NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Groups living in the public housing communities that the city of Norfolk plans to redevelop sent letters to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking them to keep their grant money.
The letters were send to HUD not long after they announced that the city of Norfolk could potentially receive $30 million from a grant to help with their plan to redevelop public housing.
On February 11 and 21, two letters were sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Regional Administrator. One letter came from the President of the NRHA Tenant Management Council. The other was signed residents of the St. Paul’s Quadrant & New Virginia Majority.
Both letters called on HUD to defer awarding Norfolk’s Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NHRA) a Choice Neighborhood Initiative Implementation Grant, worth $30 million, that would begin the process of leveling the 1,700 units of Norfolk’s St. Paul’s public housing complexes to replace them with mixed-income communities.
The CNI grant would allow that process to move forward faster, according to NRHA. Norfolk was named 1 of the 4 finalist cities nationwide, earlier this month.
It is a situation those penning the letters take issue with.
“We can’t understand why to consider trusting the City of Norfolk to receive the CNI grant when they have already displayed…the bare minimum in preparing the community with the necessary tools to equip [the residents] for a successful transition.,” said Marquitta White, who lives in Tidewater Gardens public housing complex and serves as President of the Tidewater TMC.
Tidewater Gardens, which sits just opposite I-264 from Harbor Park, would be the first community to be leveled according to NRHA. As part of the grant application, NRHA explained that around Summer 2019 residents would be moved out in four phases.
A person can either choose to relocate to another NRHA property or take a voucher and live in privately owned section 8 housing.
NRHA explained at several public meetings last summer that not everyone will be able to return to the new community.
“We oppose the City’s CNI grant today because facts suggest far more residents will find hardship than opportunity,” the letter co-signed by the St. Paul’s Quadrant & New Virginia Majority said. “The plan…will drive hundreds of African American families out of Norfolk and hundreds more deeper into poverty or homelessness, due to the shortage of rental units in Norfolk where vouchers can be used.”
However, Barbara Hamm Lee, a spokeswoman for the project said that is simply not true.
“If you don’t have new housing by [your move out day], then you stay where you are,” Hamm Lee said. “It means that we will work with you until we find you suitable housing, Nobody is going to be kicked out on the street. That will do no good for anyone, not for the city of Norfolk not for NRHA.”
Residents will be provided counseling, moving/packing services, transportation to find new housing, payment of connection fees for cable and phone at the new location and they can also apply for security and utility deposit loans, according to Hamm Lee who is disappointed that additional letters have been sent to HUD advocating against the project.
Longtime Norfolk Councilman Paul Riddick also sent a letter requesting the grant be deferred, but for different reasons.
“I wish people would have just come to us first if they didn’t understand something,” Hamm Lee said.
The city will move forward with the project even if the grant money isn’t awarded according to Hamm Lee. However, that will slow the process.
“What we have said is, that changes the entire timeline,” Hamm Lee said. Because we have to find other sources of funding.”
HUD is expected to visit Norfolk in the coming weeks to further discuss the grant. The groups writing letters requested a meeting as well.
NRHA Tenant Management Council letter