Housing Projects (Mobile, Taylor: rental market, homes, neighborhood)

[port25]

I was looking at the news this morning and I saw the story where they are forcing the residents of Josephine Allen (Happy Hill) out of their homes in about a month. I was appalled at some of the the attitudes of some of the residents who have come complacent with living in the projects! I work with a government programs and I find it to be sad that people want to live in government housing and continue to recieve food stamps, TANF (welfare) and utility checks with our tax dollars. The mindset of these people is simply ridicoulous, I have no problem with helping people who are being proactive while recieving these service but to make it a permannet solution upsets me. I really think that the Mobile Housing Board should make it where all people recieving government housing should pass a drug test, background check and seek and obtain employment....What are your views?
Josephine Allen Housing Residents Forced to Move | Local15tv.com, Mobile & Pensacola News, Entertainment, Videos, Business Search and Shopping

[MobileVisitor09]

Originally Posted by port25

I was looking at the news this morning and I saw the story where they are forcing the residents of Josephine Allen (Happy Hill) out of their homes in about a month. I was appalled at some of the the attitudes of some of the residents who have come complacent with living in the projects! I work with a government programs and I find it to be sad that people want to live in government housing and continue to recieve food stamps, TANF (welfare) and utility checks with our tax dollars. The mindset of these people is simply ridicoulous, I have no problem with helping people who are being proactive while recieving these service but to make it a permannet solution upsets me. I really think that the Mobile Housing Board should make it where all people recieving government housing should pass a drug test, background check and seek and obtain employment....What are your views?
Josephine Allen Housing Residents Forced to Move | Local15tv.com, Mobile & Pensacola News, Entertainment, Videos, Business Search and Shopping

Few points:

1) The Mobile PHA does require a background check, including criminal, for all residents upon move-in, and, at re-certification each year. That includes all family members and everyone on the lease. There are programs such as Moving to Work and residents are required to put in hours each year to serve the community--a decent proportion of residents in PH do work, it's just they do not make enough money to survive out in the private rental market. Lastly, disabled residents and the elderly are obviously excluded, however, they are also a decent proportion of PH residents as well, do not forget.

2) Mobile has been slowly renovating / moving residents out of Josephine Allen for months--why give the remaining residents 30 days to move? These plans have been in the works for a while, why cause that level of disruption? Especially for children in the middle of the academic year? This is incredibly poor planning and not necessary.

3) With Orange Grove's closure, many moved to RV Taylor, which, precipitated severe 'neighborhood' gang wars. Now, the plan proposed is to move Happy Hill residents to other public housing developments, most likely RV, to incite more violence. This is a genius move.

4) You have to take news reporting for what it's worth--not all residents are in it to scam the system. Many, especially at Josephine Allen, (and, I know from personal experience conducting work in the development), are either disabled, elderly, suffer from a severe mental health condition or have been a victim of domestic violence, and some are young mothers with no where else to turn.

5) Lastly, there's individuals addicted to drugs everywhere--it's not just PH, it's all over Mobile, and all over the country--individuals that are in this category need more intensive help, via rehab programs, group homes, etc., but, the system doesn't always like to provide that type of service, rather, it's often easier to just warehouse these people alongside the rest of the poor in isolated developments, out of sight.