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As reported by Andrew Barksdale at The FayObserver, Anastasia Vann won’t miss her cramped, two-bedroom apartment in Campbell Terrace.
The vinyl floors are faded and gray, The concrete walls painted an egg-shell yellow. The windows look out over identical red-brick buildings.
The public housing complex, built on the edge of downtown in 1953, will be razed early next year. So will its older cousin, Delona Gardens, a block away.
For more than two generations, the housing projects have sheltered Fayetteville’s working poor and penniless. More than 90 percent of tenants today are unmarried women. About half have children living with them.
Beginning this month, they will start leaving as the city embarks on a $119
million project called Hope VI. The two housing complexes will be replaced by more than 550 apartments and 105 single-family homes throughout the Old Wilmington Road area, offering new hope for a blighted community dotted with empty lots and shuttered homes.
Vann, who is 43 and lives alone, has already begun packing, even though she hasn’t found a place to live. She would prefer to rent a house but will settle for a modern apartment. She wants to plant a garden and have more privacy.
“I want a new beginning,” she said.
About 213 families live in the two projects to be demolished. Everyone has two options: move to another Fayetteville Metropolitan Housing Authority complex or find a private apartment or rental house. The housing agency estimates that two-thirds of the tenants will leave public housing in favor of the open market. When they do, they will get federal Section 8 program vouchers to subsidize their rents.
The decision can be difficult for some families, who worry about finding another school for their children or dislike the idea of uprooting after so many years in one place.
“Some are scared, but most of us are excited,” said Vann, a member of the Housing Authority’s residential advisory board.
The residents won’t do it alone. The Hope VI program will pick up the moving tab and pay other relocation expenses, and officials will help them find apartments or rental houses.
The linchpin of the project is a $20 million federal Hope VI grant, which the Housing Authority won last year. As part of the revitalization project, a community center, a day care and a medical clinic are planned. So is a 72-unit apartment complex on Bunce Road on the other side of town.
Everything has to be built by 2013. The first wave of construction is scheduled to begin this summer or early fall.
To keep the project on track and handle the mounds of paperwork, the housing agency sought an outside consultant last year. The board hired Boulevard Group Inc., an Atlanta firm with experience overseeing other Hope VI projects, to manage this one. More HERE
