What’s Wrong with English Woods?

Since Veloris Green moved into Cincinnati’s English Woods housing project six years ago, she’s had to deal with leaky pipes, peeling paint, and a caved-in kitchen ceiling. But none of this, says Green, is enough to make her want to move out of the apartment that has become her home.

Now she doesn’t have to. After fighting for six months to save English Woods from demolition, the English Woods Civic Association and Resident Community Council, of which Green is treasurer, finally declared victory in June. That’s when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) put an indefinite hold on the local housing authority’s plan to raze the project, pending approval by residents and the mayor’s office. 

“That is a real victory for us,” says Green. “We’ve been sweating blood and tears running to councilmen and going to D.C., trying to get this done.”

The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) describes a different situation at English Woods. “This site is closing itself down,” says Donald Troendle, Director of CMHA. “We’ve had thousands of families turn down English Woods in the past year and a half.” Vacancies are increasing at the housing development: only about 350 of the 700 main units are occupied, compared to about 460 in January.

Though the demolition would mean 700 fewer units of public housing in Cincinnati, Troendle argues that CMHA would relocate residents into better quality subsidized housing nearby. Those opposed to the demolition are motivated by an understandable fear of the unknown, says Troendle, rather than affection for this outdated development in a neighborhood described by the Cincinnati police department as a “hot spot” for serious crime, violence, and drugs.

So as the celebrations go on, the question remains: what sort of victory has Veloris Green won?

A Hilltop Reserved for the Poor

Built in 1941, English Woods was one of the first public housing developments in Cincinnati. Although it was originally built as the city’s “white” housing project, English Woods today is a primarily African-American community surrounded by the mainly white, middle class neighborhoods of Price Hill, Westwood, and Western Hills.

Set off from the surrounding neighborhoods by a stand of trees, the hilltop development almost looks suburban. Each of the slate-roofed row houses has its own outside entrance and front yard.

But inside, the development is both physically and functionally obsolete, says Troendle. While English Woods isn’t full of the twenty-story high-rises being knocked down around the country, it suffers from significant structural decay, having undergone only a few spot renovations in the past 60 years. Troendle points out the corroded pipes, lead paint, asbestos, and worn-out heating systems. CMHA estimates that renovation would now cost about $130,000 per unit.

Other problems, like small rooms and remote parking, can’t be fixed with simple rehabilitation. “This all worked really well in the ‘40s,” says Troendle, “but today’s family does not want to be stigmatized, does not want to move into a 1,000-unit site.”

The tenants association argues that the cost of saving English Woods is far from prohibitive. In a 1999 report, CMHA placed the figure around $20,000 a unit, a small fraction of its current estimate and much closer to the preliminary estimate that an assessor gave John Schrider, the Legal Aid attorney who, on behalf of the tenants’ association, filed a lawsuit against CMHA charging that demolishing the primarily African-American housing project would qualify as racial discrimination.

Grand Plans for Public Housing

English Woods was built just five years after Congress passed the Housing Act of 1937, which committed the federal government to building “decent, safe, and sanitary” housing for low-income working Americans.

The 1937 act created the system of local public housing authorities and federal grants that still regulates subsidized housing today. It did not, however, set aside funds for maintenance or modernization of housing units. To make matters worse, opposition by real estate interests led legislators to limit construction expenditures so that public housing would not compete with private-sector apartments. Across the country, housing authorities built closets without doors and bathrooms without showers.

These developments also created concentrations of poverty. Revisions to the 1937 act set income caps, gave preference to those with the lowest incomes, and allowed housing authorities to charge tenants no more than 30 percent of their income. By 1992, twenty percent of households living in non-elderly public housing earned less than ten percent of the area’s median income, up from one percent of households in 1974. Rents based on those low incomes left housing authorities with even less money to pay for maintenance.

The newly created centers of poverty became magnets for crime and drug trafficking. A 1999 HUD report found that residents of public housing were more than twice as likely to become victims of gun violence than the rest of the population nationwide. At English Woods, the attractive wooded surroundings also serve to isolate the residents from the surrounding community, and Troendle says its open grid layout makes it hard to police.

Seeing Opportunity

By demolishing English Woods, CMHA plans to rid itself of a dilapidated remnant of an outdated housing plan.

“The traditional approach in this country in the ‘80s and early ‘90s was to renovate public housing, whether it was working or not,” says Troendle. “Now we’re seeing…that continual concentration, to the exclusion of other housing opportunities, doesn’t work. We need to expand people’s housing options.”

And CMHA is taking steps to do just that. City West, the newest mixed-income development in Cincinnati, will replace two other 1940s projects, Lincoln Court and Laurel Homes. Instead of the brick row houses of English Woods, City West consists of town houses, each of distinctive design work. If English Woods is a solid and stoic representation of 1940s housing policy, City West is individualized and idealistic for the new millennium. This past May, the Congress of New Urbanism honored the City West project, which is still under construction, with its New Face of America’s Public Housing Award.

CMHA had originally planned to replace English Woods with a mixed-income development similar to City West, but the proposal didn’t qualify for hoped-for funding. CMHA now has no definite plans for the site, and is focusing instead on developing new sites outside of downtown. “We are using this as an opportunity to diversify our portfolio,” says Troendle. “Ninety-five percent of our housing is located in the city of Cincinnati. Our jurisdictional area is the entire county. We want to utilize this as an opportunity to create housing opportunities in places where they don’t currently exist.”

“Obviously this is an emotional issue,” says Troendle. But he claims that tenants will not be forced to move across town. There are 3,000 units of subsidized housing within a mile of English Woods, and displaced residents would get their first pick of units. 2,000 of those units are Section 8 housing: properties that low-income families can rent at a reduced rate with government vouchers.

CMHA plans to pay moving expenses, pay reconnecting fees, and even provide counseling to help families deal with the stress of being uprooted. English Woods residents could even apply to live in the City West development.

The HOPE solution

After studying the deteriorating state of public housing across the country, a 1992 congressional commission recommended that 86,000 uninhabitable units be torn down. This decision led to the creation of an innovative HUD program, called HOPE VI, with two major goals: to eliminate decayed housing projects and to create new low-income housing options in mixed-income developments. The name stands for Home Ownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere (the VI added on because it was the sixth attempt to reform the federal public housing system). Since its inception, HOPE VI has awarded grants to housing authorities in 37 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Cincinnati’s City West development was funded with a HOPE VI revitalization grant. The razing of English Woods would have been funded with a $6 million HOPE VI demolition grant.

HOPE VI money revolutionized public housing. It eliminated both federal preferences for the lowest-income households applying for public housing and a mandatory one-for-one replacement of demolished public housing units, and made it possible for public money to go towards developments run by private entities.

A Disappearing Act

But the tradeoff for these new, more diverse, communities is big: in every case, cities are left with fewer low-income units.

By 2003 roughly 58,000 public housing units had been demolished under HOPE VI, with another 78,000 slated for demolition. About 23,000 units had been built, with another 85,000 planned, resulting in a net loss of 28,000 units.

In 2000, Chicago eliminated 1,324 low-income public housing units when it razed its infamous Cabrini-Green high-rises, replacing them with 277 low-income units as part of a mixed-income development. This stark pattern has been repeated in cities like Atlanta, which replaced 1,100 demolished units with 360 new units, and San Antonio, which replaced 421 lost units with 313, only 208 of which were set aside for low-income residents.

Even when the requirements for admission into the new projects are exactly the same, fewer units mean that it may become impossible to accommodate everyone. Some residents make it into the new development, others move in with family members, take Section 8 vouchers, or go to a different public housing development.

Residents haven’t taken easily to this displacement. The developments in Chicago and Atlanta were only demolished after long legal battles. In other cities, overcoming resident opposition required a long series of community meetings.

And in each case residents were asking the same questions as the residents of English Woods: Will there be new requirements? Will I get left out? Where will I go?

Where will I go?

As CMHA introduced plans to relocate English Woods residents into Section 8 housing in surrounding neighborhoods, some of those neighborhoods banded together to keep them out.

“We’re pretty well saturated with Section 8,” says Melva Gweyn, one of the founders of the community group Westwood Concern, which has become an unlikely ally of the English Woods tenant association. “Since they have expanded [Section 8] so much in our area, we have had a rising crime rate, and people have left the area because they have been accosted by people on the street.”

The number of available Section 8 units in the neighborhoods around English Woods has increased from 3,000 in 1994 to 7,500 currently, says Troendle.

In October, members of Westwood Concern began attending English Woods tenant meetings and wrote to Congressman Steve Chabot to ask for help in fighting the CMHA plan. Chabot, a Westwood resident, publicly denounced the plan in early February of 2003 and pulled $450,000 in federal funds away from CMHA. Chabot then redirected the money to the city of Cincinnati, saying he hoped the city would use the money as leverage to get CMHA to slow down its plan.

“We’re not saying we don’t want low-income people, we’re just saying that we have enough,” says Mary Kuhl, another of the founders of Westwood Concern. “We’re already overburdened.”

Strange as the partnership may seem, members of the tenant association say they’re happy to have help fighting the dubious solution of Section 8 housing, which usually requires tenants to pay utility bills on top their income-adjusted rent. Section 8 also removes tenants from the auspices of the housing authority and leaves them at the hands of individual landlords, who are often eager to get rid of tenants they see as irresponsible, says attorney John Schrider.

Veloris Green says she would choose to move further away before taking a Section 8 voucher. “When you take that Section 8 things change,” says Green. “You’re mostly on your own. And what happens when the landlord decides to sell? You end up at the drop-in shelter.”

Seeing Community

Veloris Green is not the only English Woods resident unwilling to sacrifice her home. The tenant association says demolishing English Woods would eliminate a rich, old community over a few minor repairs.

“This place was my first choice,” says tenant association president Dorothy Terry, who has lived in English Woods for thirty years. “I like the surroundings, the bus, and everything.”

“It’s a more family-oriented place than what I came from,” says Marcia Battle, vice president of the tenant association. “You have issues here, but your neighbors and everybody know each other.” Though Battle lives in one of two newer buildings that CMHA does not plan to tear down, she says the demolition would still affect her. “When you take away housing that only people like me can afford it affects me,” says Battle.

Green says that the tenant association is constantly working to improve the community. They’ve gotten CMHA to provide a regular security guard, and Green is working to organize computer classes.

Battle claims that the increasing vacancy rate at English Woods is due to CMHA’s concerted effort to evict even long-time residents at the earliest opportunity. Until the past year or so, says Battle, CMHA would take time to work with residents when their rent was late.

Troendle defends CMHA’s “one strike” policy for eviction, put in place in 1994, saying that 80-90 percent of their tenants want them to be more stringent. He also argues that those vacancies would be filled, if any of their new clients wanted to move to English Woods.

As for CMHA’s argument that English Woods residents wouldn’t have to leave their community, but could simply move a few blocks away into Section 8 housing, Battle says, “I couldn’t live in some other public housing and still live in my same neighborhood.” In fact, the city recognizes English Woods as a distinct neighborhood, listing it among the 52 that make up Cincinnati.

Trust, Trends, and Who Gets Left Out

Listening to CMHA’s opponents discuss the issue, it becomes clear that the debate is less about showers, or parking spaces, or even the number of units available, and more about trust. Many of those leading the fight against the English Woods demolition would gladly move into the City West development but don’t believe it’s an option.

Troendle says that City’s West’s requirements are no more stringent than those of English Woods, but Green says she knows better: “They say our rent would be the same, but I don’t believe it. A lot of people couldn’t get into those [new units] because they have bad credit.”

CMHA has held numerous meetings with the residents, but Battle says the housing authority arrived with a decision already made. “They asked us, ‘How many people would like central air? How many people would like to have carpeting? How many people would like to have off-street parking? How many people would like great big rooms?’ Then they said in order to have this, we’d have to move,” says Battle.

Suspicious of CMHA’s motivations, Battle and others point out that English Woods has that beautiful view of downtown Cincinnati, and that the land could be very valuable if it didn’t have a housing project on it.

This distrust doesn’t seem particularly unwarranted when one considers the long history of housing authorities reneging on promises to their tenants. In Atlanta, displaced residents were told that there would be room in the new mixed-income development for anyone who wanted to move back, but on applying encountered stricter requirements for entry. One such tenant was denied housing in the new Villages of Carver development because of a decades-old marijuana charge. “It was all right for me to raise my kids over there in Carver Homes when it was a hellhole,” Stevie Rogers told an Atlanta newspaper. “Now that they’ve remodeled and did everything, we ain’t good enough to come back.” About 49 percent of those displaced by HOPE VI projects are simply transferred to other, equally inadequate public housing projects, and a significant number of those officially relocated to newer developments just disappear from the public housing pool, according to a 2002 report by the National Housing Law Project.

The breakdown in communication can be traced back to the fundamental disagreement over who should qualify for public housing in the first place, whether it should help the poorest of the poor or people who just need a break on rent. Housing experts argue that strict requirements are necessary to keep public housing from deteriorating into lawless slums. Many of the current residents of English Woods, however, are not just poor but unemployed, and they know that they’re the least likely to qualify for the newest public housing scheme.

The National Housing Law Project found that very low-income households (those with incomes at or below 50 percent of the median income for their area) experienced a uniquely acute housing shortage in 1999. These are people like Veloris Green who never know whether the government’s current housing policy is going to include them or not.

An Uncertain Future

The English Woods debate is now at a standstill. CMHA is unlikely to get resident approval to tear the development down, but is just as unlikely to spend the money to renovate a development it planned to demolish. English Woods residents are getting attention from the media and activists, but many say they still don’t believe CMHA is listening.

HOPE VI is in a similar standstill. In May, the Bush administration eliminated new HOPE VI funding for 2004 at HUD’s request. HUD officials have said that they plan to concentrate more on creating home ownership opportunities. The House of Representatives, however, is considering a bill to renew HOPE VI.

So the sixth attempt to give the poor “decent, safe, and sanitary” housing is unlikely to be the last. And as we embark on yet another new national housing policy, there is still debate about exactly who should qualify for federally subsidized housing.

Donald Troendle says he wants to expand housing options for Cincinnati’s poor, but he clarifies that those are the poor with good credit who will pay their rent and try to find a job. Veloris Green, who is unemployed, knows that Troendle’s “options” could leave her out on the street.

Veloris Green’s victory may not be perfect; it may involve some leaky pipes and an old bathtub. But it also brings her the one thing that wave after wave of public housing experiments hasn’t: stability and the knowledge that, even being the “lowest you can get as far as being poor,” she can have a place of her own.