Despite reassurances, plan to scatter public housing spreads fear across Louisville

Candace Brewer sits proudly on her blue-and-white thrift-shop couch in the living room of her modest brick townhome.

She smiles at the pictures of family members dotting the white walls and picks up one of her granddaughter's toys from the floor, placing it back on a black bookshelf.

Her home at a New Albany public housing complex means a lot to her. Just two years ago, she was living in a homeless shelter with her two grandchildren after debilitating muscle pain and seizures left her unable to work.

Now Brewer is concerned she may end up homeless again.

Amid an affordable housing shortage in the Louisville area, the Southern Indiana city is working on a plan that will include tearing down four public housing complexes in phases over the next decade and relocating more than 1,000 residents into other properties or private housing. 

But advocates argue there isn't enough housing in New Albany to hold the displaced residents, leaving them searching on both sides of the Ohio River for an affordable place to live.

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"They say they’re going to find housing," said Lynda Wilcox, who stepped down as the chairwoman of the New Albany Housing Authority board this year to instead advocate for residents. "The housing stock in New Albany is limited at best. Where are they going to find them housing?"

City officials say the plan — initiated by New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan's administration — is necessary and nobody will be cast out. They say some of the complexes may be rebuilt under the plan, which must be approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, but the units won't be replaced one for one.

“No resident will be displaced and put out on the street in any manner and no resident should be wary of that because that simply cannot happen and simply will not happen," said David Duggins, who became interim director of the New Albany Housing Authority in July.

Gahan said he hopes to find space for some of the residents in hundreds of new apartment complexes being built around the city. And he said the changes will not only account for rising maintenance costs and federal housing cuts but improve residents' quality of life. 

"Those people are being affected in a negative way by the density and conditions of the units and by the lack of supportive services," he said. "For this administration to ignore it, it's not going to happen. We're going to do our best to make improvements there."

But such reassurances haven't changed the feelings of several residents, including the 56-year-old Brewer, who said the housing authority and Gahan are trying to force people out of their homes and away from their neighbors.

"I’m scared," she said. "I’m scared for myself. I’m scared for my neighbors."

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The plan: razing and rebuilding

Brewer started circulating a petition in early July that asks Gahan to not "tear down public housing without a plan to replace it." She got 400 signatures from New Albany residents in the first month.

Gahan, who said his parents were in public housing for a time, considers himself an advocate for it.

And his city has more public housing units per capita than Louisville, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. New Albany also has the third-most public housing units in the state, even though it ranks 24th in population.

The city's public housing plan — created in conjunction with the mayor-appointed New Albany Housing Authority — includes applying for grants to fund additional programs for residents, including health care, better security and homework help for students.

But the public focus has been on the fact that it specifically calls for the destruction of four complexes. Besides Broadmeade Terrace, where Brewer lives, Parkview Tower, Parkview Terrace and Vance Courts would be razed. The units housed 1,142 of the city's total 2,093 public housing residents as of July 12. 

The proposal also calls for rebuilding Riverside Terrace, Crystal Court, Riverview Towers and Mark Elrod Towers under the Rental Assistance Demonstration program. Officials will seek a bond to finance the destruction and rebuilding of the properties while guaranteeing a consistent rent payment for a 20-year period.

Gahan said the city also has included a stipulation in its annual comprehensive plan that requires developers who receive public funding to designate 8 percent of the housing in their projects as affordable. The city is adding several hundred apartment units, including more than 100 at the Breakwater complex, 200 in downtown and another 200 near Indiana University Southeast.

"I can’t really predict what it’s going to be like," Gahan said of the changes. "But I don’t anticipate that overnight we’re going to find a bunch of people that are displaced. It’s going to be very gradual.”

Duggins said the goal is to move residents into more mixed-income living spaces and neighborhoods. He acknowledged that it could be difficult for residents but said the conditions in the new units would be better than they are currently.

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“If you would offer the opportunity for that family or that individual to move to a new location and a new unit, to me, that’s a no-brainer," he said.

Irving Joshua, chairman of the housing board, said the plan is a way of using available resources to improve the city's long-term public housing outlook. HUD is facing a $26 billion deferred maintenance shortfall nationwide, and President Donald Trump has proposed reducing the public housing capital fund 68 percent and operating funds by 11 percent in his 2018 budget.

Housing advocates wary

Affordable housing advocates point to what's happening throughout Kentuckiana as a reason to be concerned.

In Charlestown, residents in the low-income Pleasant Ridge neighborhood filed a lawsuit against city leaders alleging officials unlawfully fined property owners in a “code-enforcement scheme” to advance plans to bulldoze the neighborhood. The city has denied those claims.

In Louisville, nearly 20,000 households are on the waiting list for assistance through the Metro Housing Authority.

Cathy Hinko, executive director of the Louisville Metropolitan Housing Coalition, said New Albany's plan would have an impact regionally because there already is a high occupancy rate in New Albany — higher than in Louisville.

As of the 2010 census, there were 7,571 rental units in New Albany and, of those, only 712 — or 9.4 percent — were for rent. That number includes units at all price points.

“Look at how many units there are in New Albany," Hinko said. "They’re basically saying they’re going to double the size of New Albany or redo half the rental units in New Albany to get that 8 percent."

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She said several people will have to move elsewhere, including to Louisville. "There is a gap in affordable housing," Hinko said. "Wages have not kept going up compared to housing costs."

While New Albany also has promised to move residents out using housing choice vouchers, advocates argue that isn't a perfect plan either because there aren't enough affordable homes available and recipients could get stuck paying for the cost beyond what the government will subsidize. 

"I do believe we have an admitted shortage of affordable housing and we have an admitted shortage of places for people to take their vouchers," said Dawn Klemm, who has advocated for the New Albany residents. "I do think it's a huge issue."

Barb Anderson, executive director of Haven House Services, a homeless shelter in Southern Indiana, believes that New Albany's plan would be a positive as long as no residents are displaced.

"If that's the case, how could you fight improving the quality of life for somebody?" Anderson said. "If it is a true one-for-one replacement, you don't have an argument from me."

Residents' concerns

Shirley Fitzgerald, 82, another resident, feels the same way. She fears what could happen to her and her 22-year-old adopted son, Shaq, who is hearing impaired and lives with her.

They live in Beechwood Court — a World War II-era public housing complex — even though they were approved for a housing choice voucher, which expired after four months because they couldn't find any vacant residences that accepted it.

The city has proposed tearing down half her complex and converting the other half into mixed-income living.

“They put out just enough information to scare the residents," Fitzgerald said of city officials while sitting in a recliner in her tidy, barrack-style townhome. She works part-time helping public housing families find permanent homes. "If somebody says they’re going to tear down housing here and you live here, what are you going to do?”

Brewer, who pays $18 in monthly rent for her and her grandkids, said she still hasn't seen a physical plan from the city and doesn't believe residents have input in it. 

Brewer and Fitzgerald lamented changes on the authority's board and police presence at its meeting, calling it an intimidation tactic. 

Gahan said he does not believe he and the housing authority have hidden their plans — he said the housing authority sent letters to every resident notifying them of the plan and that he published a letter in local newspaper the News and Tribune prior to a vote to move forward with the plan. 

He called the presence of police typical for every city board meeting but said he was concerned by residents' feelings that they were being intimidated. He added that he would look into it and "not one time will we not be listening to people.” There were no police officers at the next meeting.

The mayor also contended that New Albany's plan is nothing like what's going on throughout Kentuckiana. The New Albany Housing Authority has been providing affordable housing since 1937 after the Ohio River flood.

"I feel very good about what’s going in our public housing," he said. "Nobody is going to be left without a place to go. Nobody is going to be homeless.”

Plan coming, input sought

At the July board meeting of the housing authority, officials approved a fiscal needs assessment of the properties, which is one of the remaining steps before an official plan can be drafted and sent to HUD for approval. They also agreed to create board committees to accept input from residents.

Joshua, head of the authority board, said the plan should be released by October and that he hopes to hear input from residents then. 

“Once they see the plan, they will see this is not a plan where we’re going to take and tear down buildings," he said. "It’s a plan that’s going to improve the facilities.”

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Brewer said she's trying to stay positive, acknowledging that it's reassuring that the city has a plan, even if she hasn't seen it. But across from her home, a grass field sits where 44 units were torn down in January — a reminder that her home may be next.

"The only thing that I ask out of this is while some buildings need to be fixed up, I don’t think they necessarily need to be demolished," she said. "And if they do feel they need to be demolished, where are the seniors and children and disabled people going to live? There’s not enough housing in New Albany.”

Southern Indiana Communities Reporter Justin Sayers can be reached by phone at 502-582-4252, email at jsayers@gannett.com or on Twitter at @_JustinSayers.