Overlook homes (Dayton, Riverside, Green: real estate, rent, co-op)

[maplelady]

I was a bit confused. I first thought thet were called Riverside Homes. But are they in Riverside. i understand that these were part of the massive temp housing in the 1940's. This tract seems to have held up well. Is this now public housing ? I bet there are lots of stories about this place.

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by maplelady

I was a bit confused. I first thought thet were called Riverside Homes. But are they in Riverside. i understand that these were part of the massive temp housing in the 1940's. This tract seems to have held up well. Is this now public housing ? I bet there are lots of stories about this place.

I was told when I was living in east Dayton that Overlook Homes were pretty rough, and used to be a lot rougher. Mainly drug related traffic and such. I left Dayton in November of 2010, and at that time they had security patrolling the property. I am not sure what has changed since then, or the conditions that brought about security.

[Dayton Sux]

Is this now public housing ?

It is not.

Back in the 1950s the housing authority and city govt wanted to tear Overlook down, but the residents resisted, and won their battle to keep their housing.

Instead of demolitiion it was turned into a mutual housing co-op, like Greenmont Village. Mutual housing is more common on the East Coast (NYC), but these are two of the surviving mutual housing developments in Dayton (a third, across Woodman from Greenmont, was privatized). Here's the wiki on the concept: Housing Cooperative

[maplelady]

Glad you brought up Greenmount. It seems to have thrived. I am a little confused about this. Is it one of the official depression era make work projects like Greenhills in Cincy ? I have read conflicting info.

I am pleased that Overlook became a co-op and not public housing. Seems like the people were self advocating and not self victimizing.

[Dayton Sux]

^
re Greenmont. It wasn't part of the program that developed Greenhills.

Greenmont was funded by another program, the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Works Progam. Locally it was an initiative of the CIO locals in the area, who planned it and pushed the project in Washington, as a way to alleiviate the housing shortage and address rent gouging in the time just before WWII (this was before wartime price controls).

Locally the Greenmont project was opposed by both the public housing authority and the real estate industry.

@@@

Greenhills was part of a larger effort to develop self-supporting ag-based communities, called the Resettlement Administration of the Dept. of Agriculture, and was later incorporated into the Farm Security Administration.

Dayton did particpate in another aspect of the Resetttlement Admins work, the The Subsistence Homesteads Division.

[GaryJ]

Originally Posted by maplelady

I was a bit confused. I first thought thet were called Riverside Homes. But are they in Riverside. i understand that these were part of the massive temp housing in the 1940's. This tract seems to have held up well. Is this now public housing ? I bet there are lots of stories about this place.

In the 1980's I working as housing police there.
The development was originally housing for the construction personnel who helped build Wright-Patterson Air Base. All the streets are named after well known military officers.
Certain areas were nice, but others were like the "Hole in the Wall were outlaws would hide.
The development is on a grade that slopes down.
Near the bottom there's Eisenhower Drive, near the ball field.
This was the worst of the worst, there wasn't a week that Harrison Twp & our people had to drag some prick off that street. The development is governed by Trustees, people who live in the development.
Must of the trustees were dirt-bags. They would fine the crap out of good people and let the pricks get off.
I finally got myself resigned. I don't know if it's gotten any better, I wouldn't bet on it.

[maplelady]

Thanks for clarifying that , DS. Now you have given me more homework reading.

[maplelady]

The little commercial area at the end of Airway does look like a bad movie set. No gentrification happening here.

[Dayton Sux]

^
The big strip center? That was part of a big shopping center boom in the second half of the 1950s.

[maplelady]

Are we talking about the same place...the laundry and looks like a beer store. Really bdesolate , almost brutal architecture, which appeared 1950-1980 but this looks earlier and not part of a planned anything.