Demolishing Atlanta's public housing: Poor can't be lost in quality-of-life drive

By Lindsay Jones (An Atlanta Civil Rights Attorney) For the Journal-Constitution - 3/15/07

Historically, government policies on housing and transportation have played a critical role in bringing the American dream of homeownership, economic stability and wealth building closer to reality for more of us. However, history also informs us of how government policies can serve to exclude some of us from an equal opportunity.

Recently the Atlanta Housing Authority announced its intention to raze most of its remaining stock of affordable multifamily housing, along with two senior citizen residences within the next several years. It is estimated that this move will affect more than 3,000 units and 9,600 residents who depend upon government subsidizes to secure affordable, safe and decent housing.

On the other hand, the razed properties will provide new space for redevelopment and encourage continued reinvestment in the urban core necessary to cultivate Atlanta's potential as a dynamic cosmopolitan center. This is the latest step toward improving Atlanta's quality of life.

The goal of eliminating concentrated poverty should be commended. Mayor Shirley Franklin and Atlanta Housing Authority Executive Director Renee Glover share a vision of a vibrant and healthy Atlanta, where families, businesses and a progressive culture flourish.

However, our goal should be to remove the stain of a failed public policy and its effects, not the people who have been consumed and trampled by the policy, lest we continue the same sin by different means.

The AHA's present relocation plan for the families who will lose their homes relies heavily upon exchanging their existing tenancies for national "rent assistance vouchers," which they can use in the private market. The fair exchange value of these vouchers rests upon the assumption that the private market has an adequate supply of affordable housing opportunities. Unfortunately, research undertaken by the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership has shown a shortage in the Atlanta metro region of almost 200,000 units for workers making $40,000 per year or less.

Private landlords must be willing to sign up to accept these vouchers. It is an understatement to say that there is currently a lack of private landlords and developers lining up to meet the existing families seeking affordable housing, not to mention to meeting the needs of additional families who will be introduced to the private market by the removal of publicly owned subsidized housing.

Other issues will exacerbate this reality, such as the lack of mass transportation between job centers and where affected families might find relocation housing. The availability and accessibility of social services will also have a critical impact on whether dislocated families will face a greater opportunity at achieving the American Dream or simply greater hardship. For some dislocated families coming out of the soon-to-be razed publicly owned housing, the national "rent assistance vouchers" might end up being a one-way ticket out of town, if not out of state.
Franklin and Glover are facing a challenge that is greater than Atlanta, yet continues to be ignored for the most part by the rest of the metropolitan area. The federal Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 requires, as a condition of receiving large entitlement federal community development block grants, that communities assess the housing needs of those of lower income residing in, or expected to reside in their jurisdictions based on labor demands.

In the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case of Burlington County NAACP v. Township of Mount Laurel, a legal standard was set forth that communities within a metropolitan region cannot foreclose the opportunity of people in need of low and moderate income housing and in their regulations must affirmatively afford that opportunity, at least to the extent of each community's fair share of the present and prospective regional need.

While the Mount Laurel Doctrine has been adopted as legal precedence in requiring affirmative inclusionary housing policies in several states across the country, it has not been legally established through the Georgia courts for want of litigation.

While the clock ticks on our ability to implement sound public policies that would encourage equitable development, local governments continue to avoid assuming responsible leadership to move toward the ratification of smart growth strategies, such as mandatory inclusionary zoning, affordable housing land trusts, and expansion and cost sharing of a regional mass transportation system.

The Atlanta metropolitan area is like a quilt in many respects, with patches of various colors that are made of various materials, some of which are akin to fine silk, and others which are more textured, but incredibly durable.

A quilt with such sharp contrasts of division is vulnerable to tearing alone the stitch work that loosely binds the patches together. The leadership we need to help us realize the strength of integration must have gifted hands that are capable of transforming our segregated quilt into a wonderful tapestry, in which the individuality of every thread, its texture, thickness and color is respected and preserved as part of a vibrant and tightly woven diverse community. Such is the swaddling from which our region's potential will be fully realized.

Lindsay Jones is an Atlanta civil rights attorney.