Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 29, 1995                   TAG: 9501310077
SECTION: STREET BY STREET                    PAGE: 9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE LOSS STILL STINGS

When he arrived, he said, "the board of the housing authority and the staff of the housing authority were almost adamant in their position that almost nothing could be rehabilitated in Gainsboro."

It cost up to $100,000 to buy and clear an old house, move its residents and put another house on the lot. "I said to myself, `We can do better than that. The money's going to run out.''' He said no one believed him.

Ewert suggested at a mass meeting of residents at the old First Baptist Church that the city try to preserve what was left of Gainsboro. He warned there wasn't enough money to complete the $13.5 million clear-and-rebuild plan.

He took people to Charlottesville, where he had worked before, and showed them how rehabilitation worked there. "I thought when they saw there was an option to save the houses, they'd want to do that."

Instead, residents were furious. They had waited years for their houses to be bought, and they had not maintained them.

Earl Reynolds Jr., Ewert's assistant city manager, said he saw Ewert weep in his office after some of those meetings. "And the folks were saying, `The government made this mess; the government has to straighten it out.'''

Ewert backed off and proposed a combination of clearance and rehabilitation, but City Council killed his idea and continued with plans to clear people out.

Ewert said most of the millions of federal dollars earmarked for Gainsboro went to contractors.

"That's why I wanted to bypass all that and give the money directly to the people, but they didn't want that. They were seduced by the big government lie, and it's too bad."