Pensacola Independent News

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(Left Behind Part 2: Housing)
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Left Behind Part 2: Housing

Where is low-income housing?

Charles Luckey heard from his neighbors that his home in Morris Court is being demolished and he and his bedridden wife, Alvener, must find some place else to live.

The elderly couple, who are both 74-years-old, have lived in the modest, low-income house since 1976. But Luckey swears he has yet to receive any written notice or to speak with someone from the Area Housing Commission, which oversees the public housing at Morris Court.

He has just returned from another afternoon looking at apartments with his daughter, Sharon Richardson, with no success. Currently, they pay about $325 a month in rent at Morris Court. He reports being unable to find anything under $700 a month at apartments around town.

Luckey worries that on their fixed income they will end up living somewhere rundown and unsafe for an elderly couple, or worse, homeless. He worries about his neighbors, too.

"They are putting us out. It's hard, real hard," says Luckey, who worked at the Medical Center Clinic for 30 years. "Day to day we wonder what we're going to do and what's going to be our next move. We don't want to be run out onto the streets. But we're going to ride it out as long as we can."

Richardson, Luckey's 48-year-old daughter, is livid with the Area Housing Commission's decision to demolish Morris Court's 35 low-income units and replace them with 75 more expensive affordable housing units in a $12 million project headed by Carlisle Development Group.

"To me, it looks like a plan to make money at poor people's expense," she says. "They know there's no other place to go. Any way you look at it, they're getting kicked to the curb."

Scared, discouraged and frustrated the Luckey family admittedly has little hope left that their situation will get any better or that Morris Court, which was built in the 1940s near M and Gonzalez streets, will avoid being leveled.

"I doubt it very seriously. They've done made up their minds and that's it," Luckey says. Adds Richarson: "I think all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed and they're going to boot everybody out."

John Rand shares the same worries about his family's uncertain future. He filled out an AHC application for public housing but he has not heard back from the office in two weeks. The 61-year-old, who worked at Florida Drum Company for 17 years, lives with his wife and two children at Morris Court on his social security disability check.

"I'm not too good with words, but I don't like the situation the way it's going," he says. "We're used to being around here and it's on my mind we could end up in a worse area. I wish they would do like they did on another project and move us out, rebuild and we would be able to move back in."

Mattie Phelps, an 89-year-old widow, is being moved across the street temporarily until it's also torn down for the new AHC complex. She moved to Morris Court a few years ago, after living at the low-income Escambia Arms apartment complex.

She's hoping a daughter will be able to get vacation time and make it from Virginia to help her pack and move. Four cardboard boxes sit next to her sofa table that's dominated by a thick, black, 8-by-12-inch Holy Bible in her cluttered living room, which lacks air conditioning but has a fan blowing.

"They are not helping me move," says Phelps, a former office worker who volunteered at the Escambia Council on Aging for years and keeps a framed "Certification of Appreciation" as a top volunteer in her living room. "They said we got to be on our own. But I'm not scared. I've never been a big complainer. I just give it to the Lord."

Phelps' conversations with God, just might be answered.

Greater Pensacola Community Organization's Board President Rev. Willie Williams and Executive Director Richard Papantonio heard about the plight of 35 families in Morris Court.

Through their efforts, they've enlisted the help of the Interfaith Housing Coalition, Catholic Charities and plan to talk to a group of Baptist ministers.

They hope to stop the $12 million project, until more low-income housing becomes available or is built. They're also checking into whether because the U.S. Housing and Urban Development turned over the Morris Court site to AHC in 1983, only low-income housing can be developed there.

Williams points to the severe shortage of low-income housing in the area and scoffs at AHC Executive Director Mike Rogers' assurances that the Morris Court residents will be given preference for openings at one of the housing commission's six other complexes.

Williams says, even though housing authorities began planning the redevelopment three years ago, it failed to adequately inform the Morris Court residents until a few months ago.

"There is no affordable places for these people to go," he says. "This isn't being handled professionally at all. These people are not being taken care of. They're being pushed aside. What's being done to them is heartless. These are the people we have to fight extra hard for because they're so humble, trusting and good hearted."

The city does report helping relocate10 of 11 Morris Court families on federal rental assistance. Rogers could not be reached for comment by the Independent News for this story.

Williams willingly takes people on a tour around Pensacola to public housing projects or apartment complexes that accept low-income tenants.

For example, demolition is ongoing at Dogwood Apartments near the Kmart on Mobile Highway; the Forest Creek Apartments off Navy Boulevard still has one complex that was burnt down about three months ago; and Twin Oaks Villas Apartments near Navy Boulevard and New Warrington Road still has two complexes to rebuild from hurricane damages.

Others have been completely wiped out or reduced by Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis, revitalization, Superfund sites and other reasons. Some examples include Aragon Court, Escambia Arms, Maison de Ville and Lexington Court.

Besides the storms leaving an estimated 2,000 families homeless in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties, local housing experts also report a "severe" shortage because of FEMA pressure to move families out of trailers and cuts in federal rental assistance to the poor under the Bush administration.

The Pensacola Housing Department says it currently has about 100 unutilized federal rental assistance grants, or Section 8 vouchers, because the families cannot find program eligible housing. It has a waiting list of about 800 people. Currently, it assists about 1,600 people with its $8 million a year rent assistance program, which the Bush administration cut by more than $1 million in 2004.

More factoids to consider in the housing crisis: 17,514 families in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, who rent homes, pay more than they can afford for their housing, which is considered more than 50 percent of their income. That's 38 percent of the total renting population.

Sandra King, Catholic Charities program coordinator of emergency assistance, says about 150 people come to her office every day and a majority are looking for rental assistance.

"We need to have programs attacking the housing situation very aggressively here," says King, a local social caseworker for 29 years. "We need more housing. We were facing a shortage even before the hurricanes. They just magnified the problem."

Pensacola officials began attacking the problem during the past year by identifying properties that can be redeveloped for low-income or affordable housing and changing its zoning and building codes.

And the Florida Legislature, recognizing the problem arising from the storms and the state's booming real estate market, passed a measure this year encouraging public-private partnerships to develop workforce housing. It also provided $50 million for the program considered one of the first of its kind in the country.

Locally, one group that is tackling the problem is the Interfaith Housing Coalition, which Pensacola-Tallahassee Bishop John Ricard, along with other prominent religious leaders in the community, created shortly after Hurricane Ivan to address affordable housing.

The coalition is planning to redevelop 26 acres near Catholic High School into a blend of affordable and low-income housing for the area.

Bill Compton, IHC director of housing and a veteran community planner, says he's surprised at the lack of response and innovative ideas to the problem when he took over in September.

"The market has made a lot of places unaffordable with the low incomes of this area," he says. "It's tough. We don't need to create another ghetto for 200 poor people. We do need more areas with mixed income and mixed use. I don't like the design model where you just have $125,000 homes, $200,000 homes or half a million dollar homes. You need to put affordable units in the mix."

The Area Housing Commission's $12 million plans to rebuild Morris Court will not include low-income housing, Papantonio points out.

"How can they get away with it?" the GPCO director asks. "We're going to rebuild and drive out the impoverished?"

Before leaving their homes on a recent visit to Morris Court, Williams promises the Luckeys, Rands and Phelps that help is on the way.

"We're going to fight this," he says. "It's not right to keep stamping out low-income places. You can't keep pushing these people around, when there's no place to go."

Affordable Housing in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties: From Problem to Crisis

In Escambia and Santa Rosa counties 33,537 families pay more than they can afford for their housing—that's nearly a quarter of the population. Almost half of these families pay more than 50 percent of their income to keep a roof over their heads.

If you are a renter, the news is even worse. 17,514 families renting homes pay more than they can afford for their housing—that's 38 percent of the total renting population. Again, almost half of these families pay more than 50 percent of their income to keep a roof over their heads.

Here's the really bad news: These statistics are from 2002, pre-dating the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005. The situation has only gotten worse.

Prior to the hurricanes there was a need for safe, decent housing that could be afforded by the workforce—teachers, policemen, nurses, firemen, public servants, young couples just starting their families. The hurricanes have only exacerbated an already growing problem.

As the gap between incomes and housing costs widened year by year, suddenly the Pensacola area and the greater Gulf Coast were hit by successive hurricanes, tropical storms and extraordinary Spring rains causing flooding and hampering the rebuilding process.

As the loss of housing from storm damage placed unusual demands on the housing market rents went up 12 percent, median home prices went up 60 percent and median incomes went up 19 percent from 2000 to 2005.

The affordability gap became a chasm. Add to the mix the families remaining in FEMA group shelter sites, who must find permanent housing soon, and there is an affordable housing crisis that is brewing in the Northwest Florida region.

Source: Interfaith Housing Coalition

duwayne@inweekly.net

InWeekly

Left Behind Part 2: Housing