Goal of public housing relocation draws near
W hile progress continues toward relocating residents from the Thames River Apartments, challenges remain and will continue to need the attention of New London Mayor Michael Passero and his administration.
Last week the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development notified the New London Housing Authority that it would sanction the disposal of the property in its role as public housing. Now the authority can move forward with seeking Section 8 vouchers, providing rental subsidies that the more than 300 residents can use to find alternative housing.
Credit goes to Mayor Passero for the attention he has given this issue. Soon after his 2015 election, he recognized it was critically important to address the situation before it became so bad that the high-rises were condemned and what to do with the tenants became an emergency.
This is how The Day and its editorial board expected things to work when it pushed for a strong-mayor form of government. The mayor identifies a problem then puts the people, process and resources in place to address it, in this case working with the housing authority.
Challenges that remain include pushing through the bureaucratic application process, assisting tenants in finding alternative housing and finding the estimated $600,000 to cover relocation expenses.
There is near unanimous agreement that the high-rise projects that sprouted up across urban centers in the country in the 1960s proved, over the long term, to be a failed social experiment. Warehousing the poor in high-rise apartments, often disconnected from the general community, invited crime and decay.
The high-rise apartments on Crystal Avenue have the added problem of being geographically isolated in an area more suited for industrial uses.
Credit goes also to New London attorney Robert Reardon and his law firm. Acting without compensation, Reardon pursued a class-action lawsuit and in 2014 obtained a stipulated judgment mandating relocation of the residents or rehabilitation of the buildings.
The housing authority has not established a timeline to begin moving tenants, but must act expeditiously. Given past problems, it will be a struggle to get the apartments through another winter using the temporary heating system adopted last year. Insect infestations and dilapidated conditions are other reasons that the public housing should be abandoned.
It would appear the best option would be to raze the buildings and open the 9-acre property to industrial development tied to the city’s deep-water port and its proximity to freight train service on a rail system now undergoing renovation to handle bigger loads.
There has been interest in reusing the towers for private housing, capitalizing on its water views. The city should listen to these ideas, certainly, but the prospect for longterm economic growth and jobs would seem the better alternative.
But that’s a decision that follows the challenge of helping the residents of Thames River Apartments find homes. What once seemed a distant and difficult goal is drawing closer to reality.
There is near unanimous agreement that the high-rise projects that sprouted up across urban centers in the country in the 1960s proved, over the long term, to be a failed social experiment.