It will be a busy summer for Bridget Davis and her children, one of 29 families still living in the Dove Court public housing complex. The Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority plans to bulldoze the project by the end of the summer, and the residents must move.
Like other Dove Court residents, Davis was given three choices: Move to another public housing community; try to qualify for a mortgage loan; or participate in the Section 8 program, which provides a voucher to rent an apartment or house.
Davis chose the voucher program and was given until July 31 to find another place to live. She has not found one yet.
"I've been looking, but there is nowhere to go," said Davis.
Davis is worried – but at the same time, her children said they will be happy to leave Dove Court. Shaqula Davis, a 10th-grader, and Ziontae, a ninth-grader, said the 64 units of Dove Court have become a ghost town.
"All the ones with boards on the windows are the empty ones," Ziontae said.
He said he'll be glad to get away from Armstrong High School and some of its students, too.
"I don't like it," Ziontae said. "They fight too much. People influence me to skip with them."
The siblings both have a hopeful list of schools they would like to attend next year.
"I would like to move to the West End," Davis said. But it's hard to find a home where the Section 8 voucher will cover the rent – if the landlord will accept Section 8 participants at all.
Residents who do not find housing through Section 8 vouchers will be temporarily placed in another public housing community, according to the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
"We are responsible for the relocation of all Dove Court residents," said Valena Dixon, the RRHA's communications director.
She said Dove Court is being emptied and demolished as part of a revitalization project approved by the agency a year ago. Revitalization plans also include demolishing the empty North Ridge and Carrington Gardens apartments.
Dixon says there are big plans for redevelopment of the entire area. Those plans may depend on private developers getting government assistance, in the form of tax credits, to build new housing.
The tax credits are doled out by the Virginia Housing Development Authority, a state agency. The RRHA had applied to the VHDA for tax credits to redevelop Dove Court, North Ridge and Carrington Gardens.
But last month, the VHDA announced that it was awarding the tax credits to a company associated with former football star Tiki Barber to redevelop the Woodcroft public housing community in Richmond's Fulton Hill area.
Although Dove Court lost out in the latest competition for tax credits, that redevelopment project is still alive.
"There is another opportunity for the RRHA to gain tax credits in February 2009," Dixon said. "We are still moving forward with plans."
Those plans include eventually redeveloping Gilpin Court. In late summer or fall, the RRHA will start formulating a master plan for that housing project. A plan for Gilpin Court is one of the agency's priorities this year.
Gilpin Court is considered the big fish. With 783 units, it is the largest public housing project in the city. Its revitalization has become a controversial topic. The area is a highly coveted because of the VCU Biotech Park and Philip Morris.
"We know Gilpin Court revitalization will take five to 10 years, and demolition will not start for at least three years," Dixon said.
She said the RRHA will seek input from all facets of the community in crafting a redevelopment plan for the area.
Why are so many public housing projects being dismantled and redeveloped? Because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has told cities to break up the concentrations of poverty created by public housing.
In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, projects were intentionally designed to isolate the poor. Now HUD's mandate is to de-concentrate poverty – and the new policy's growing pains have made some people leery.
No wonder: Critics point to the Blackwell public housing community, which the RRHA leveled in 1999.
"The RRHA tore down 440 good public housing units," said Marcel Slag of the Legal Aid Justice Center, an advocacy group for low-income residents.
"They may have built something, but they have not replaced one public housing unit in Blackwell. This doesn't help the poor."
Anthony Scott, RRHA's executive director, understands the public's lack of confidence about rebuilding what is torn down.
"We know that Blackwell is a black mark on our agency. We are committed to make sure that does not happen again. I promise you," Scott said at a recent public meeting, according to an article in the Richmond Voice newspaper.
This story is courtesy of Capital News Service, a flagship program of the VCU School of Mass Communications. Students participating in the program provide state government coverage for Virginia's community newspapers, under the supervision of associate professor Jeff South. CNS operates as a three-credit course during spring semesters, when the General Assembly is in session. Each CNS student is assigned to serve one or more client newspapers. Students must devote substantial time outside class to CNS -- at least 10 hours a week.