Stop the War on the Poor

By DAVID PENDERED - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - 04/26/07

About 60 people rallied in downtown Atlanta on Wednesday for the right to remain in public housing.

"Stop the war on the poor," was a frequent chant of protesters led by Derrick Boazman, a former member of Atlanta City Council who remains active on civil rights issues.

The protest was intended to focus attention on two policies of the Atlanta Housing Authority: a requirement that able-bodied residents of public housing work 30 hours a week or attend school; and the pending demolition of the last remaining public housing projects, which are to be replaced with mixed-income communities.

Renee Glover, executive director of the city's housing authority, said residents are benefiting from the policies that have transformed Atlanta's public housing. Atlanta has been a pioneer of the HOPE 6 program, which promotes decentralizing poor families and providing vouchers.

The vouchers provide monthly payments that allow families to live in many areas of Atlanta and metro Atlanta. The city's housing authority pays an average of $831 a month on a formula based on a household's adjusted gross income.

More than 21,000 families now are served by the housing authority, up from about 15,000 in 1994 when new policies were formulated. The housing projects, isolated pockets of poverty, have been broken up and families given vouchers to move to communities of their choice, Glover said.
"This is truly about the road to self-sufficiency," Glover said in a conference room as the protest started outside the housing authority's headquarters. "It speaks to the unlimited human potential.

"We still are working on issues, but we have made tremendous progress."

The protesters countered that what Glover calls progress is part of a systemic effort to force African-Americans out of the city. The end game is to turn over the land poor blacks used to live on to greedy developers who will build homes, shops and offices for the wealthy, several speakers said.

"We are sick and tired of AHA," said Laura Lawson, a resident leader of a public housing project and a former chairwoman of MARTA's board of directors. "Do you think we're going to allow this to happen? It's time, it's wartime."

State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta) told the crowd that their issue is being raised by housing activists across the country.

The policy changes approved during the Clinton presidency, which aimed to dramatically alter the nation's housing programs, are now in their final stages.