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Tearing down, building up

The HOPE VI story begins in the early 1990s following a bleak report by the federal Commission on Severely Distressed Housing. The commission recognized that the social experiment of the 1960s and 1970s—to provide public housing in high-rise towers—wasn’t working. While residents did have a roof over their heads, the concentration of people without jobs and the insidious infiltration of drugs created warehouses of hopelessness.

The commission recommended that housing projects that were beyond repair be demolished. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) began providing grants through the HOPE VI program to cities that wanted to tear them down.

In other cities, HOPE VI grants provided money to demolish such notorious high-rise housing projects as Cabrini Green in Chicago. But there was a string attached to the money to rebuild.

“One aim of the HOPE VI program is to deconcentrate poverty,” says Karen Gibson, assistant professor of urban studies and planning.

To deconcentrate poverty, most cities have dispersed the poor—replacing the high-rises that provided public housing to the many with smaller complexes that provide housing to the few. It’s a tactic that critics of the program liken to a land grab.

Public housing is often built on land desirable for redevelopment, says Gibson. In some cities, the HOPE VI projects were seen as a boon for developers who demolished public housing in areas where gentrification had increased property values and built tony new homes sold for top dollar. “But when you take away that public housing,” says Gibson, “where do the poor people go?”

	Maria Llanos and her family sit on their Columbia Villa stairs before moving out. Once the houses were demolished, only concrete stairs remained.