Residents demand public housing relocation plan in Chattanooga

photo Local clergy, representatives from the local NAACP and community leaders crowd the Chattanooga Housing Authority central office board room Tuesday to talk about the agency's annual plan. It includes requesting HUD's permission for the demolition or sale of College Hill Courts in 2015.

Upset local leaders packed the Chattanooga Housing Authority's board room this week to plead with the agency not to vacate its two largest public housing sites without a plan for where residents will live.

That plan needs to be more precise than handing residents' vouchers when the agency knows not enough affordable housing is available, said Dr. Elenora Woods, housing chairwoman for the Chattanooga/Hamilton County NAACP.

"Too many people don't have anywhere to go," she said. "They get housing vouchers knowing no housing is available. As a result, our people are becoming homeless."

"Amen," audience members said after Woods spoke during the public comment period Tuesday on the CHA's 2015 agency plan.

Key elements in the 300-plus-page document state that CHA seeks U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development permission to demolish or dispose of College Hill Courts in 2015 and East Lake Courts in 2017.

Woods was among several residents expressing concern for the more than 900 families who live at the two housing sites.

The CHA will submit the plan and public comments to HUD by Oct. 16.

Board Chairman Eddie Holmes said the agency has no plan to demolish College Hill Courts this year or next year. He said that before it asks HUD for permission to demolish the site, the authority will seek a facilitator to get public input.

"Due diligence is the best term to use," he said. "We have to determine that there is a potential problem somewhere. We have to look at potential funding sources. We have to get input from residents, and we have to have a relocation plan."

But Perrin Lance, co-founder of Chattanooga Organized for Action, said that if CHA had no intention eventually of demolishing College Hill or East Lake Courts, the proposal wouldn't be in the 2015 plan.

"They're signaling their intent to the federal government that, when given opportunity, they're going to hang the 'for sale' sign up for the families at College Hill Courts and East Lake Courts and walk away," Lance said at the meeting.

The housing agency needs to come clean and work with the community to ensure that Chattanooga residents can afford housing, he said.

Pastor Brian Merritt, organizing pastor and evangelist for the Mercy Junction, a ministry in the Westside, told the housing officials that Jesus Christ is in College Hill and East Lake Courts suffering with the people who live there, and he also intends to support them.

Cynthia Stanley-Cash, president of the North Brainerd Neighborhood Association, said that closing public housing sites creates a new class of homelessness in which people live week to week in extended-stay hotels. She said the number of displaced families walking up and down Brainerd Road, Tunnel Boulevard and Lee Highway creates a new "Trail of Tears of homeless walkers." They're walking because they lack transportation to and from grocery stores. Some of them lack affordable housing and have nowhere to go.

More than 600 units of public housing have been demolished or sold in the past 10 years, with the demolition of the 188-unit Maurice Poss Homes in 2005 and the pending demolition of the Harriet Tubman site.

Local NAACP secretary Eric Atkins told the officials that tearing down the housing sites dilutes the minority vote and gentrifies neighborhoods by moving poor people out and rich people in.

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 757-6431.

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