Sixty years ago, many minority residents of Chattanooga lost their homes as interstate highways were completed in and around downtown.
In the past 20 years, more than 600 units of public housing have been razed — the 188-unit Maurice Poss Homes in 2005 and the 440-unit Harriet Tubman Homes in 2014 — forcing 1,000 or more mostly minority residents to find new homes.
Throughout those years, minorities and others renting non-public housing homes around downtown Chattanooga have had to seek new quarters as owners decided to redevelop their properties and get more of a market-rate return on their investment.
So when the Chattanooga Housing Authority (CHA) and its partners began to seek solutions for the rapidly deteriorating College Hill Courts a half decade ago, they were determined it would be with the full support and input of the largely minority residents who would be affected.
After months of surveying and listening and planning and more listening, they declared that any resident of the Westside public housing complex who wanted to live in a new unit once built could do so and that anyone who had to move while the new units were being constructed was guaranteed to have a spot once the new units were completed.