Olmstead should be next.
Only six families are left in Underwood Homes public housing project, Augusta Housing Authority Director of Resident Services Buddy Oldfield reported Wednesday.
Mr. Oldfield told the housing authority board that 175 families have been moved out of the complex off Sand Bar Ferry Road in east Augusta, which is set to be demolished and rebuilt as a $25 million to $30 million mixed-income community with less than 20 percent of its residents being public housing tenants.
Of those who have moved, 67 took Section 8 vouchers, 96 moved to other public housing projects and 12 either moved on their own accord or were evicted, Mr. Oldfield said.
Of the six remaining, one will be moving out Saturday, one is facing eviction and four are waiting for Section 8 vouchers, he said.
Board members complimented Mr. Oldfield and his team on getting the job done so smoothly.
"We learned a few things from Gilbert," he said, referring to Gilbert Manor, the first public housing project the authority eliminated, which was emptied last year, sold to Medical College of Georgia and razed.
On Friday, the Underwood project took a major step forward when the Georgia Department of Community Affairs approved the authority's application for tax credits to build the 75 senior housing units planned by Atlanta-based developer Walton Communities.
The tax credits, needed to make the project economically viable, total $8.3 million, or $832,000 per year for 10 years, housing authority Executive Director Jake Oglesby said.
Mr. Oglesby said he's hoping Community Affairs will soon approve the tax credit application needed to build 225 family units. Should that request be denied, the authority can go forward with the senior housing complex and re-apply to the state next year, he said.
The contract for demolishing Underwood is expected to be awarded in December, and it will be razed in early 2010. Construction will begin during the summer, Mr. Oglesby said.
Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.
Comments
Olmstead should be next.
where are all these people going? I don't want section 8 in my neighborhood...just saying.
shivas, millions was spent with McKnight Construction to rebuild Olmstead. Why would you want to demolish it? IF it is demolished I am all in favor of demolishing all public housing and doing away with any tax money of any kind going to house the kind of people who live in the projects. Let them earn their own way like most of us do. I agree with you lostmymind. All Section 8 does is trash up good neighboorhoods and bring down property values. What were the people thinking when they devised this program?
They were thinking that they wanted to do something about the homeless and ill-housed. They were thinking that if affordable housing were available, that maybe they could stabilize poverty. They were thinking that maybe it would give the poor enough breathing room to get on their feet and get established again. But what they proposed wasn't brought to fruition. Not only did it end up isolating and concentrating the poor in one area allowing them to be preyed upon by a lawless criminal element, but also the program which was meant to be temporary became "generational" and fostered an entitlement ethos that trapped the people that it meant to help in an almost inescapable cycle of poverty. They thought that they might help but in the end they hindered more that helped.
They are breaking up the drug and gang areas YAY!!!!
another look you are so misinformed... or most likely just plain ignorant...public housing, rent subsidies, U 235, section 8 and general welfare (give me cause i am here and i have a RIGHT TO IT) programs have been around 45 years in full steam now....they have been a miserable failure. People like you will NEVER ADMIT that it is incumbent upon the INDIVIDUAL to create wealth under our system of freedom. Freedom granted by God NOT BY THE GIVErnMEnt ...There has always been adequate profits from the earnest & EFFICIENT application of capital in our system (coupled with the UNMATCHED GENEROSITY of the AMERICAN PEOPLE) to provide for ALL those WHO ARE TRULY NEEDY...as a matter of fact the truly needy have been the ones most hurt by all of those with their hands out. (This includes the slumlords receiving OUR TAX DOLLARS AS RENT as well as the squatters living in the housing.) Will this dignity robbing corrupt system ever change? I doubt it because the "welfare" recipients are on both ends of the spectrum. The very wealthy & the lazy. Between them they control a simple majority of the current electorate...
Justme, that is not a good thing. From a gangbangers mouth on gangland, it allowed those same gangbangers who relocated to reach out in their new neighoborhood and start a new set there. This one city had only 1 bad area, only 1 project. In an attempt to stop the violence and crimes there, they dispersed the members and now have bad gang areas all over the city. It doesn't work and has been proven. They like having more and better off victims and more drug customers. Leave all these [filtered word]'s who do nothing for society to start with in their own neighborhood. At least you know where the areas are to stay away from. They choose to live that way, leave them that way! When you branch them out no place is safe. Every area they go to will turn to hell! Don't contaminate the rest of the city so good people have no place to live and work.
I agree.. where I live they started accepting section 8 and now this place is crap!!!..
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