By Sujata Dand, KERA
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-527425.mp3
Dallas, TX –
(Natural sound: baby crying)
Sujata Dand, Reporter: 5 year old Chance gives her infant cousin's swing an extra hard push.
Chance: She's always crying, she eat a lot, drinks baby cereal - the other baby drools just like a dog.
Dand: 14 grandchildren and a few other apartment kids crowd into Penny and Ricky Cason's 1000 square foot apartment in the heart of Southeast Dallas.
Penny Cason, Hurricane Survivor: We have Soul Food Sunday every Sunday, that means all 14 grandkids and the daughters come over in this small apartment. We love it. We're not complaining. We had finally got to the point that we can have a yard and the kids can go out in the yard and the kids can ride a bike. That has been stolen from them. They don't get to ride a bike because of the area we stay in.
Dand: Hurricane Katrina destroyed Penny and Ricky Cason's townhouse in New Orleans just days before they were about to close on their first home. The 20 member family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Less than a month later, Hurricane Rita destroyed their rental home.
Penny and Ricky Cason: We didn't receive everything that people think everyone from New Orleans received. No we're not on government assistance. No we didn't receive anything from FEMA. We struggle. We work. We used all of our savings when we first got here. We're trying to start all over again.
Dand: As Ricky prepares the Sunday meal, Penny wanders outside to talk to neighbors about gunshots she heard last night. Violence in the apartments is common - there was a stabbing a few months ago. In New Orleans, the situation wasn't too different. The Cason's felt that buying their own home was a way out of poverty, and studies reinforce the idea that communities with greater homeownership are more stable.
(Natural Sound: Driving)
Don Parrish, Pastor of Tru Lee Missionary Baptist Church: All of these vacant lots used to have families living in them.
Dand: Not far from the Cason's apartments, Pastor Don Parrish turns up the air conditioner in his SUV as we drive through one of the poorest neighborhoods in southeast Dallas.
Parrish: We're going down Scyene Road, this is one of the main boundaries of the Frazier area
Dand: Frazier Courts is right next door to Fair Park and less than a mile from downtown.
(Natural Sound: Hey how's it going?)
Dand: Parrish grew up at True Lee Missionary Baptist, one of the oldest institutions still alive in the community. Black bars now cover the stained glass windows of the church. Across the street is an hourly motel. A tall, very thin, black woman wearing very little stands on the corner.
Parrish: This is one of the prostitutes. What is it 100degrees today. She's right out there. You come by in the winter time, it could be 30degrees, she could be right out there. And, so that's the kind of stuff that happens in this community now.
Dand: Frazier Courts has more than 55 acres of public housing. The area ranks lower than the Ninth Ward in New Orleans for joblessness, income and education.
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Parrish: Here's a house that looks like it's been tagged by the city. If something isn't done about it eventually it will be demolished - here's another one. Its got tags on it. When I was growing up these houses were occupied by people who went to work every day, who maintained their property, and were very proud of what they had.
Dand: Parrish sits on Dallas Housing Authority's advisory board and he has big hopes for this area. He turns a corner, and just a block from Frazier Elementary school, brand-new townhomes gleam under the hot sun. In 2004, the Dallas Housing Authority razed the barrack style public housing complex and began to re-build this neighborhood systematically. This first step would not have been possible without a 20 million dollar federal grant from the HOPE VI program.
Ann Lott, President and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority: Most housing authorities treat Hope VI as seed money.
Dand: Ann Lott is the President and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority.
Lott: We receive a 20 million dollar grant but obviously its going to take more than 20 million dollars to tear down the 550 units and tear down the housing but we use that money, we leverage it with tax credits that we've received from the state of TX, and other funds and once the old housing comes down - then we do see an interest to rebuild the surrounding areas because we don't want the public housing in the Frazier Courts area to be the best looking housing in the neighborhood.
Dand: Hope VI was launched by Republican Jack Kemp, who was secretary of housing and urban development under President George H.W. Bush. The 5 billion dollar program replaced distressed public housing occupied exclusively by poor families with redesigned mixed-income housing. During the Clinton Administration HOPE VI catalyzed new development and private investment in places like West Dallas. The Housing Research Foundation's 2004 study of eight HOPE VI neighborhoods reported a steady decline in crime and an increase in residents' education levels and employment rates. Yet, for the third straight year, President Bush's proposed budget would eliminate HOPE VI.
Lott: That is the only source of funds that we can look forward to for the redevelopment of 60 year old public housing. So, it would be devastating for our communities if there was no new dollars appropriated for this effort.
Scott Keller, Deputy Chief, HUD: Yes, any developer, any builder loves to find free money. That's the name of the game, but they can do this without us. They can do this without the taxpayers making this investment because the system is there and the capacity is there.
Dand: Scott Keller is the deputy HUD chief of staff.
Keller: A lot of housing authorities think we can't do this without that seed money, but what we do see, we do see a substantial amount of development going on without these dollars, so what we try to do is make sure that we don't have regulations or we don't have policies that we enact here in Washington that would act as a disincentive.
Dand: Keller says President Bush believes HOPE VI has done what it set out to do, and the administration's focus is on helping low-income families buy homes. The President has more than tripled funding for homeownership counseling. But, Pastor Parrish and others who work with the poor are concerned this approach ignores the most desolate neighborhoods and is making their jobs harder.
Parrish: It makes it difficult, then what we have to do is find other ways of leveraging and collaborating in order to move forward. We may not be moving forward as fast of a pace as we were in times a few years ago - we still got to be moving forward. We still got to show progress.
Dand: For KERA, 90.1, I'm Sujata Dand.
More on-air and online hurricane anniversary coverage from KERA
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How KERA helped North Texas weather the storms
Contact KERA's News and Public Affairs staff about this story