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From: timothy connolly :
> Tear down Sumner-olson, voila new units starting at
$150,000 to $250,000. How many former residents of the
neighborhood do you think will move back in? - We tear down whole areas
because of the concentration of poverty ... <
From what I have learned, the Sumner-Olson redevelopment is quite
different from most other housing projects. As most know, the Sumner-Olson
(Hollman) redevelopment was started by a lawsuit against government
segregation of poor minorities. The lawsuit was brought forward by the NAACP
and the Legal Aid Society. These two organizations are certainly not known
for being in cahoots with racist, classist gentrifiers. The recently
demolished neighborhood of 770 units had not gradually evolved like most
other neighborhoods, but was installed lock, stock and barrel by the
government, strictly to house public housing recipients.
Not providing adequate replacement housing for the displaced residents is
probably the one major sin of this project's implementers. Someone else will
have to explain this downfall, and why the project did not proceed at a pace
slow enough to accommodate the displaced persons. There may have been a fear
that a slow pace would have given opponents time to organize and stop it.
There may be credence to the claim that the suburbs are dragging their feet
at providing replacement housing. Maybe, for marketing purposes, it was
considered unrealistic to expect the first prospective buyers to move in
next to a mostly intact public housing project. I do not know the reasons,
and I certainly do not want to try to justify or condone the act.
Last I heard, 800 housing units are planned for the Hollman area; 900 if you
include the 100 elderly public housing units. 200 or 25% of the 800 are
planned to be replacement public housing units. If the elderly units are
included, then public housing is 300 units or 33% of 900. Just looking at
this aspect of a large housing project, this is, in my opinion, actually
quite innovative and daring. I would like to know how this compares to all
the other major housing projects going up, or planned, around the city, and
around the entire Twin Cities area. I suspect that there is no other housing
project that even comes close to these numbers.
My comments here have been focused on details of the Hollman project. The
shortage of affordable housing is a huge problem in the entire Twin Cities
area, and I applaud those working to help the poor on this issue.
Dave Stack
Harrison
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