPE VI received a $120 million budget; however, in FY2010 no funds were budgeted for HOPE VI. A new Choice Neighborhoods program had a proposed budget of $250 million. Over the course of 15 years, HOPE VI grants were used to demolish 96,200 public housing units and produce 107,800 new or renovated housing units, of which 56,800 were to be affordable to the lowest-income households.[9] The new and renovated housing units were mixed income, less dense, and sought to attain better design and integration into the local neighborhoods.[9]
Program concepts
HOPE VI makes use of New Urbanism principles, meaning that communities must be dense, pedestrian-friendly, and transit-accessible. Housing is rarely built as apartments. Instead, private houses, duplexes and, especially for public housing projects, row houses are preferred. These buildings provide direct access and connection to the street and communities. Houses are designed to stand close to the street, with small front yards. It is common to see porches on the buildings, where residents can oversee the street, as well as small apartments for single residents built over garages or on the ground floor.
By applying defensible space, most communities are specifically designed or remodeled with private property, emphasizing security. Buildings are low-rise and often integrated directly into failing urban areas by re-establishing the street grid. This can lead to revitalization of surrounding areas. Private custodianship, with individuals taking care of their assigned part of the project, is a critical element. Likewise, providing residents with high-quality materials and houses is believed to encourage pride in the space and an interest in keeping things in good condition. This, theoretically, mitigates vandalism.
In general, much of the philosophy comes from a theory that apartment buildings are not healthy spaces for human habitation.[citation needed] Only with substantial wealth can an apartment building maintain the characteristics of security, social networking, and urban integration that the designers feel is necessary for a healthy community. Instead, the lower-rise, urban feel with a sense of safety in the built environment satisfies that need.
Many of the elements of the program do not produce buildings. More funding goes to housing assistance vouchers than in previous programs. As with the strategy of constructing in-fill housing in middle-class neighborhoods and providing new housing for market-rate buyers, this element enables former public housing residents to be part of existing neighborhoods, to produce a certain cohesion. In almost all implementations of the program, housing authorities and non-profits have provided resident-assistance information programs for new homeowners, teaching them and their neighbors how to take care of a house that they must protect.
Criticisms
Some critics have said that local authorities use the program as a legal means to evict poor residents in favor of more affluent residents in a process of gentrification.[10][11] They complain that less than 12% of those displaced from old housing eventually move into the replacement housing.[12][13][10] In some cases, this is the choice of residents, who want to move to other housing. But one writer asserted that in the case of a section of Cabrini–Green in Chicago, residents were forced out by armed police in order for HOPE VI redevelopment to take place.[14] Projects generally construct fewer units than are demolished, so even in the best of circumstances enough units may not be available for all residents to return.
Federal auditors found that HUD was awarding grants based on the ability of the area to generate income for the city rather than the actual state of the housing project in question.[13] By demolishing low-cost public housing units in an area, city officials can drive up property values in the surrounding area and reduce the number of low-income residents in need of public services. Only seven of the first 34 grants went toward the development of high-rise housing.[13]
Some criticized the new developments because they resulted in a net loss of housing for the poor.[15] As the program does not require a "one-for-one" replacement of the old housing unit, the new project does not have to house the same number of tenants as the old housing unit did. (The one-for-one replacement policy was repealed by Congress in 1998, separately from HUD's implementation of HOPE VI.) The Urban Institute reported that the number of units receiving a federal subsidy and available for the deeply poor to live in is cut in half in developments arising from the program.[15] The National Low Income Housing Coalition has said that no HOPE VI grants should be allotted without requirements for one-for-one unit replacement.[16]
The NLIHC maintains that in order to acquire federal grants, local housing authorities have "demolished viable units and displaced families."[6] The program has been called "notorious" for its allotment of federal grants for demolition of public housing.[10] Some critics said that it has resulted in a "dramatic loss of housing."[13][14] In San Francisco, which made extensive use of the HOPE VI program to redevelop its aging public housing supply, virtually all projects constructed significantly fewer units than they demolished. In the Hayes Valley, Plaza East, Valencia Gardens, Geneva Towers, and Bernal Dwellings projects, Federal, State, and Local Housing Authorities spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000,000 to create a net loss of 457 apartments.[17]
Some have criticized the program for having the right goals but not accomplishing them, or not going about them in the right way.[12] The National Housing Law Project issued a joint report saying, "HOPE VI has been characterized by a lack of clear standards, a lack of hard data on program results, and misleading and contradictory statements made by HUD."[13] The report said:
HUD's failure to provide comprehensive and accurate information about HOPE VI has created an environment in which misimpressions about the program and its basic purposes and outcomes have flourished- often with encouragement from HUD. HOPE VI plays upon the public housing program's unfairly negative reputation and an exaggerated sense of crisis about the state of public housing in general to justify a drastic model of large-scale family displacement and housing redevelopment that increasingly appears to do more harm than good.[13]
Housing authorities have also been criticized for allowing private management of the eventual redevelopments, which are built with mostly public funding.[10] Others have characterized this is a positive aspect of the program.[12]
Al Levine, Seattle Housing's deputy executive director of development, noted that most housing authorities did not commit to replacing all of the demolished units. He said, "Seattle Housing is unique among housing authorities in the HOPE VI program in committing to one-for-one replacement housing for every unit. We take this commitment very seriously."[18]
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the secretary of housing and urban development, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet.
Cabrini–Green Homes was a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois. The Frances Cabrini Rowhouses and Extensions were south of Division Street, bordered by Larrabee Street to the west, Orleans Street to the east and Chicago Avenue to the south, with the William Green Homes to the northwest.
Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937, often called Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income households in the United States. 68% of total rental assistance in the United States goes to seniors, children, and those with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development manages Section 8 programs.
Sursum Corda is a small neighborhood located in Washington, D.C., bounded by North Capitol Street on the east, K Street NW to the south, New Jersey Avenue NW to the west, and New York Avenue NW to the north.
Herman Gardens was a public housing project located in the northwest area of Detroit, Michigan.
Park DuValle is a neighborhood southwest of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It was developed starting in the late-19th century and historically been a predominantly African-American community. Its boundaries are I-264 to the west, the Norfolk Southern Railway tracks to the north, Cypress Street to the east, and Bells Lane and Algonquin Parkway to the south. The neighborhood reflects the presence of several nearby parks, and DuValle Junior High School; all named after Lucie DuValle, the first female principal of a high school in Louisville.
The Housing Authority of New Orleans is a housing authority in New Orleans, Louisiana, tasked with providing housing to low-income residents.
The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is a municipal corporation that oversees public housing within the city of Chicago. The agency's Board of Commissioners is appointed by the city's mayor, and has a budget independent from that of the city of Chicago. CHA is the largest rental landlord in Chicago, with more than 50,000 households. CHA owns over 21,000 apartments. It also oversees the administration of 37,000 Section 8 vouchers. The current acting CEO of the Chicago Housing Authority is Tracey Scott.
The Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) is an agency that provides affordable housing for low-income families in Atlanta. Today, the AHA is the largest housing agency in Georgia and one of the largest in the United States, serving approximately 50,000 people.
The Housing Act of 1937, formally the "United States Housing Act of 1937" and sometimes called the Wagner–Steagall Act, provided for subsidies to be paid from the United States federal government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) to improve living conditions for low-income families.
In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents. In most federally-funded rental assistance programs, the tenants' monthly rent is set at 30% of their household income. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2020, there were one million public housing units. In 2022, about 5.2 million American households that received some form of federal rental assistance.
In 1996, The Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) created the financial and legal model for mixed-income communities or MICs, that is, communities with both owners and renters of differing income levels, that include public-assisted housing as a component. This model is used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOPE VI revitalization program. As of 2011, it has resulted in all housing projects having been demolished, with partial replacement by MICs.
In 1994 the Atlanta Housing Authority, encouraged by the federal HOPE VI program, embarked on a policy created for the purpose of comprehensive revitalization of severely distressed public housing developments. These distressed public housing properties were replaced by mixed-income communities.
The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to construct and/or own a multifamily development that has the mixing of income groups as a fundamental part of its financial and operating plans” A new, constructed mixed-income housing development includes diverse types of housing units, such as apartments, town homes, and/or single-family homes for people with a range of income levels. Mixed-income housing may include housing that is priced based on the dominant housing market with only a few units priced for lower-income residents, or it may not include any market-rate units and be built exclusively for low- and moderate-income residents. Calculating Area Median Income (AMI) and pricing units at certain percentages of AMI most often determine the income mix of a mixed-income housing development. Mixed-income housing is one of two primary mechanisms to eliminate neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, combat residential segregation, and avoid the building of public housing that offers 100% of its housing units to those living in poverty. Mixed-income housing is built through federal-, state-, and local-level efforts and through a combination of public-private-non-profit partnerships.
McCormack Baron Salazar is an American real estate development firm based in St. Louis, Missouri specializing in economically integrated urban neighborhoods with more than $4.23 billion invested in affordable and mixed-income housing projects. McCormack Baron Salazar provides development as well as ongoing property management services, development financing and tax credit services, and asset management services. </ref>
Howard County Housing is the umbrella organization for the Howard County Department of Housing and Community Development and the Howard County Housing Commission. The Department is Howard County Government’s housing agency, and the Commission is a public housing authority and non-profit. Both have boards that meet monthly.
Churchill is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the south of the city center, adjacent to the downtown. Its name is a geographic portmanteau as the area was historically known as the Church Hill district prior to its extensive development in the early twentieth century. Located at the southwestern edge of the downtown grid, the area served as housing for mill workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and today contains 166 acres (67 ha) of mixed residential and commercial zoning, including a number of historical brick tenements as well as the headquarters of the Holyoke Housing Authority, Holyoke Senior Center, Churchill Homes public housing, and the Wistariahurst Museum.
The Olympic Legacy Program was an initiative taken in effort to revitalize many of Atlanta’s public housing projects in the early 1990s in preparation for hosting the 1996 Olympic Games. The initiative, guided by the principals of “new urbanism” was proposed as a way to transform thirteen former projects scattered throughout the city. The initiative began with Techwood Homes in downtown Atlanta, Clark Howell Homes, and continuing to several other projects in each zone. The program was led by former Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) CEO Renee Glover. While the project's ultimate effect was to reduce the concentration of poverty in the city, and improve neighborhoods, employment and education opportunities, finding housing for some of the poor shifted to suburban housing which lacked many of the social services of government housing.
The Troy Housing Authority (THA) is a public agency of the city of Troy, New York that provides subsidized public housing to low- and moderate-income families and individuals, and is the pass-through agency for funding from various housing-related federal programs.
Wentworth Gardens is a low rise 344-unit housing project operated by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). It lies just south of Guaranteed Rate Field in Bronzeville on Chicago's south side.
1 2 Cf. Roessner, p.293. "The HOPE VI housing program, inspired in part by the success of Harbor Point, was created by legislation passed by Congress in 1992."
Alexander van Hoffman, "Why They Built Pruitt–Igoe," in From Tenements to Taylor Homes, ed. John F. Bauman, Roger Biles, and Kristin Szilvian. (University Park (Pennsylvania), The Pennsylvania State University Press).
"Public Law 105-276." (112 Stat. 2461). Text from United States Public Laws. Available from LexisNexis Congressional. Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service.
Janet L. Smith, "Diminishing High Rise Housing," in Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, Alternatives. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Susan J. Popkin, Bruce Katz, Mary K. Cunningham, Karen D. Brown, Jeremy Gustafson, and Margery A. Turner, A Decade of HOPE VI: Research Findings and Policy Challenges. (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2004).
Oscar Newman, Creating Defensible Space. (Washington, DC: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1996).
Baranski, John. Housing the City by the Bay: Tenant Activism, Civil Rights, and Class Politics in San Francisco. (Stanford: University of Stanford Press, 2019).
Pam Belluck, "Raising Slums to Rescue the Residents," The New York Times, September 6, 1998. A Section.
Henry G. Cisneros, From Despair to Hope: Hope VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America's Cities, ed. Lora Engdahl. (Washington DC:Brookings Institution Press, 2009.)
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