Mind your Manor

Fayetteville needs collaboration on public housing

Maybe the Fayetteville Housing Authority is on to something. Housing for poor folks doesn’t typically get a lot of attention in local governments, but the local board that oversees Fayetteville’s public housing has, unin- tentionally, managed to wake people up by proposing the sale of one apartment complex into private hands and the construction of new public housing units at another, but through a funding program that raises suspicions among some folks.

Most of the time, the work of public housing goes on without much fanfare. Congress has inadequately funded public housing across the country, so much so that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates repairs to the public housing inventory, if made today, would cost $26 billion. Neglect will do that to a place. Now, though, that the local authority has proposed a radical change they say is intended to improve tenants’ living conditions, people care what they’re doing.

In Fayetteville, the Housing Authority came up with a plan for one of its properties known as Willow Heights, a 40-unit complex not far from the Yvonne Richardson Community Center and downtown. Housing Authority officials say they’ve been unable to keep up with repairs and maintenance because of a shortage of federal funding. So, they developed plans to sell the property and, through a new federal approach that pairs private funding with a public purpose, build more than 50 public housing units at Morgan Manor, another public housing property farther south, near 15th Street.

The Housing Authority even found a buyer who offered $1.2 million for Willow Heights, a prime piece of property (at least once the public housing is removed) on the western slope of Mount Sequoyah. He plans a private development.

The bold move unearthed a new level of public housing activism among city leaders and some residents, most notably Melissa Terry, who owns about 10 acres near Morgan Manor. She’s also a formidable activist once she’s sunken her teeth into an issue.

City leaders, however, don’t control the Housing Authority, so they did the most effective thing they could: They became barriers. Mayor Lioneld Jordan actively opposed the Housing Authority’s move to obtain state tax credits that would have helped fund the Morgan Manor units. Those tax credits were rejected by state officials. Planning Commission members and the city attorney raised questions, but ultimately recognized they couldn’t stand in the way of the Morgan Manor expansion if it met all the city’s criteria for a construction project.

And then Council Member Sarah Marsh, at Terry’s request, appealed the Planning Commission’s approval to the City Council, raising concerns about traffic congestion and questioning the public-private partnership that would make money for Morgan Manor’s expansion available. Perhaps those concerns were sincere, but it also seemed the issues were simply one more step in the effort to save Willow Heights.

Council Member Matthew Petty sympathized, but suggested the concerns were being “used as a fulcrum to accomplish something else.”

The City Council voted 5-2 to allow the Morgan Manor expansion. But they had already made their point earlier by appointing a new member to the Fayetteville Housing Authority by hijacking the appointment process. Their appointee? One Melissa Terry.

Talk about a fulcrum to accomplish something else.

OK, so now what? The City Council has appointed a critic of the Housing Authority Board’s plan to the board. The mayor helped squelch a potential funding mechanism for new public housing. And the people of Willow Heights continue to face a future in an apartment complex with significant repair and maintenance needs.

It’s worth pondering whether the sale of that property is the right move. It’s worth pondering whether further concentrating poor Fayetteville residents in south Fayetteville is productive. But it’s fair to say the Housing Authority Board was attempting to make use of the only realistic avenue the federal government has provided to get access to funding. They can hardly be blamed for trying.

So what’s the solution? Where are the ideas from the City Council, from the mayor, from all of those who don’t want to see Willow Heights sold or Morgan Manor expanded? Just because the expansion has so far been stopped doesn’t mean the conditions at Willow Heights have changed.

Perhaps city government leaders and the Housing Authority Board members need to put their heads together in a formal way to develop a new path to a solution. Don’t municipal leaders owe the folks in public housing and the authority’s board members that? Or is it just enough to work against their efforts?

Come now, and let us reason together.