On the east side of Columbus, the latest attempts at gentrification have been met with remarkable resistance from both residents and non-residents alike.
When it was announced in 2010 that The Ohio State University wanted to expand its East Medical Center into what’s now Poindexter Village, there was a large amount of public outcry. Opened in 1940, Poindexter Village is one of the first federal housing projects in the nation, and opened in 1940. According to area residents, the Village has a rich and vibrant history; for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a point of greeting incoming residents during his 1940 reelection campaign. Perhaps more importantly, the Village currently has 410 housing units for low-income families.
The Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) determined in 2008 that the Village should be torn down, but at the time it had not been determined what would be done with the land. Plans to demolish the Village were made official in 2009, and immediately, residents, neighborhood organizations and community activists gathered to question the rationale behind the decision.
The demolition of Poindexter Village is part of a larger project called the Near East Area Plan (NEAP) – though ironically, the plan also calls for Columbus policymakers to “promote the availability of funds and programs that provide assistance to residents and property owners wanting to rehabilitate their historic structures.” CHMA’s 2008 assessment clearly contradicts this agreed-upon goal, since an organized contingent of residents has been demanding to either stay in a rehabilitated Poindexter, or provided equivalent housing in the same area.
Progress on the NEAP is slow, though, and the only seemingly definite decision that’s been made is that Poindexter residents will be provided with Section 8 housing vouchers – subsidies that allow them to pay less than market value rent in privately-owned housing units. These vouchers are harder to hold on to than a spot in a public housing project, since individuals’ Section 8 eligibility is reevaluated every few months. In some jurisdictions, something as simple as failing to pay a utility bill on time can result in losing your voucher.
The most obvious result of CMHA forcing residents to move to Section 8 vouchers is that since there is not enough Section 8 or public housing in the area for the displaced residents of Poindexter – something that CMHA has acknowledged – some will be forced to move to other parts of the city, breaking up relationships in the community. Friends and family who have come to rely on each other will no longer live close by, children could be forced to change schools, and local businesses may suffer.
The demolition of Poindexter will also be part of a nationwide trend: the destruction of affordable housing without making replacement units available. Creators of public policy frequently cite a building’s worn-out state as reason enough for its demolition, but they rarely acknowledge that families being forced out won’t always have a new home to move into, even with Section 8 vouchers.
Beginning in 1992, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) engineered Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) to address issues with low-income housing in urban areas. HOPE IV initially only gave grant money for demolitions, but quickly was revised to allow grants for reconstructing housing.
Still, the grants are designed to be convenient for city bureaucrats, and not necessarily fair to residents of public housing units. HUD hands out HOPE IV money to cities for demolition of public housing without requiring them to guarantee residents long-term replacement housing – instead, they may simply provide residents with Section 8 vouchers and direct them to appropriate housing. Again, since Section 8 vouchers are easy to lose, the stable housing afforded by a public unit no longer exists. Additionally, individuals with disabilities may have a harder time finding a Section 8-elligible residence that works for them. HOPE IV program requirements currently do not include a requirement for one-for-one replacement of units, something that the National Low Income Housing Coalition has been demanding for years.
Furthermore, HOPE IV money is also awarded to cities looking to “revitalize” public housing units and turn them into “mixed-income” units, in which middle-class individuals rent units at market price, while low-income individuals can pay a lower, subsidized rent. Proponents of mixed-income housing claim that concentrated poverty results in higher crime rates and an improvement in local school districts. The NEAP in Columbus is calling for all future developments in the Near East side to be of this nature, but does not offer exact details as to how to make that happen. Again, there are no requirements for one-to-one replacement of affordable housing units.
Without guarantees of keeping current residents in the area where some of them have lived their whole lives, “revitalization” is essentially candy-coated gentrification. If a program results in a net loss of affordable housing units, it doesn’t matter if crime decreases slightly in the area or schools improve, because the displaced individuals may still suffer greatly – especially if they lose their Section 8 voucher or are forced to quit a job due to relocation.
CMHA is similar to housing authority bureaucracies all across America in its attempts to do the bare minimum for residents while attempting to reach a lofty goal of “revitalization”. Though CHMA is not receiving HOPE VI money for the demolition of Poindexter Village, it is indeed just one example of the sweeping gentrification explicitly endorsed by the federal government and ignored by this city’s politicians.
One can only turn a blind eye to these problems for so long, though – for what happens when displaced low-income individuals all end up in Section 8 housing or homeless? The poverty will perhaps be “deconcentrated,” but it will still exist and may be harder to address, especially in regards to homelessness. Though destroying Poindexter Village may be inevitable in the eyes of CMHA and OSU, certainly the Columbus bureaucrats can do more to ensure replacement housing in the area for residents.
Community advocates say they will continue to organize to make sure residents’ voices are heard. The Bronzeville Neighborhood Association plans to host a community meeting on January 28 at 1 pm in the Neighborhood House, 1000 Atcheson Street.
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