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Evelyn Hancock has grown weary of gunshots.
She's heard them so often in five years living at west Charlotte's Boulevard Homes public housing complex that she used to keep the family of four's beds on the floor, without legs, for their protection.
On Tuesday, violence flared again, when a man was shot during an argument. He's expected to recover.
Hancock is ready to leave Boulevard Homes for good. She hopes to get that opportunity through the Charlotte Housing Authority's plans to begin relocating the community's 900 residents by the end of the year.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the authority's application to raze the 300 units, said Jennifer Gallman, the authority's spokeswoman. The 40-year-old complex, off West Boulevard near Billy Graham Parkway, will come down in phases.
The housing authority will request up to $22 million in federal Hope VI grant money to redevelop the nearly 40-acre site as a mixed-income “education village” with a school as its centerpiece. The grants help revitalize the nation's worst public housing projects.
The housing authority has until Nov. 17 to apply for part of the $113million available for fiscal year 2009 Hope VI awards. Grant notifications should come early next year, but HUD approval of the demolition means relocations would continue even without a grant.
“It's a good plan,” said Hancock, 36, a Boulevard Homes resident for five years who hopes to move into a house elsewhere with a federal Section 8 rent subsidy. “I feel like I'll be safer (by relocating).”
Housing authority officials say the move toward mixed-income communities is necessary because money for maintaining low-income communities is limited.
At the same time, the demand for affordable housing has reached a critical point in Charlotte. At least 5,000 people, and probably as many as 8,000, are homeless every night in Charlotte. Charlotte needs more than 15,000 units that rent for $499 a month or less, according to a city-commissioned study.
At Boulevard Homes, the authority wants to build an estimated 420 apartments and town houses and housing for seniors. Approximately 220 units would be for very low-income individuals and families such as those being relocated.
The estimated 80 low-income units expected to be lost from redevelopment at Boulevard Homes will be replaced in other affordable housing developments in Charlotte, Gallman said.
Demolishing Boulevard Homes and developing a revenue-generating property would ease the strain on the housing authority's budget.
The units at Boulevard Homes need at least $12 million in improvements – more than any of the authority's 15 public housing properties – to fix roofs, windows, plumbing and other features. The authority's total budget for all capital improvements is just over $4.2million a year.
Shooting was near memorial
On Tuesday, two dozen people gathered outside the complex as police investigated the shooting, which happened just before 6 p.m. Police say the victim and suspect probably knew each other.
Boulevard Homes is the same complex where Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers John Burnette and Andy Nobles were fatally shot in 1993 as they chased a suspect in woods behind the complex. Tuesday's shooting happened near the intersection of two streets named for the officers.
Proponents of redevelopment say it would address crime, which some say is linked to the high concentration of poverty at the property. The violent crime rate there was more than five times the city average in 2008, according to a city quality-of-life study.
“This is needed,” District 3 city Councilman Warren Turner said of the relocation and redevelopment, echoing comments made last week by Boulevard Homes residents. “It's overdue.”
But homeowners elsewhere in the city bristle at the thought of another public housing relocation. In the past, the housing authority has not done enough to relocate residents equally in all parts of the community, said Darrell Bonapart, former president of Charlotte East Community Partners and District 5 Democratic candidate for Charlotte City Council.
“We're already trying to address the increase in Section 8 residents from the city's previous urban renewal projects,” said Bonapart, who contends that the area's median income and schools have suffered.
Grants transform complexes
Hope VI money brought down four other notorious Charlotte public housing complexes with concentrated poverty, including Earle Village in the center city's First Ward and Piedmont Courts in Charlotte's Belmont neighborhood.
For those projects, the authority bundled the grant with tax credits, other funding and partnerships to create communities that better support the cost of operating the complex. Some residents pay rent or buy a home; others get subsidies.
Critics charge that while Hope VI grants aim to remove blight, they also gentrify communities because fewer units are available for former residents.
The authority hopes to continue redeveloping other older, financially burdensome properties in the future. Among its priorities is Dillehay Courts, a 136-unit community built in 1974 off North Tryon and 30th streets in northeast Charlotte.
“Through Hope VI grants we are not only able to replace obsolete, dilapidated affordable housing on the physical site but also develop additional affordable housing throughout the city of Charlotte,” Gallman said.
Boulevard Homes residents will have the option to move to an available housing authority property or choose a Section 8 relocation voucher from HUD to rent a property elsewhere with a subsidy. A third option would be to leave the rental assistance program and find housing on their own.
“It's giving choices to some people who haven't had choices,” said Shavon Dossett, 30, a Boulevard homes resident for three years and mother of three. Staff Writers Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Ely Portillo contributed.
