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WPCNR THE HOUSING NEWS. By John F. Bailey. July 2, 2009: The White Plains Housing Authority unique plan to rebuild Winbrook with Housing and Urban Development money while residents continue to live next to their future new homes for up to a decade,  is  not the way HUD normally combines with a Housing Authority to execute a project.

In Atlanta,  one of the model city developments touted by White Plains Housing Authority presenters of the project this week, (see slide above) has not in any of their projects built over the last 13 years, required residents of a project being replaced to have to stay on the construction site.

John Sugg, a spokesman for the Atlanta Housing Authority  told WPCNR today that residents living in a project slated for revitalization are given Atlanta Housing Authority Vouchers and the Atlanta Housing Authority assists them to find substantially improved residences. When the project is completed, about one-third of the residents return to live in the typical Atlanta rivitalizationproject, and another two-thirds of the units are either rented at market rates or at tax-credit/percentages of median income rates. Tax credits he said are provided the developer to make up for the reduced rates for the income eligible renters. He said there is some condominium purchases available too. 

Sugg said the Atlanta Housing Authority in its various housing revitalization projects the last 13 thirteen years (which Sugg reports will be completed this year), established a joint partnership with the developer executing the individual site. One such developer is H.J. Russell & Company, the largest black-owned firm in the country, Sugg said. 

Asked if condominium ownership was a typical option offered, Sugg said most of the units in the new developments Atlanta has opened were rentals, at Centennial Place, he said the majority were rentals, but some condominiumships were offered. Sugg had no statistics on the number of rentals in Atlantas new stock of revitalized developments as opposed to condominiums, but indicated condominium offerings in addition to rentals existed.

Sugg said experience has shown Atlanta that if the mix of residents is not altered, the same “project” conditions return in time. He said the Atlanta Housing Authority is dedicated to assisting voucher holders who cannot return to a new AHA project when it opens, to train and prepare them to be successful elsewhere. The AHA efforts have enabled landlords elsewhere around Atlanta to be more accepting of voucher holders just because of the AHA commitment to the voucher holder.

 He said, for example that if a person has a criminal record, refuses to work, is unemployed or a history of lease violations, all persons are guaranteed housing assistance. Sugg observed that any of those conditions would prohibit individuals from returning to a newly established AHA community such as Community Place.

He said the vast majority of the population in projects Atlanta has demolished and replaced are women and children, a portion of  them have relocated to other rental projects and gone into finished projects the AHA has built.

Retail and services are a part of Atlanta’s revitalization projects, Sugg said, sayi

In July of 2008, according to a news release from the Atlanta Housing Authority, HUD approved demolition of the final four major family housing projects in Atlanta: Hollywood Courts, Thomasville Heights, Herndon Homes and Bankhead Courts and Bowen Homes. There were 1,850 dwelling units in those projects.

Last July, more than 1,300 residents of the projects to be demolished, the news release says, “participated in (AHA-sponsored) seminars to guide them on their transition to housing of their choice. In surveys…only 13 – a mere 1.4%-- stated they did not want to move.”

In fourteen years, Atlanta has relocated 10,000 households from its housing projects. A total of 80% of the families stated within the Atlanta city limits and the other 20% using housing assistance to move to suburbs of Atlanta. This release may be found at

http://www.atlantahousing.org/pressroom/pressreleases_print.cfm?id=23.