Despite long history, property may need to be torn down, rebuilt.

Ildew, spiders “as big as your hand,” broken heat and air conditioning, squatters living next door in vacant units. Residents revealed details about the “state of squalor” within the Housing Authority of Savannah’s Yamacraw Village during a city-run meeti

One resident, Yolanda Phoenix, spoke to the crowd about her daughter, whom she has to “take to the doctor every week” because of health issues caused by the mildew in her unit.

“This is what we dealing with a daily basis. And I know I’m not the only tenant, because there’s a lot of people on the road and we all talk together,” Phoenix said. “So my concern is, even though we’re waiting on this, we still as Yamacraw residents, need HUD, the housing authority, or whatever to make us comfortable because we’re not.”

The meeting was intended to gather information for Section 106, a federal report required whenever historic lands or properties are demolished, developed, or undergo significant improvements. About 50 people attended to discuss the history of Yamacraw, from its time as a Native American settlement to its modern-day use, but public comments about the state of the complex and the lack of knowledge about the demolition process dominated the twohour discussion.

“Why not fix what you have? Keep what you got? Because the only reason we’re having this discussion is because of willful, intentional, asinine neglect. These places can be kept better,” Rev. Leonard Small, who serves as the leader of the local Weeping Time Coalition, said at Monday’s meeting. “And this is a trend in the city of Savannah that we’ve seen over and over and over again. People are being displaced for profit margins.”

The housing authority has long said the cost to rehabilitate each of Yamacraw’s 315 units would be too costly, which is why demolition and redevelopment was the chosen path forward.

‘Living in squalor’

Yamacraw Village was built in 1941 as a segregated housing complex. The property sits between MLK Jr. Boulevard and the Springfield Canal, wedging it between the downtown Historic District and west Savannah. It’s long served as a hub for working-class families in Savannah.

Prior to colonization, Yamacraw Bluff was home to nearly 20 Native American families, according to city research. Then, it became a place where “the unwanted” could go upon arriving to the colony – Africans, Germanic Jews and Irish Catholics all initially settled there. After the Catholics and Jews moved out, Yamacraw became a thriving African American community. First Bryan Baptist Church, believed to be one of the first Black Baptist congregations in the country, was first built in Yamacraw in the 1700s. The Housing Authority cleared an estimated 700 dwellings in the early ‘40s to build the public housing complex that stands today. The city estimates at least 3,000 people were displaced during the complex’s construction.

The history will be compiled as part of the Section 106 Review, and whether the housing authority needs to preserve any physical characteristics prior to demolition. Attendees were asked to fill out a two-page survey about the most important historical moments and periods in Yamacraw’s history, including ranking their importance by demographic groups.

Several members of the city were present to facilitate the meeting, including three elected officials:

Alderwomen At-large Kesha Gibson-carter and Alicia Miller Blakely, and 1st District Alderwoman Bernetta Lanier. About six HAS employees attended, but spoke only to correct accusations from the crowd they claimed were false.

The review comes two years after it was reported HAS would seek to demolish the property, and after months of questions about where the authority stood in the lengthy, convoluted federal process.

The city and housing authority were repeatedly questioned as to why future development plans for Yamacraw hadn’t been provided. HAS Executive Director Earline Davis said there are no plans, yet.

“Let’s just talk common sense: Would you go out and make plans, pay architects and everything that needs to be done for 22 acres? And you don’t know if you’re going to get permission to demolish?” Davis told the Savannah Morning News in a post-meeting interview. “No, and that’s not the way it works. We have to submit the application to HUD, according to the process that has been established by HUD. And that’s what we’re doing.”

Davis and city officials assured res

idents and community members repeatedly that Yamacraw residents would be notified of the process moving forward, and would be “given a seat at the table” when it came to planning what Yamacraw’s renovations will look like. She said the housing authority has already conducted 42 meetings, individually and in group settings, with Yamacraw residents to let them know what’s occurring.

“We did it with Hope 6, and that was the funding we received to demolish Garden Homes and Garden Homes annex. There were residents involved every step of the way,” Davis said of the $16 million project that brought about 200 rental units to the Wheaton Street corridor.

But the process to rebuild Yamacraw could take up to five years, according to Gibson-carter. She argued that the residents of Yamacraw should not remain living in their current conditions through that entire time.

“How can the City of Savannah help to rectify the awful, awful living conditions that are currently in Yamacraw? And as you stated, it is at no fault of those family members; they cannot create that,” Gibson-carter said, referring to a gallery of cellphone images that circulated Monday evening,

showing mildew, mold and infested living conditions at Yamacraw.

“... It is impossible, nearly impossible, for our children to be expected to go to school and be productive living in those conditions. And I don’t know how leadership of the housing authority can just sit idly by and be crass about the conditions there. And you cannot continue to hide behind regulations.”

Yolanda Fontaine, director of resident services at HAS, said her team was going to check on every concern brought up. “When residents call me ... we are obligated to serve the residents of this community and every community, OK? And it is not our desire to have people living in squalor and in conditions that are not conducive for their families.”

The HAS has employed a relatively new HUD program called RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration), which allows a housing authority to partner with private developers for the purpose of building affordable units. The money reserved for the demolished public housing units are converted into Housing Choice Vouchers (formerly Section 8), which the former tenants of the housing complex can use at the new development. HAS used RAD to replace Wessels, Hitch and Garden Homes, three complexes on Savannah’s eastside that are now leased through Section 8.

On top of staffing shortages, Davis told the Morning News that Congress has slashed HAS’S budget in recent years, meaning Congress did not allocate enough money to cover HAS’S annual expenses. “We still had the same number of apartments, and they were getting older,” Davis explained. “And we were receiving 17% less funding to do that.”

While it’s not known whether Yamacraw will follow HAS’S trend of converting public units to RAD, deputy director of HAS, Kenneth Clark, said the authority is committed to replacing all 315 units “inkind” on Yamacraw property.

Tensions boiled at the Coastal Georgia Center during a two-hour meeting to gather historical information about Yamacraw Village, a public housing complex slated for demolition near the historic district.

PHOTOS BY SAVANNAH MORNING NEWS Residents at Yamacraw Village apartments, built in 1941, have complained of squalor. Rehabilitating its 315 units would be costly, though, and demolition and rebuilding could take years.