Hope Vi

A study of a highly praised national program that has erased hundreds of public housing developments across the country, including a half-dozen in Baltimore, concludes that the initiative has vastly reduced housing opportunities for those most in need - families at the lowest income levels. The report, prepared by the National Housing Law Project and three other housing advocacy groups, says that despite the highly favorable image, the 10-year-old program known as Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, or HOPE VI, "increasingly appears to do more harm than good."

Alphonso R. Jackson took credit for improving public housing when he announced his resignation last week as secretary of housing and urban development. But, in fact, the Bush administration has attempted to starve the once-promising Hope VI program aimed at urban poverty. Members of Congress, including Maryland's Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, have kept it on life support, and now a more ambitious revitalization deserves passage. Since 1992, Hope VI has used more than $6 billion in federal funds to help alleviate concentrated poverty by replacing dilapidated public housing projects with mixed-income development.

WASHINGTON - A House committee took an initial step yesterday in a bipartisan Capitol Hill attempt to salvage a public-housing program popular in Baltimore and other cities that has been targeted by the Bush administration. The House Financial Services Committee approved legislation to extend the life of HOPE VI, a $5 billion, 10-year-old effort to rebuild or replace the nation's "severely distressed" public housing. Under the program, Baltimore has been awarded $148 million for the reconstruction or demolition and replacement of six major public-housing complexes.

A federal audit agency has issued a blistering report on Baltimore's HOPE VI public housing program, concluding that the city's former housing chief, Daniel P. Henson III, routinely violated program rules, engaged in conflicts of interest and misled federal officials. The report by the inspector general in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recommends that city officials take administrative action against Henson, now a private developer, and that the city return nearly $3 million to the federal government.

Residents of two of the poorest public housing communities in Annapolis nearly turned down a chance to hope last week because they didn't trust the government that offered it.HOPE VI, an ambitious, multimillion dollar federal project, would allow the Annapolis Housing Authority to raze and replace deteriorating public housing in the Clay Street community and also bring education and job training opportunities.But residents there have a keen recollection of similar promises made 30 years ago, before urban renewal wiped out dozens of black businesses, scattered hundreds of black families to housing projects on the city fringes and replaced much of their community with a parking garage.

Tax cuts aren't the only subject that President George Bush is running into opposition from members of his own party. The Bush administration is trying to close out a multibillion-dollar program that has allotted almost $150 million to Baltimore in the past ten years to tear down old, dilapidated public housing and replace it with housing that is safer and more attractive. Less than two weeks ago, a House subcommittee voted to extend the program, known as HOPE VI - Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere - until 2005, rather than cut it off this year, a year ahead of when it was set to expire.

Fifty-five years ago, when Annapolis' Clay Street neighborhood was vibrant and prosperous, the Rev. Leroy Bowman planted himself in the heart of it all to offer spiritual guidance through First Baptist Church.As years went by and the mostly black community fell prey to poverty and rising crime, the respected minister's role stretched beyond the pulpit to defend the community from outside forces -- the Ku Klux Klan, City Hall and the state of Maryland.Now, some residents are looking to the 88-year-old pastor to play pivotal role in a divisive battle over HOPE VI -- the Annapolis Housing Authority's multimillion-dollar proposal to raze and renovate two public housing complexes on Clay Street.

From Texas to North Carolina to California, many former residents of blighted public housing projects are discovering they may not be welcome when their old homes are replaced by bright new developments. By design, the crowded, crime-ridden high-rises are being replaced in most cases by garden-style apartments that house only a fraction of the original residents. It is all part of HOPE VI, a program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The highly praised program, created nearly a decade ago, has been credited with giving new life to cities and public housing.

Alphonso R. Jackson took credit for improving public housing when he announced his resignation last week as secretary of housing and urban development. But, in fact, the Bush administration has attempted to starve the once-promising Hope VI program aimed at urban poverty. Members of Congress, including Maryland's Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, have kept it on life support, and now a more ambitious revitalization deserves passage. Since 1992, Hope VI has used more than $6 billion in federal funds to help alleviate concentrated poverty by replacing dilapidated public housing projects with mixed-income development.

In less than an hour at a meeting last week, all hope of infusing millions of federal dollars into the ailing Clay Street neighborhoods of Annapolis evaporated -- at least for this year.No matter that city Housing Authority officials backed off from a controversial proposal to raze two public housing complexes. Or that they promised residents more time to understand the HOPE VI project and its promise of new townhouses and new jobs. The trust needed for a major urban renewal initiative to move forward was lacking.

Four years after its celebrated opening, the Terraces housing development on Baltimore's west side is running out of money for a variety of services from day care to job training, angering residents who feel shortchanged. Officials at the Housing Authority of Baltimore City have informed residents of the $65 million complex that grant money provided through the federally funded HOPE VI program will end Dec. 31. The list of threatened services includes free Internet access, once an acclaimed feature of the complex - which is formally named Townes at the Terraces and replaced the dilapidated and crime-ridden Lexington Terrace high-rise complex.

Alongside a newly painted gazebo and a manicured park, West Baltimore residents celebrated yesterday the completion of Heritage Crossing, a new townhouse community that replaces the George B. Murphy Homes housing project. "It's like an Andy of Mayberry neighborhood, only with a different color and different flavor," U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings said at the celebration. The clean sidewalks and mowed yards are a stark contrast to the crime-ridden Murphy high-rises, which were demolished in 1999 to make way for the new development.

Tax cuts aren't the only subject that President George Bush is running into opposition from members of his own party. The Bush administration is trying to close out a multibillion-dollar program that has allotted almost $150 million to Baltimore in the past ten years to tear down old, dilapidated public housing and replace it with housing that is safer and more attractive. Less than two weeks ago, a House subcommittee voted to extend the program, known as HOPE VI - Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere - until 2005, rather than cut it off this year, a year ahead of when it was set to expire.

WASHINGTON - A House committee took an initial step yesterday in a bipartisan Capitol Hill attempt to salvage a public-housing program popular in Baltimore and other cities that has been targeted by the Bush administration. The House Financial Services Committee approved legislation to extend the life of HOPE VI, a $5 billion, 10-year-old effort to rebuild or replace the nation's "severely distressed" public housing. Under the program, Baltimore has been awarded $148 million for the reconstruction or demolition and replacement of six major public-housing complexes.

President Bush's budget plan offers hundreds of millions of dollars for construction projects in Maryland even as it cuts funding for large federal agencies and projects dear to the hearts of the state's legislators. The budget proposes $105 million in construction spending at military bases in the state, $147 million for a new Bureau of Census building in Suitland, $40 million to continue double-tracking the Baltimore light rail line and $65 million to extend the Washington Metro system to Largo.

Mary Holmes has seen the best and worst of public housing. People treated her like family when she moved into the George B. Murphy Homes a quarter-century ago. And she became a mother figure to the neighborhood. It was a comfortable role for Holmes, mother of 12, grandmother of 31, great-grandmother of 41. Over the years, she endured the terrible changes crime and poverty brought to Murphy Homes. She watched the project change from a neighborly place where children went trick-or-treating and residents set up their stereos for impromptu "block parties," to a violent place nicknamed "Murder Homes."

A federal audit agency has issued a blistering report on Baltimore's HOPE VI public housing program, concluding that the city's former housing chief, Daniel P. Henson III, routinely violated program rules, engaged in conflicts of interest and misled federal officials. The report by the inspector general in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recommends that city officials take administrative action against Henson, now a private developer, and that the city return nearly $3 million to the federal government.

Drugs and crime make Louise Prather and her six children prisoners inside a stuffy and rundown two-bedroom apartment in College Creek Terrace, a public housing complex just blocks from the historic State House.But she dismisses talk of a chance at a $25 million federal grant designed to bring new houses, new jobs and home ownership as "promises that are too good to be true.""Everybody keeps talking about hope," says Prather, 31, who has lived in public housing most of her life. "There is no hope.

A study of a highly praised national program that has erased hundreds of public housing developments across the country, including a half-dozen in Baltimore, concludes that the initiative has vastly reduced housing opportunities for those most in need - families at the lowest income levels. The report, prepared by the National Housing Law Project and three other housing advocacy groups, says that despite the highly favorable image, the 10-year-old program known as Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, or HOPE VI, "increasingly appears to do more harm than good."

From Texas to North Carolina to California, many former residents of blighted public housing projects are discovering they may not be welcome when their old homes are replaced by bright new developments. By design, the crowded, crime-ridden high-rises are being replaced in most cases by garden-style apartments that house only a fraction of the original residents. It is all part of HOPE VI, a program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The highly praised program, created nearly a decade ago, has been credited with giving new life to cities and public housing.