HOPE VI

HOPE VI is a major HUD plan meant to revitalize the absolute worst public housing projects into mixed-income developments.cite web |url= http://www.newurbannews.com/hopeVI.html|title= Hope VI funds new urban neighborhoods|accessdate=2007-07-26 |publisher= "New Urban News"|date= Jan.-Feb. 2002] Its philosophy is largely based on New Urbanism and the concept of Defensible space.

The program began in 1992, with formal recognition in 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 $50 million.cite web |url= http://www.spur.org/documents/050301_article_01.shtm|title= HOPE VI in San Francisco|accessdate=2007-07-26 |publisher= "San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association"|date= 2005-03]

History

Congress established the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing in 1989 to study the issue of dilapidated public housing. After submitting the report to Congress in 1992, legislation creating the HOPE VI grants was written.cite web |url= http://www.nlihc.org/detail/article.cfm?article_id=2772&id=46|title= HOPE VI |publisher= "National Low Income Housing Coalition"|date= 2007-03-01]

President George W. Bush has previously called for the abolition of the HOPE VI program, and Congress has reduced funding for the block grants.cite web |url= http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/20/BAGI9MGDJH1.DTL|title= Infamous projects are rebuilt and reborn|accessdate=2007-07-26 |publisher= "San Francisco Chronicle"|date= 2006-11-20]

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a local version of HOPE VI, using a $100 million public bond referendum to gather private money to rehabilitate outdated public housing projects.

Program concepts

HOPE VI makes use of New Urbanism, meaning that communities must be dense, pedestrian-friendly, and transit-accessible. Housing rarely comes in the form of apartments, instead private houses, duplexes, and especially for these public housing projects, rowhouses are preferred, because these buildings directly interact with the street. Similarly, houses always stand close to the street, with small front yards. It is common to see porches on the buildings, 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 remodelled with private property, emphasizing security and a wholesome community. Buildings are low-rise and often integrated directly into failing urban areas, in an effort to revitalize them. 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.fact|date=July 2007 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 involve construction of buildings at all. 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 helps integrate residents into 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 have criticized the plan for having the right goals but not accomplishing them or not going about them in the right way.cite web |url= http://www.urban.org/publications/1000654.html|title= What Next for Distressed Public Housing? |publisher= "Urban Institute"|date= 2004-06-01] 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."cite web |url= http://www.narpac.org/ITXFALSE.HTM|title= False HOPE |publisher= "National Association to Restore Pride in America's Capital"|date= 2002-06] 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."

Some have criticized the new developments, because they do not require a "one-for-one" replacement of the old housing unit-- the new unit does not have to house the same number of tenants, which results in a net loss of housing for the poor. (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. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has said that no HOPE grants should be allotted without requirements for one-for-one unit replacement.cite web |url= http://www.nlihc.org/detail/article.cfm?article_id=4285|title= Testimony of George Moses, Chair, Board of Directors, National Low Income Housing Coalition |publisher= "National Low Income Housing Coalition"|date= 2007-06-21]

The NLIHC maintains that in order to acquire federal grants, local housing authorities have "demolished viable units and displaced families." The program has been called "notorious" for its allotment of federal grants for demolition of public housing,cite web |url= http://www.sfbayview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=184&Itemid=16|title= Tassafaronga Hope VI proposal threatens Oakland’s poor |publisher= "San Francisco Bay View"|date= 2007-06-05] and some say it has resulted in a "dramatic loss of housing."cite web |url= http://www.johnmccrory.com/articles/article.asp?this=225|title= Little Hope in HUD's HOPE VI |publisher= John McCrory|date= 1999-05]

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.cite web |url= http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8992|title= Gentrifying Disaster |publisher= "San Francisco Bay View"|date= 2005-10-25] They have said that less than 12% of those displaced from old housing eventually move into the replacement housing. One writer asserted that in the case of a section of Cabrini Green in Chicago, residents were forced out for HOPE VI redevelopment by armed police. 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. Only seven of the first 34 grants went towards the development of high-rise housing.

Criticism has also been targeted at the private management of the eventual redevelopments, which are built with mostly public funding. Others have characterized this is a positive aspect of the program.

Previous projects

* Cascade Village in Akron, Ohio [ [http://www.cascadevillageakron.com/ Welcome to Cascade Village, Akron Ohio ] ]
* Pueblo del Sol and Pico Gardens in Los Angeles
* Uptown Homes, Memphis [ [http://www.uptownmemphis.org Uptown Memphis - Home Page ] ]
* High Point, Seattle [ [http://thehighpoint.com/ Welcome to the High Point Neighborhood ] ]
* Capitol Gateway in Atlanta
* Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago
* Rockwell Gardens in Chicago [http://www.thecha.org/ Chicago Housing Authority] ]
* Stateway Gardens in Chicago [http://www.thecha.org/ Chicago Housing Authority] ]
* Henry Horner Homes in Chicago [http://www.thecha.org/ Chicago Housing Authority] ]
* ABLA in Chicago [http://www.thecha.org/ Chicago Housing Authority] ]
* Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg in Washington, DC
* Arthur Blumeyer in St. Louis
* Columbia Villa in Portland, Oregon
* Oak Hill in Pittsburgh, PA
* Bedford Hill in Pittsburgh, PA
Lexington, Kentucky:
* Bluegrass-Aspendale Housing Project and Sugar Mill Apartments
Louisville, Kentucky:
* Liberty Green and Park DuValle
San Francisco, California:
*North Beach, the Western Addition, Hayes Valley, Bernal Heights, and Valencia Gardens in the Mission District

ee also

* Public housing in the United States and Canada

References

*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).
*Pam Belluck, “Raising Slums to Rescue the Residents,” "The New York Times", September 6th, 1998. A Section.

External links

* [http://www.hud.gov/ United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Official Website]
* [http://www.urban.org/ The Urban Institute Official Website]
* [http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/0703williams.html From Hope VI to Hope Sick?] from Dollars & Sense magazine