To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: CPPH_Info-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are 8 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Moving the Poor -- In Hartford From: Grant 2. HOPE VI and Wal-Mart in Hartford CT From: Grant 3. OPEN UP THE BUILDINGS: National Call From: Grant 4. Potential demolition in Hartford CT From: Grant 5. Creative uses for HOPE VI in Hartford From: Grant 6. CPPH Stuff From: Grant 7. Fwd: [HNJ/DC] update on 1959 H street ne From: Grant 8. Money flows for new Cabrini homes From: Grant ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:57:44 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: Moving the Poor -- In Hartford > --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: Moving The Poor Closing Of Housing Projects Spreads Lack Of Wealth Into City's Neighborhoods By MIKE SWIFT Hartford (CT) Courant Staff Writer October 15 2002 Like many parents in Hartford's Asylum Hill neighborhood, Cureene Blake walks her children to school in the morning and home in the afternoon. Their route takes them down Willard Street to West Middle School, past threadbare but still stately old homes. They pass a dignified brick townhouse that fetched $122,000 in 1989 but whose value had slipped to $27,000 by 2000. They walk past a building that in the 1980s was a favored address of yuppies but that last winter, garbage-strewn and rat-infested, was taken over by a court-appointed receiver. Blake and her neighbors don't let their children walk to school alone. Not in this neighborhood. On a street where any step can reveal a drug dealer or a prostitute as easily as a friendly neighbor, no responsible parent would do that, they say. Despite the grim surroundings, Blake, a leader of neighborhood revitalization efforts, is optimistic about the future. "People have opened their eyes more to the things that are happening around them," said Blake, a child-care provider who emigrated from Jamaica. "They are more willing to speak out." But Blake and her neighbors are struggling against a rising tide of poverty that saw more than 1,200 poor people added to Asylum Hill in the 1990s. That infusion of poverty, echoed in other parts of the city, is, perversely, a consequence of one of Hartford's greatest successes - the demolition of festering public housing projects. Across Hartford, the decade of the 1990s radically redrew the poverty map. A decade ago, many of the city's poor were concentrated in a few neighborhoods that contained large public housing projects - Charter Oak Terrace, Stowe Village, Dutch Point and Bellevue Square. In those neighborhoods, more than half the population was poor. The 1990 Census recorded nine Hartford census tracts - a census tract is a geographic area of several thousand people each - where the poverty rate was 50 percent or higher. The 2000 Census shows only one such concentrated poverty tract left in Hartford, a section of the Clay-Arsenal neighborhood north of downtown. But as those neighborhoods' intense poverty has been diluted, poverty has increased in other parts of the city and beyond. In 1990, Hartford had seven residential census tracts where the poverty rate was relatively low - 10 percent or less. Now there is just a single census tract in the city, part of the Southwest neighborhood below New Britain Avenue between Avery Heights and Fairfield Avenue, with such a low level of poverty. And, elevated poverty rates have leapt the city's boundaries, into much of East Hartford, the Elmwood section of West Hartford and the Wilson section of Windsor. The new census data strongly suggest that the still incomplete, $100 million-plus effort to rebuild Hartford's low-income public housing has transferred a weighty burden of poverty onto other Hartford neighborhoods, including Asylum Hill, which had a 47 percent jump in the number of poor people between 1989 and 1999. Some of the city's most solid neighborhoods also saw a surge in the number of poor people during the 1990s, including Barry Square, the South End and the West End. Even sections of Blue Hills saw a 74 percent jump in the number of people living below the poverty line during the 1990s. In the West End, the number of poor people increased by 80 percent; the South End saw the number of poor residents grow by 144 percent. "We may very well be creating the thing we were trying to eliminate," said John Wardlaw, executive director of the Hartford Housing Authority. "That is heavy on us right now, because our intent was to improve the quality of life for people." Across the city, neighborhoods that experienced a jump in poverty frequently suffered the social problems that often accompany poverty - crime, joblessness and decaying housing stock. When crime surged in Hartford in 2000 after a long lull, many of the neighborhoods with the largest increases were also those with the biggest jumps in poverty. Asylum Hill, the West End and Barry Square all had crime increases of 27 percent or more in a single year. The number of people who were unemployed or not in the labor force grew in a number of city neighborhoods. The South End and Asylum Hill had the biggest increases, up 46 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Housing vacancy rates grew in Asylum Hill, the West End and Barry Square. Asylum Hill had the largest increase, from 12 to 16 percent vacant. Nevertheless, Wardlaw said, the authority was right to eradicate its biggest housing projects. The second half of the campaign, the creation of jobs and other economic development on land left vacant by Charter Oak Terrace's demolition, has yet to be accomplished, he said. "Is the housing authority proud of what it has done? The answer to that question is absolutely," Wardlaw said. "The housing authority refused to recognize that we had only the responsibility to do business as usual, to try to massage the symptoms." Advocacy groups support the dispersal of poverty. However, they want to see it more equally shared across the region, not just confined in the central city. Of the more than 350 families who moved out of Charter Oak using Section 8 rental subsidy vouchers, 82 percent stayed in Hartford, the housing authority's data say. That concentration of relocated tenants sparked a 1997 federal lawsuit brought by the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union and other groups. The suit charged that the housing authority violated federal law by displacing families from Charter Oak to poor, racially segregated neighborhoods in Hartford, rather than helping them find housing in neighborhoods with lower poverty rates in the suburbs or the city. The authority said it followed the law in spite of pressure from landlords and city politicians to keep as many families from Charter Oak Terrace as possible in Hartford. And the result of the suit's 1998 settlement suggests how tough it is to spread the impact of poverty more evenly. Under the settlement, the nonprofit Housing Education Resource Center tracked down Charter Oak families who had relocated within Hartford. The resource center began with a list of 621 names, offering housing counseling and financial assistance, even running more than 200 tours of suburban towns. Ultimately, just 29 additional families moved out of the city, the resource center says. Nowhere did the poverty rate jump as much as in Asylum Hill, where 39 percent of the population was poor in 1999, up from 24 percent a decade earlier. And more low-income housing, backed by government subsidy, is proposed or under construction in Asylum Hill. But neighborhood leaders are fighting that, filing a petition with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority that asks for a moratorium on state assistance for low-income housing in Asylum Hill and other poor neighborhoods and new policies to reduce the concentration of poverty. By subsidizing low-income housing in poor Hartford neighborhoods, the authority is only increasing racial and economic segregation, the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union argued in the petition. "It is not good government policy to treat the city of Hartford as the primary destination for our poorest citizens. It's not good for the schools; it's not good for the families," said Philip Tegeler, legal director of the CCLU. The rise in poverty in Asylum Hill occurs in one of the city's most elegant neighborhoods. Despite the encroachment of brick-box apartments in some sections, the Victorian homes that still line many of the tree-shaded streets were a lure for middle-class, white-collar workers in the '70s and '80s. "It's a neighborhood where if you plunged us into Cambridge, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., or New York City, we would be the `in' place; we would be the jewel of the city," said Alyssa Peterson, a neighborhood activist. Instead, "we got dumped on" by the housing authority, Peterson said. Asylum Hill's household income dropped significantly during the 1990s - by half in one part of the neighborhood. By 1999, there were more than 2,000 people in Asylum Hill whose income was less than one-half the federal poverty level. The poverty threshold that year was $8,501 for an individual and $13,423 for a household consisting of a parent and two children. The number of adults with a college degree sagged. The percentage of people unemployed or out of the labor force soared. Absentee landlords, who allowed their buildings to deteriorate into some of the city's worst apartments, have plagued the neighborhood. "They just come in to make a quick buck and they don't care who lives in their building. I think that's indicative of the type of population we're getting," said Jennifer Cassidy, a member of the Asylum Hill neighborhood group. Property values have sunk as housing vacancy increased. One stark example: Cassidy bought a condominium on May Street in Asylum Hill for $28,000 in 1980. She recently sold it for $5,000. West Middle, the neighborhood's elementary school, is on the state's list of Connecticut's 28 worst performing schools. Fran DiFiore, the school principal, said the large number of students for whom English is a second language and the transient nature of the families contribute to the school's low test scores. The predominance of one-bedroom apartments in the neighborhood, a legacy of when the neighborhood was dominated by single, female insurance workers, doesn't fit the needs of today's families, she said. "What happens is these families get established and they realize they've outgrown where they are living," DiFiore said. "If they have more than one or two children, they need to find a larger place." Used needles and empty bottles of crack cocaine and alcohol have been found on the school grounds, said Sabrina Flintroy, vice president of the school's PTO - evidence of the drug selling and prostitution that have taken hold in some parts of the neighborhood, residents say. "These kids don't have no role models," Flintroy said. "The first thing they see when they come out of school is a drug dealer or a prostitute." Statistics don't necessarily mean much, however, to people determined to chart a better future for their neighborhood. Cureene Blake and her husband, Alffe, hope to buy a house in Asylum Hill. She spends long hours doing volunteer work in the neighborhood, such as lobbying city leaders to support a proposed $6.8 million Boys and Girls Club on Sigourney Street. "To me it's a rich neighborhood, in history, in architecture, and there are so many things that are available on the outskirts. It's just finding a way to make this environment safer for our children," Blake said. "Asylum Hill is really not a bad place, if they could just clean it up," said Flintroy, who helped resuscitate West Middle's PTO. But others feel the weight of Asylum Hill's poverty burden. Cassidy was awakened one recent Sunday by the yelling of prostitutes outside her Asylum Hill home - at 6 a.m. "I'm a little discouraged, particularly with the crime," she said of her feelings after more than 20 years in the neighborhood. "The prostitution and drug stuff is really taking a toll." (END) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:56:21 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: HOPE VI and Wal-Mart in Hartford CT --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: Hartford Courant, The (CT) October 27, 2002 Section: CONNECTICUT Edition: 1N/5/6/7 SPORTS FINAL Page: B1 ONCE-WELCOME WAL-MART PLAN SLOWS THIRD-PARTY GROUPS WITH OWN AGENDAS GETTING INTO MIX BY TOM PULEO Hartford Courant Staff Writer Often scorned in the suburbs, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. found itself uncharacteristically welcomed in Hartford this spring when it chose a southwest neighborhood to anchor a retail-industrial complex. But now high-powered opposition has rolled in from Washington, D.C., Westport and Bridgeport -- causing some city officials and residents to question just whose interests are being served. What started as a cluster of local residents concerned about traffic has grown into a wagon train carrying third-party groups with their own agendas related to union labor and other issues. ``This is not a two-sided coin,'' said one person involved in the dispute. ``It has many facets.'' The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 371, of Westport, is admittedly dogging Wal-Mart for what it calls a union-busting track record. The Bridgeport chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is concerned about workers' wages and whether the plan favors economic development over a more pressing need for affordable housing. And the lead attorney for Wal-Mart's opponents, Sheldon L. Schreiberg of the Washington, D.C., firm Pepper Hamilton, has asked the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to postpone final approval of the project until questions are cleared up. Hartford officials -- who had been expecting that the city approval process would be completed soon -- now wonder what the future holds. ``This venture would bring about 800 jobs for families of Hartford, and that is badly needed,'' said Juan R. Colon, a top executive at the Hartford Housing Authority. ``Who in their right mind would oppose that?'' Schreiberg -- who attended a meeting this week in Mayor Eddie Perez's office -- did not return several phone calls seeking comment. HUD's Hartford office referred inquiries to Washington D.C., where top HUD officials could not be reached for comment. In March, Wal-Mart confirmed it had signed on with a developer to open a 150,000-square-foot store on land near the West Hartford town line where the 1,000-unit Charter Oak Terrace public housing project once stood. Another 150,000 square feet of retail space is planned, along with office and light industrial space and a job training center for at-risk youths and young adults. The economic development represents the final piece in a seven-year plan by the Hartford Housing Authority to thin out and rebuild Charter Oak, offering home ownership opportunities and jobs for residents who stay. But Schreiberg contends in his letter to HUD that the housing authority's plan has changed so many times since 1995 that it ``represents a substantial loss of affordable housing in the community.'' The housing authority says the plan contains fewer housing units than originally planned, but that HUD has approved every twist and turn in the evolving plans. A letter to the authority from HUD assistant secretary Michael Liu received this summer says the federal agency has OK'd the Wal-Mart plan. Liu could not be reached for comment. But Brian Petronella of the food services union said, ``The property was designed for housing, not for Wal-Mart coming here.'' He then criticized Wal-Mart -- which has fought dozens of state and federal lawsuits alleging unfair labor practices -- as an unfriendly company to workers, neighbors and the environment. There are no unions in any of Wal-Mart's 2,500-plus stores nationwide. Jeff Ordower, ACORN's director in Connecticut, said his organization's interest stems from its ongoing advocacy for affordable housing and fair wages nationally. ``Wal-Mart is a very unpopular employer,'' he said. ``They have policies that refuse workers' rights to bargain collectively and they pay poor wages.'' Keith Morris, Wal-Mart's regional spokesman, said the Hartford case follows a familiar pattern of third-party groups with hidden agendas joining neighborhood interests. He said Wal-Mart is going ahead with its plan. He said the union issue has no bearing on delivering a quality product to customers. In contrast to the battles Wal-Mart has fought in the suburbs over its ``big box'' stores, the retail project initially got a positive reaction in Hartford, where politicians are hungry for tax revenue and residents need places to work and shop in the city. But on Aug. 29 a group of eight area residents filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the State Traffic Commission's July decision to approve the Wal-Mart plan. The group essentially claims that that the area already is overrun with traffic, and that the new development would exacerbate the problem. The suit is pending in Hartford Superior Court. The attorney for the residents, Mark H. Quattro of Middletown, conceded that the residents are not the only ones paying his bills. Asked if the food workers union or ACORN are contributing money, he declined to comment. (END) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:51:27 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: OPEN UP THE BUILDINGS: National Call We received this from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty ______________________ OPEN UP THE BUILDINGS!! NATIONAL CALL GIVE IT OR GUARD IT 2002/2003 Directed to the various levels of Government, 'Give it or Guard it' means simply this: Either they find the political will necessary to open abandoned buildings for housing or they throw a ring of cops around them because homeless people, poor people and the organizations representing will be taking actions to their door steps, opening them up, setting up camp on their front lawns, moving in. Earlier this month, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty made the public commitment to open another building before the end of the month. The Pope Squat, opened at the end of July is full and residents are winterizing the building. OCAP is therefore turning its attention to some of Toronto's other potential housing sites. On October 26th OCAP and allies will be organizing a series of actions at some of Toronto's many abandoned buildings. Organizations in Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Belleville, Peterborough, Oakville and Guelph are developing similar plans. Next spring we would like to work with organizations nationally on a campaign that would include the taking of housing in a number of centers. The Federal Government hasn't put a dime into housing since taking Government in 1993. Provincial Governments have overwhelmingly gone down the same road, and none of them are meeting the needs. The motel strip on Toronto's Kingston road currently houses some 700 plus children nightly. Hundreds of people bed down on the pavement encircling City Hall. People in the City's west end parks have resorted to sleeping sitting up in a desperate attempt to escape notice by Toronto police and Parks and Rec. department staff. Such indignities are intolerable when in every instance an empty building that could be providing the needed housing sits a mere stone's throw away. Following is a copy of correspondence sent to various political figures advising them of our intent to force the opening of abandoned buildings and the construction of housing that is truly affordable for low-income people. As well, there is an updated copy of OCAP's Model Resolution for a 'Use it or Lose it' Bylaw for Empty Buildings that was first issued in 1997. We encourage other municipalities to adopt similar resolutions and pressure their City Governments to adopt them as part of the overall housing campaign plans. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ^GIVE IT OR GUARD IT!^ - AN OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER CHRETIEN, PREMIER EVES AND MAYOR LASTMAN October 8, 2002 Prime Minister, Premier and Mayor: This letter is to inform you that the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty can wait no longer for you to respond in any meaningful way to the housing crisis. On October 26, joined by a wide range of allied organizations, we intend to begin the task of reclaiming empty buildings as places of shelter for the homeless. On that day, in a number of Ontario communities, along with Montreal and Vancouver, homeless people and their supporters will start to take back a precious resource that has been lost to greed, neglect and irrationality. We will soon be making public the times and locations of these housing actions so that we may present you with a very simple choice. Either you can give these places up as housing to those in desperate need or you can mobilize your police forces to guard them. What you cannot do, however, is continue to permit homeless people to die on the streets while hundreds of available housing sites sit unprotected. That situation is now over. Our decision to act in this way follows our bitter experiences around the Pope Squat. After we took over the building at 1510 King West in Toronto^s Parkdale neighbourhood, on July 25, huge community support for our effort was generated. The Canadian Auto Workers and the York University Faculty Association pledged resources towards the conversion of the site into self managed social housing. Despite all this, no level of government has displayed any serious interest in responding positively. Even when others act where you have not done so, you continue with your willful neglect in the face of crisis and misery. Worse still, you persecute those who take action to secure shelter. In the last few weeks, we have seen the closing down of Toronto^s Tent City, an ugly driving of homeless people from Toronto parks and the raiding of squats in Quebec City and Vancouver. You are government leaders in a Country that has a Constitution that is supposed to offer ^life, liberty and security of the person^ to all who dwell in it. In Toronto, 2,000 people a month are evicted and 60,000 sit on waiting lists for housing that are over seven years long. The emergency shelters in this City fail to comply with standards set by the United Nations for refugee camps and hundreds of homeless people have perished needlessly. This appalling reality turns the noble words of your Constitution into a sick farce. October the 26th will be the initial mobilization in an ongoing and escalating drive to open empty property for the homeless. We would suggest that you consider your options and make a decision. Muster the political will to provide housing or mobilize your police to deny it to those in need. The option of ignoring the problem is about to disappear. Yours truly, John Clarke, Organizer, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty --------------------------------------------------------------------- Model Resolution for a 'Use it or Lose it' Bylaw for Empty Buildings : --------------------------------------------------------------------- WHEREAS hundreds of buildings have been boarded up by their owners and left to fall into disrepair. WHEREAS this is being done solely in the interests of profit without regard to the impact on the community of failing to provide so vital and scarce a resource as housing that is truly affordable to low income people. WHEREAS there are easily 50 to 60 thousand homeless people in the City of Toronto and waiting lists for public rent geared to income that are running 10 years and beyond. AND WHEREAS it is clear that this state of affairs is in the interests of a wealthy handful and causes needless misery to hundreds of thousands of Toronto residents. THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that, form this time on, the City of Toronto prohibit owners of residential property from leaving such buildings empty for a period exceeding six months. (This will not apply to homeowners in the process of selling a former residence or in situations where legitimate renovations are underway). BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the violation of this bylaw will result in a fine, levied on a yearly basis, that will be set at 25% of the value of the property in question and that these monies will be immediately invested in the creation of social housing in Toronto. > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:59:13 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: Potential demolition in Hartford CT --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: >> Dutch Point May Be Razed, Replaced By MARK PAZNIOKAS Hartford Courant Staff Writer November 8 2002 After 30 months of consulting with tenants and neighbors, the Hartford Housing Authority is proposing a $52.6-million plan to demolish the Depression-era Dutch Point project and replace it with a mixed-income neighborhood of rental and owner-occupied homes. The raze-and-rebuild project is the latest in a series that have erased or dramatically thinned Hartford's biggest federally subsidized low-income housing projects: Charter Oak Terrace, Stowe Village, Bellevue Square. Dutch Point, the largest of the city's only two low-income projects untouched by the recent redevelopment wave, occupies increasingly valuable real estate. It sits to the south of downtown, near the Colt Armory complex and four blocks from the Adriaen's Landing redevelopment. The site is between the sweeping, manicured lawn of the Church of the Good Shepherd on Wyllys Street and Colt Park. A new tree-lined boulevard will run through the new Dutch Point, providing a visual link between the park and church grounds. Unlike other makeovers of public housing in Hartford, which have resulted in a net loss of more than 1,000 apartments, the new Dutch Point would increase housing. The present 186-unit maze of brick barracks built in 1938 would be razed, making way for 150 apartments and 50 owner-occupied units in a mix of row houses and duplexes constructed on a traditional street grid. Only 154 units, however, would rise on the cleared site. The rest would go nearby. The design and scope of the new Dutch Point comes after a long collaboration by the housing authority and a community group known as CSS/CON, the Coalition to Strengthen the Sheldon/Charter Oak Neighborhood. "This plan was really resident driven," said Carol Coburn, the executive director of CSS/CON. "I think the coolest thing about it is this group of stakeholders was assembled. ... You had everybody at the table." John Wardlaw, the executive director of the housing authority, said Dutch Point residents were taken around the city to see different building designs, new and old, and then asked for their suggestions. The architectural model chosen by the residents was Columbia Street, a historic enclave of three-story brick rowhouses, all with porches. David Block, a designer with Community Builders, a consulting company helping to oversee the project and its application for a federal grant, said the new Dutch Point will have defined yards, not the expanse of common areas now haunted by drug dealers at the project. "What's wrong with Dutch Point is not the number of people. It's the lack of defensible space and the sense of helplessness and fear that goes along with that," Block said. "By creating areas where tenants have a little bit of power, you address that." Coburn put it another way. "The outcome is a front-porch community, where people are hanging out blabbing," Coburn said. She contrasted that vision with her arrival at Dutch Point for a meeting the previous evening: drug dealers scattered as she drove up. The authority is seeking $20 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's competitive Hope VI program. In the past decade, Hope VI funds have been used to demolish aging, crowded public housing around the nation and replace it with projects of a more human scale: townhouse homes with backyards. Hope VI encourages housing authorities to build mixed-income projects that blend into existing neighborhoods and enhance other economic development efforts. Bill Gordon, a Community Builders regional vice president, said the Dutch Point project meets the standards of the Hope VI program with its proximity to downtown and the convention center under construction as part of the $771 million Adriaen's Landing redevelopment. "The big picture, what this has going for it is a lot of activity around it. Adriaen's Landing is huge," Gordon said. "Proximity to the downtown is very good. It means people can walk to work." The project has a development budget of $43.8 million and another $8.8 million for supportive services for residents. City Manager Lee C. Erdmann will ask the city council next week to commit $7.4 million to the project over the next five years. Most of the money will be grants from other sources that pass through the city, including $2.8 million from the Capital City Economic Development Authority. Current residents will be eligible for the new housing, though they will be screened to weed out those with felony convictions and a history of failing to pay their rent. Thirty of the home-ownership units and 140 apartments would be reserved for low-income residents. Ten apartments and 20 homes would be unrestricted. "One of our biggest concerns was displacing families," Coburn said. "We didn't want that to happen." __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:00:40 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: Creative uses for HOPE VI in Hartford --- Wayne Sherwood wrote: Housing Project Facing Limits Time, Money Short For Capewell Plan By TOM PULEO Hartford Courant Staff Writer November 9 2002 The Capewell factory redevelopment plan - a key Hartford project in the shadows of Adriaen's Landing - is running out of time after more than two years of stagnation. The state's downtown development authority is giving developer J. Martin Hennessey one last chance to pull his finances together before it moves to withdraw a $689,000 loan commitment - a move that likely would doom Hennessey's $20 million proposal to remake the abandoned horseshoe nail factory as a gated housing community. "If it's not going anywhere, then it's not going anywhere," R. Bartley Halloran, board chairman of the Capital City Economic Development Authority, said Friday at the authority's monthly meeting. "We may as well accept that reality and move on. The money could be better used somewhere else." Hennessey said he remains about $2 million short of the $20 million he needs. He said it would make more sense for the city or the state to step up with additional financing than to bail out at this point. He said he has discussed additional financing with downtown officials but has not formally requested more money. "This project would make a very significant contribution to the development of the city," Hennessey said, "It's got everything but a couple million [more] dollars." Hennessey wants to convert the century-old brick complex, located near Colt Park just south of downtown, into 107 housing units, most of them market-rate rental units. The idea dovetails with CCEDA's plan to develop more housing downtown, a strategy that has worked in comeback cities from Seattle to Providence. CCEDA has committed a total of $35 million to four separate housing initiatives still coming together, including ones at the Hartford Civic Center mall and the old Sage-Allen department store building on Main Street. Hennessey's problem is not the housing idea, but the money and the lack of a clear development strategy, according to city and state officials. Hennessey readily admits that he is now without a development partner after parting ways with The Downes Group of New Britain-the latest of several failed partnerships. He said he is discussing a partnership with a development arm of the Norwich-based Klewin Building Co. The CCEDA loan is a relatively small piece of the overall puzzle. But officials involved in the process said it is unlikely the city would go forword with its commitment if the state backed out. The city has agreed to sell $10 million-plus in bonds to assist Hennessey's Capewell Housing Limited Partnership. The city also has earmarked a $1.4 million federal housing loan. Hennessey is arranging for $4 million to $5 million in private equity. Even before CCEDA's action Friday, Hennessey had been given several deadlines and deadline extensions by the city - the most recent set to run out on Nov. 26. Matt Hennessy, chief of staff for Mayor Eddie Perez, said he would reserve comment until after CCEDA sends its letter to the developer. The letter is expected to set a deadline and outline specific conditions that Hennessey must meet for CCEDA to keep the loan on the table. Hennessey said the Hartford Housing Authority has agreed to help him out by including support for 22 affordable housing units for the Capewell project in a federal grant application for a nearby redevelopment plan at the Dutch Point housing project. He said that if that grant comes through, the federal subsidies attached to the Capewell units would all but close the $2 million gap. "I've done a remarkable job I think," Hennessey said. "For some reason no one wants take that last step. But I think they will. I think we'll get there." __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:02:29 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: CPPH Stuff --- Daniel Romero wrote: > Greetings: There are several things that folks need to be aware of and begin to think about. First, pick up a copy of today's Tribune and take a look at the front page of the Metro section. Liam Ford wrote a nice article about our press conference at Rockwelll yesterday and they took some nice pictures. A TV crew from channel 2 also showed up and they interviewed several residents of 340 but I did not get home in time to see the broadcast. You may ask: "So, what you doing staying up late on a school night?" I was at Luster Jackson's place on the west side where Renee was throwing a party for The Kensington Institute's Poor People's Economic Human Rights Organization from Philly www.kwru.org. Kensington is in the midst of a nationwide bus tour documenting US human rights violations. Renee had a nice party with plenty of music and even a little dancing (right, Carol?). Second, I have a s---load of vacation time that I need to take before the end of the year or I will lose the days. I will be out all next week and I will be taking more time off in December which means that some of you will have to help out with getting the Rockwell core group to the CHA Board meeting next Tuesday. We also need to begin thinking about what needs to happen for the December 18 "prayer procession" as it may be necessary for some of you to take on some of the responsibility that I normally would handle. Of course, we will be talking about this more on Friday. Kat reminds us that the CHA Quarterly Stakeholder's meeting will be held tomorrow at 8:30am at the Architecture Foundation - 224 S. State. Kat can't go and neither can I so it would be great if some of you could attend and make it as uncomfortable as possible for those shills and sell-outs. Finally, all of you know that Sarita will be leaving JwJ and moving to New York in the middle of December. I believe her last day at work might even be December 18. In her "wind down" time she is busy with the process of hiring her replacement and generally getting things ready for her departure. We should think about getting her a gift and planning a nice get-together for her, maybe a really nice lunch or even a nice dinner. daniel > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 7 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:05:20 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: Fwd: [HNJ/DC] update on 1959 H street ne --- Aaron wrote October 28 was hnj’s [Homes Not Jails] pretrial for the eviction case around 1959 H St. NE. The pretrial was basically a discussion between HUD, the judge and HNJ. Things seemed to actually go pretty well. In HUD's pretrial motion, they claimed that they'd tried to settle with us, but we were able to argue that they'd never tried, and in fact had acted in bad faith in our past attempts at negotiations. We also let the judge know about the company that is working with us now that wants to turn the house into low-income rental housing under the Housing CHoice Voucher Program. Our pretrial statement requested also that the VA be involved to secure decent housing for JD. So the judge basically set a date for a settlement attempt on November 21st. Hopefully this means that actual HUD people will talk to us face-to-face and give real answers. Also, we have to argue motions that HUD is presenting on that day, before the settlement hearing. They're trying to get an inspection of the property, and also want to strike our motion for a jury trial and send us back to landlord tenant court. More updates to come soon! Homes Not Jails DC e-mailing list hnj-dc-list@lists.mutualaid.org To (un)subscribe: > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/hnj-dc-list free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 8 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:10:50 -0800 (PST) From: Grant Subject: Money flows for new Cabrini homes I was waiting to confirm the validity of the information in this article before sending it out as coverage of the Chicago Housing Authority in the Chicago Newspapers is sometimes less than factual. All information in here checks out. The agreement actually gives the residents of Cabrini Green "Up to 50%control" -- a clause which replaced a hard fought for 51% control in earlier versions of the agreements. Grant --- Wayne Sherwood wrote http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-cha30.html Money flows for new Cabrini homes October 30, 2002 Chicago Sun-Times BY KATE N. GROSSMAN STAFF REPORTER Nearly 10 years after the federal government gave the CHA $50 million to rebuild a major piece of the Cabrini-Green housing development, the first major construction dollars are about to flow, the Sun-Times has learned. The city selected two developers to turn a plum 18-acre site on the edge of the Gold Coast that once housed 1,300 CHA families into a mixed-income neighborhood for 650 families. Total costs will top $160 million in public and private dollars, said Chicago Housing Authority chief Terry Peterson. The CHA board is expected to approve the team of Holsten Real Estate and Kenard Corp., chosen unanimously by city officials and residents, at its November or December board meeting. This is a big step in the CHA's sweeping plan to rebuild or rehab 25,000 apartments by 2010, many in areas that mix poor, working-class and middle-income families. Cabrini is one of the CHA's biggest tests. If upper-income Chicagoans won't go for mixed-income housing at that Near North Side site, the odds aren't good elsewhere. It's also a major step forward on a deal that's been stalled since 1996, when resident leaders at Cabrini sued the CHA and the city, alleging that redevelopment plans displaced residents and reduced the affordable housing supply. "I have to deal with the legacy of all of this housing authority's past challenges," said Peterson, who took over as CHA chief in 2000. "The only way to overcome that is to keep your word." That suit was resolved by a consent decree in 2000 requiring the CHA to build 700 replacement public housing units. The Holsten-Kenard site, to be called North Town Park, will host 195 public housing families in town houses and low-rise buildings. It will replace eight mid-rise buildings between Division, Oak, Larrabee and a renovated park near Orleans, across from a new Dominick's grocery store and a Starbucks. The rest of the units will go up in smaller developments at mixed-income sites between North, Chicago, Wells and the Chicago River. So far, 129 CHA apartments are up and 125 are planned. The majority are in North Town Village, a large mixed-income neighborhood on the west end of Cabrini. That new project, which attracted families willing to pay up to $427,000 for townhouses, also was developed by Holsten and Kenard. The decree also gives public housing residents an almost unheard of right--an ownership stake in the new development. The details aren't final, but Peterson said the Cabrini residents group, the Local Advisory Council, will likely get a 33 percent ownership stake. This will give residents a say in the redeveloped Cabrini-Green, said Rich Wheelock, who represents the Cabrini LAC. That partnership will be negotiated in the coming months as the plans for the redeveloped Cabrini emerge. "We're going to be true partners in the development," said Carol Steele, the Cabrini LAC president and a member of the group that voted in favor of Holsten-Kenard. "It's been a long process but we're glad things are moving forward." Construction will likely begin in early 2004. It's expected to be finished by the end of 2007. Plans for redeveloping the rest of the Cabrini complex are up in the air. (END) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/