Public Housing

History's most infamous public-housing photo was snapped here in July 1972 as city-housing authorities dynamited the three central blocks of the massive Pruitt-Igoe project. I'd been at the terminally troubled 12-story high-rises several months earlier. It was hard to miss the trouble. Walkways were covered with shattered window glass and tin cans. In hallways, lights were broken, elevators vandalized. The stench of garbage and urine was everywhere. The "ultimate solution" for Pruitt-Igoe - the demolition of 33 buildings, broadcast to an incredulous nation - led me, and others, to a snap conclusion.

Kathryn Blackshear patterned her speech after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous. "I, too, have a dream . . .," intoned Blackshear, as she stood in the community center of one of Camden's struggling public-housing developments. ". . . that one day, the children of Chelton Terrace will be given the opportunity to live in a decent house; that one day, they, too, will be allowed to begin life anew in a brand-new house. " For Blackshear, the president of the Chelton Terrace Resident Management Corp.

I UNDERSTAND the need for urban renewal, and I don't want to sound cruel, but how is it that all the residents in housing projects in South Philly get newly built houses while hardworking people in South Philly have to struggle to buy a new home? I grew up in South Philly in a single-parent home and never lived in the projects - that's a testament to my mother wanting better for us. I personally know people who have generations of relatives living in the projects. Why not? It's cheap, you don't have to care for it and sooner or later, they'll build you a new home at taxpayers' expense.

On May 27, 1987, the Newark, N.J., housing authority began the demolition of the Scudder Homes project. Before television news crews, the first high- rise building was leveled. This dramatic event symbolized the failure of 50 years of federal housing policy. The Scudder homes project was built in the 1960s at a cost of $20 million. In the ensuing years, the Department of Housing and Urban Development poured another $36 million into the project. Despite the massive amounts of money spent on Scudder Homes, the project became a breeding ground for crime, poverty and vandalism.

For nearly three months, 32 Philadelphia public housing residents from across the city have risen at dawn to commute to the Tasker Homes development to learn as much as they can about the building trades. "It's hard getting up in the morning to get here. But that's what it takes to make it in the trades. So there ain't much use in complaining," said Bernard Browne, 20, who rides a train, subway and two buses to get to Tasker in South Philadelphia from his Northeast apartment. The program that has Browne and his fellow residents so motivated was officially unveiled yesterday during a ceremony featuring public housing Executive Director Carl Greene, Mayor Rendell and a host of city, civic and union leaders.

After years of cutbacks, agencies in Philadelphia and surrounding counties that supply affordable housing and invest in community development will get a $128 million boost from the nation's stimulus package. Some local public-housing authorities will see their capital budgets triple, even quadruple. The Philadelphia Housing Authority's capital budget will increase from $55 million to $146 million. Two of the region's poorest cities, Chester and Camden, also will see sharp spikes in public-housing funding: a jump from $1 million to $5.2 million for Chester, and $2.5 million to $6.7 million for Camden.

None of the horror stories in Daily News reporter Joe Daughen's story Friday on the Philadelphia Housing Authority were news to the authority's 100,000 tenants. Nor are these findings in the most recent audit of PHA by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: 99 percent of PHA housing units flunk HUD's "decent, safe and sanitary" tests. PHA's bloated maintenance staff is so inept it takes about five years to fix up a vacant unit and move a new family into it. Routine maintenance is so sloppy PHA doesn't know how many service calls it makes or completes.

After touring public housing sites and reviewing proposals from more than 800 housing authorities, the nation's housing chief has developed a massive "sweep-up" plan aimed at eliminating drug traffic. Jack F. Kemp, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, planned to present the details today when he joins Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and drug czar William J. Bennett in announcing an action plan for the troubled District of Columbia. In a meeting with reporters, Kemp said he wanted his drug-enforcement proposals for the District of Columbia's public housing to be applied nationally.

Tenants from five public housing developments yesterday began a 15-month training program aimed at enabling them to take over the management of their projects from the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Under the program, which is being sponsored by the nonprofit Housing Association of the Delaware Valley, the tenants will be trained in everything from rent collection to tenant selection and would ultimately assume responsibility for managing their own developments. Similar programs have worked successfully in more than a dozen cities, including St. Louis, Jersey City and Washington, where tenant organizations currently manage public housing developments under contracts with the local housing authorities.

Carl Greene isn't necessarily regarded as the nicest guy in town, but in his 10th year as executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, he is seen as one of the most successful. Among friends and critics alike, he is overwhelmingly credited with single-handedly recasting the look of affordable housing in Philadelphia. Arriving here from Detroit in 1998 at the behest of Mayor Ed Rendell, Greene found an aging stock of public housing, much of it grim high-rises, warrens of crime and decay.

As she pulls glue off a metal scraper while laying tiles in a second-floor bedroom of a Camden public housing unit, 17-year-old Briana Russ brushes her bangs to the side with her forearm. "I like painting, but this is difficult," Russ says, shaking glue off her fingers. The Camden teen is in the middle of her construction training through YouthBuild, an alternative education program for high school dropouts ages 16 to 24 that provides classroom instruction and occupational-skills training.

The Obama administration's effort to help three million distressed borrowers refinance into FHA-backed, lower-rate mortgages still faces one big hurdle: Congress. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, in Philadelphia on Friday for a summit on housing policy and related issues at the University of Pennsylvania, said without congressional action to expand the Federal Housing Administration to accommodate so many loans, "there's nothing we can do" for these borrowers.

More than a year ago, Michael Kelly landed arguably the hardest job in town: helming the Philadelphia Housing Authority in the aftermath of Carl Greene. A three-decade housing veteran with tours in New York, Washington, and New Orleans, Kelly specializes in the recovery of troubled agencies, but PHA was in a class by itself. Greene, the autocratic executive paid more than the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, left in the wake of multiple sexual harassment complaints.

It's been one year since federal housing officials seized control of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, but both they and Mayor Nutter agree the agency is not ready to revert to local control. Nutter is expected to sign an agreement this week to keep the agency in federal receivership for up to a year more, according to Sandra Henriquez, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Henriquez said in an interview that PHA's new executive director, Michael P. Kelly, had succeeded "in putting reforms in place to signal that this is a new day. " But, she said, the agency needs more time to complete its recovery in the aftermath of the ouster of executive director Carl R. Greene.

The Philadelphia Housing Authority must slash $24.5 million from its budget for the fiscal year starting in March because of federal funding cuts that are hitting public housing agencies across the nation, PHA officials said Friday. At the agency's board meeting, finance chief Eli Rosario said the current budget of $400 million will drop to $376 million, a 6 percent cut. Some of the biggest dollar cuts will come in administrative salaries, employee benefits, and capital improvements, a PHA budget document shows.

BACK ABOUT the time of the first Detroit automotive bailout, in 1980, folksinger Tom Paxton penned the lyrics of a popular song, sung by Arlo Guthrie, called "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler. " The first chorus was as follows: I am changing my name to Chrysler I am going down to Washing- ton, D.C. I will tell some power broker What they did for Iacocca Will be perfectly acceptable to me I am changing my name to Chrysler I am headed for that great receiving line So when they hand a million grand out I'll be standing with my hand out Yessiree, I'll get mine . Fast-forward 30 years, and we're doing it again.

ATLANTA - Back in the 1990s, the federal government tried an unusual social experiment: It offered thousands of poor women in big-city public housing a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods. A decade later, the women who relocated had lower rates of diabetes and extreme obesity - differences that are being hailed as compelling evidence that where you live can determine your health. The experiment was first aimed at researching whether moving impoverished families to more prosperous areas could improve employment or schooling.

THE SIX-YEAR, $100 million contract that Eagles star Michael Vick signed yesterday guarantees that he will be the team's starting quarterback for the foreseeable future. As an Eagles fan, this move leaves me a little uneasy. Although Vick performed at an MVP level last year, there's still room to question the wisdom of giving him the keys to the franchise based on a single year of excellence. Although it's possible that Vick has truly developed into the mature player and person that we saw last year, there is always the chance of a personal and professional backslide.

The status of the two top officials at the Philadelphia Housing Authority has changed, with Michael P. Kelly agreeing to become the agency's permanent executive director, and Estelle Richman announcing she will step down later this month as PHA's sole commissioner. Last week, Richman was named the acting deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. At a special PHA board meeting Thursday, Richman said her new assignment as the number-two person at HUD creates a legal conflict.

The Carl Greene era at the Philadelphia Housing Authority is history, but federal officials are now debating whether to punish PHA for Greene's actions or give its new leaders leeway to reform the agency. The intensity of that debate is revealed in letters between housing officials and Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has made exposing fraud and waste in public housing his mission. Grassley wants punishment and has found an ally in the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.