South Huntsville scores a win over HHA
This should only embolden opposition to HHA expansion:
Facing the signatures of 380 angry citizens and the creation of yet another opposition group, the Huntsville Housing Authority decided Friday to forgo plans to buy a foreclosed home on Drummond Road.
Michael Lundy, executive director of the authority, told The Times, “We just pulled it off (the agenda) for further consideration.”
HHA board member Tommy Beason had the money quote at the end of the article, pointing out a drug bust in south Huntsville: “Crime is in the southeast,” he said. “It’s not in public housing.” If Mr. Beason is correct, or at least really believes what he is saying, then the HHA is recklessly looking to move their residents from the safe havens where they currently reside into a dangerous area. They are putting lives at risk!
Ben I think correctly, pointed out taht the guys in the drug bust were likely section 8 tenants too due to the comments made by teh landlord.
Of course Tommy does not live in an affected area.
“Board member Dorothy Ford, the representative of the residents of public housing, said she’d like it if the authority didn’t have to announce where it was going to buy homes”.
She doesn’t need to be on a public board; it is the public’s right to know public business.
Ah, but to the hordes of the entitled, public housing is not assistance or charity, but rather a right. Please also note this from the South Huntsville Civic Association blog:
[Ford] said she didn’t understand why anyone would be upset about the high cost of the Brookside project because the residents deserve nice housing and, “I would like a new house, too.” Apparently, the idea that someone has to pay for all of this extravagance and that nice things have to be earned are utterly foreign concepts to her. Sometimes words simply fail.
http://southhsv.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/our-public-housing-mansion-authority-the-wrapup-on-fridays-hha-board-meeting/
Moon said the money to be used by HHA was intended to purchase houses in blighted areas, and the SE house was not in such an area. But, the area around Huntsville High was declared to be blighted in order to qualify as a TIF district in order to remodel the Parkway Place Mall and build the new Huntsville High. I guess, to the rich folks in SE, the area around HH is blighted…
Please tell me this comment is not serious.
The area around Huntsville High was declared eligible to be a TIF by the City. The Code of Alabama 11-99 gives criteria for a TIF district:
(a) It is hereby found and declared that there exist in municipalities and counties of the state blighted or economically distressed areas which constitute a serious and growing problem, injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and welfare of the residents of the state; that the existence of such areas contributes substantially and increasingly to the spread of disease and crime, constitutes an economic and social liability imposing onerous burdens which decrease the tax base and reduce tax revenues, substantially impairs or arrests sound growth, retards the provision of housing accommodations, aggravates traffic problems and substantially hampers the elimination of traffic hazards and the improvement of traffic facilities; and that the prevention and elimination of slums and blighted areas and economically distressed areas is a matter of state policy and state concern in order that the state and its municipalities and counties shall not continue to be endangered by areas which are focal centers of disease, promote juvenile delinquency, and consume an excessive proportion of public revenues because of the extra services required for police, fire, accident, hospitalization, and other forms of public protection, services, and facilities.
So what’s your point? That the city used a loophole to build a new high school? Sue ‘em.
What is going on with the HHA is an entirely different subject, which makes your HHS comment a non sequitir. Furthermore, anyone who falls back on the trite “rich south Huntsville” shtick needs to get a new act. Or just come look at my 40-year-old rancher and two old cars.
On the way to Ben’s 40 year old rancher – stop by my 44 year old rancher too. “Rich South HSV” – yeah, right. Come tell that to my next door neighbor who parks his truck on the middle of his front yard.
By the way, about Tommy Beason’s comment about a drug bust in South Huntsville: “Crime is in the southeast. Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t that meth bust happened on an apartment at 9017 Mahogany Row? Aren’t those apts owned by HHA? I remember reading that the suspect crawled through the attic to a vacant apartment in an escape attempt. A vacant apartment?
I wrote the mayor about the Mahogany Row incident and was told that HHA did not own that one, the reason there were vacant apts is because since HHA moved all the criminals in the non-HHA units can hardly rent to anyone. (whats a shock!!) Not to misquote here is what he said.
“Dear Mr Meeks-
The property owned by HHA is located at 9012, 9021 and 9022, the Meth bust was at 9017 Mahogany Row ; there are about nine other four-plex properties located on Mahogony Row owned by private investors not the Huntsville Housing Authority. Thank you for allowing us to clear up the confusion.
Sincerely
Tommy Battle”
Boy was I confused when I thought that MAYBE when they moved the new neighbors in the ones already there ran for the hills and only scum will rent the other ones now. I must be racist since that is the reason for any of us not to like what HHA shoves down our throats.
Douglas C. Meeks
In all fairness, the Mahogany Row properties have been getting more and more run down every year, and the HHA correctly says that its properties are now the nicest ones there (since they fixed them up).
That said, there was always the chance before now that a private invester would have refurbished or redeveloped those properties. Now that public housing owns three of them, there is zero chance of that happening because no invester in his right mind is going to invest any money renovating properties next door to public housing. The only thing these properties will ever be used for again is slums.