MHA gets an ‘A’

It was indeed a landmark moment recently when the Memphis Housing Authority was rated a “high performer” in public housing by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The “landmark” description is not an exaggeration considering that MHA frequently wound up on HUD’s failing list in the 1980s and early 1990s because of problems ranging from poor maintenance to ineffective management and corrupt employees.

Beginning with the administration of former mayor Willie Herenton and continuing under Mayor A C Wharton’s administration, the city began transforming its crumbling public housing developments. The old developments had become havens for crime and symbols of hopelessness for those stuck there because of poverty.

In an effort led from the beginning by MHA executive director Robert Lipscomb, who also is director of the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development, the city used federal HOPE VI grants to leverage private investment to develop attractive housing units where the old projects once stood.

The HOPE VI program has been replaced by the “Choice Neighborhoods” program. Under that initiative, the city plans to demolish the remaining housing project, Foote Homes, and replace it with new housing, while also redeveloping the surrounding neighborhood. Foote Homes residents are understandably concerned about being displaced from their homes, but this is a project that needs to proceed.