History
An exemplary precursor and inspiration to the HOPE VI model was the Columbia Point Housing Projects on Columbia Point in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1954, and consisting of approximately 1,500 apartment units, they fell into disrepair and became quite dangerous. By the 1980's, only 300 families lived there and the buildings were falling apart. Eventually, realizing the situation was almost hopeless, Boston turned over the management, cleanup, planning and revitalization of the property to a private development firm, Corcoran-Mullins-Jennison, in 1984. The construction work for the new Harbor Point development began in 1986 and was completed by 1990. It was a beautifully laid out, mixed income community, called Harbor Point Apartments.
Congress established the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing in 1989 to study the issue of dilapidated public housing. After submitting the report to Congress in 1992, legislation creating the HOPE VI grants was written. The first HOPE VI pilot grant was given to St. Louis-based McCormack Baron Salazar to develop a mixed income project at Centennial Place in Atlanta, GA.
HOPE VI was the last gasp for public housing according to Henry Cisneros, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
President George W. Bush has previously called for the abolition of the HOPE VI program, and Congress has reduced funding for the block grants.
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom proposed a local version of HOPE VI, using a $100 million public bond referendum to gather private money to rehabilitate outdated public housing projects.
In FY 2009, HOPE VI received a $120 million budget; however, in FY2010 no funds were budgeted for HOPE VI and a new Choice Neighborhoods program had a proposed budget of $250 million. Over the course of 15 years, HOPE VI grants were used to demolish 96,200 public housing units and produce 107,800 new or renovated housing units, of which 56,800 were to be affordable to the lowest-income households. The new and renovated housing units were mixed income, less dense, and sought to attain better design and integration into the local neighborhoods.
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