The Chattanooga Housing Authority drew the ire of City Council members after efforts to secure federal funding for future public housing sites left residents and businesses scrambling over projects suddenly being drafted for their neighborhoods.
“We were all shocked that these sites even existed,” council member Dennis Clark of Cherokee Woods told housing officials during a council meeting Tuesday.
“I was the person who, I discovered yesterday, inadvertently spread confusion throughout the city of Chattanooga over the weekend,” Joe Kelly, general counsel for the housing authority, told the City Council. “Mea culpa.”
Due to a 1998 federal law freezing the number of public housing units across the country, municipalities can bank vouchers for public housing units they tear down to apply to future projects.