GHA receives $8.6 million HUD grant
City to use funding for Dorie Miller, Delaney complex demolition
No timeline has been given yet, but three longtime Gary Housing Authority complexes are targeted for demolition with an $8.66 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The GHA was one of three public housing agencies in the country to receive funding in the latest round of grants from HUD’s Capital Fund Emergency/Disaster and Safety and Security Program announced recently.
The New York City Housing Authority received $24.7 million and the Alexander County Housing Authority, in Cairo, Illinois, got $1.27 million, according to a HUD release.
For the past decade, the GHA has been charting a course for the demolitions of its public housing centers.
Taryl Bonds, GHA deputy executive director, said the agency plans to use the HUD funding to take down Dorie Miller Homes at 1722 E. 21st Ave., the 268-unit Delaney Community East, on Harrison Street near Roosevelt High School, and Gary Manor, a 24-unit complex at 11th Avenue and Madison Street.
In recent decades, the federal government changed its housing philosophy and has torn down dense poverty clusters in favor of scattered site housing.
Bonds said residents were being relocated to other sites with housing vouchers.
Kendra Johnson, a local housing and education advocate, is still living at Dorie Miller while she awaits word on an apartment in Indianapolis. She estimates about 20 families are still there.
She said she was told she could remain in Gary or take a federal Section 8 voucher and move elsewhere. Johnson plans to relocate to Indianapolis so she can monitor the General Assembly.
Johnson has lived in the 291unit sprawling Dorie Miller center since 1997, raising three of her six children there. She served on Dorie Miller’s tenant council and a GHA citywide tenant council.
“When I first came, there were quite a few opportunities available to residents on the federal level, but the information wasn’t given out like it should have been. If you didn’t research it, you wouldn’t know. That’s what caused me to be a resident activist,” she said.
“We had some good times and a few bad times,” Johnson said of her years at Dorie Miller that included a tragedy in 2016 when a fire erupted in her unit killing her 4-year-old grandson, D’Anthony Fryerson.
Johnson said three of her children are now preparing to become homeowners and another child is in the Air Force Reserves.
“Public housing can be positive if there’s the right connection,” said Johnson.
Besides the three demolition projects, Bonds said funding will be used for roof repairs at Genesis Towers, a senior high-rise at 578 Broadway.
Bonds said only housing agencies in some form of receivership were eligible for the HUD funding. HUD took over the day-today operations of the GHA in 2013 after years of financial mismanagement, physical neglect and reduced occupancy rates.
Former Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson signed a cooperative agreement for the takeover, saying the GHA’s problems were beyond the scope of the city’s resources.
Bonds said the GHA is nearly ready to leave receivership and could return to local control soon.
The GHA began demolishing aging complexes a decade ago. The 316-unit Ivanhoe Gardens, 3200 W. 11th Ave., came down in 2010 with federal stimulus funding. In 2016, Delaney West, a 227-unit town home complex at 21st Avenue and Pierce Street, was demolished. Seven buildings at Concord Village, 5001 W. 19th Ave., were also torn down.