All the Housing Projects gone? Are we about to see a positive change for ATL this decade (Atlanta: section 8, apartment complex)

[DoctorLuv]

Drove by the last 4 they are tearing down now - Bowen Homes, Bankhead Courts, Hollywood Courts and Herndon Homes. Well, there is one small one left in Summerhill and a few senior citizen highrises, but are we really about to see a change? I don't know. The projects in Mechancisville have been torn down since 2004 and the group out of that locale, 30 Deep, seems to be taking its action everywhere but Mechanicsville.

[DeaconJ]

I think we will see positive changes in Atlanta this coming decade...but we've already seen many positive changes over the past 2 decades IMO. I won't go into them all, but I'm sure anyone who has lived in the city since the 90s can attest to the improvements in the city.

[DoctorLuv]

A lot of "visual" improvements w/ the projects they started taring down in the 90s. That is it. On the flipside, I saw an increase in homelessness and more folks moving to section 8 apartments / rentals in the suburbs. Seems like a bandaid to me. I got a feeling that in a decade instead of housing projects, we'll have worn down private-owned apartment complexes. No one still wants to fix the issue at hand and that is getthing these folks from these areas to start thinking more progressively. They just want to move them, make some money. All of this will be the same in 2020.

[blondandfun]

Those projects people are so fake, they just put on a show acting like their bad and hardcore just because they are in downtown ATL. This 30 blah blah mafia is just a bunch of scared little teens they'll be someone's biatch in jail soon enough.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by DoctorLuv

I got a feeling that in a decade instead of housing projects, we'll have worn down private-owned apartment complexes.

In a decade? It's already happening. Even in areas such as North Druid Hills and Dunwoody, Section 8 tenants have quietly been moved into the community; new apartment construction is mandated to contain housing for Section 8 tenants. With this development, there has been a rise in petty crime, assaults and home invasions.
Case in point: a friend of mine saw a drastic change over a year's time in the apartment building that backed up his house; this 'change' coincided with the arrival of Section 8 tenants in the complex. After a duration of all-night blaring music, shouting and occasional gunfire going off, the final straw came when he was raking leaves in his backyard and over the back wall comes a guy brandishing a pistol. Fortunately, he just ran right past my friend without a word. After a cell phone call to 911, DeKalb police apprehended him at the end of the street. The gentleman had just been involved in a botched home invasion.
My friend has since sold his house after emphatically telling the realtor not to show it at night.

[Java378]

I'm with DoctorLuv, it's just a bandaid.

The place is gone, but the people will end up somewhere.

[atlantagreg30127]

The projects are gone, but the people who lived in them are not. Section 8 and other subsidized housing has increased substantially in many of the suburbs around the city. The "projects" are simply changing form from old brick apartment style cluster homes to split-level suburban homes on lots. A handful of the folks are using the system as the "hand up" it was meant to be, while the same percentage using it for a "hand out" continue. Same story - different scenery.

The mentality of City leadership has been, "tear it down, get them out to the suburbs, and then we (city government) don't have to deal with them anymore... the suburban governments will". That will only work so long. What has an effect on the City or suburbs eventually wears on the whole area.

[grneyedmustang]

A lot of them moved to Clayton...the decline in Clayton has been absolutely amazing - and not in a good way. Many of the apartments on Tara Blvd/North Jonesboro have definitely been taken over by Section 8 families. Also, some of the apartment complexes around the Atlanta area (not just in Clayton) are also starting to decline rapidly. For example, there are some apartments around the Lenox/Druid Hills area that are old (approx 10 - 15 years old) that are definitely beginning to decline rapidly.

[reet4587]

The deconcentration of poverty that comes with demolishing these public housing projects is and will continue to be a good thing for the city. Families will have a better chance of keeping their kids out of criminal gangs by raising them in more economically diverse areas. Statistics (and plain common sense) show this to be true.

Georgia Tech's Urban Health Initiative published a report last month on the results of relocating former residents of Atlanta's public housing. The report can be found on this page:
- Urban Health Initiative (http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwsoc/5756.html - broken link)

Some interesting highlights have to do with the relocated families UHI is tracking. Instead of moving to the suburbs outside the city, the main trend seems to be families staying close to the areas where they previously lived, while relocating to new neighborhoods with lower concentrations of poverty (though only slightly lower, apparently):

"...Of those who have moved so far, only three moved out-of-state and seven outside the City of Atlanta limits."

"...Families are not moving very far from their origin public housing neighborhood with the average distance being three miles. The destination neighborhoods are predominantly African American with an average poverty rate of 30 percent (based on 2000 census information). While this poverty rate is high, it is lower than the public housing neighborhoods which had an average poverty rate of 44 percent."

[midtown mile girl]

The apartment complex across from my subdivision in Gwinnett went section 8, and the neighborhood went downhill. People change locations, they just don't change thier bad habits and bad friends and associates. This was one of the reasons I left gwinnett. (oh, and the mexican drug dealers down the street)