When Betsy McCright joined the Chattanooga Housing Authority in 2007, the Harriett Tubman housing project in East Chattanooga was beginning to collapse after a lack of major maintenance on the 55-year-old complex for more than two decades.
“I remember one morning nine roofs fell in and we had to move out nine families,” McCright recalled. “It was really beyond repair so we ended up having to take that down. Unfortunately, it ended in a very final death.”
Although CHA found alternative housing for most of the displaced former Tubman residents, McCright said she is determined to avoid such a closure at any of CHA’s other aging public housing projects.
At Chattanooga’s oldest and biggest public housing project – College Hill Courts – CHA and other city agencies are working with local residents to re-imagine a new future for the Westside area that also includes Boynton Terrace Apartments, Gateway Towers, Dogwood Manor, Ridgeway, Golden Gateway, Boynton Overlook and Riverview Apartments.
“We’re trying to plan for the future at College Hill Courts and Gateway Towers and right now those facilities are more than 90% full and we have a waiting list of people wanting to get in there,” McCright said. “These facilities need repairs, but we’re far enough out that we can go through extensive planning for the future and still preserve units for people with low income while we start building the new units.”