ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996              TAG: 9608070068
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER 

TURNOUT POOR FOR ROANOKE RACE MEETING

RESIDENTS will have three more chances to discuss the city's racial issues. There are meetings Thursday, Monday and Aug.15.

There were nine task force members but only two speakers Tuesday night in the first of a series of public hearings on Roanoke race relations.

The hearing at Oakland Intermediate School in Northeast Roanoke, scheduled for two hours, ended after just 20 minutes.

Roanokers have three more chances to express their thoughts on the subject. The remaining hearings, all from 7 to 9 p.m. and covering each of the city's quadrants, will be Thursday at William Fleming High School, Monday at Fallon Park Elementary School and Aug. 15 at Patrick Henry High School.

"Whether it's one or a thousand" people who come, "we're going to be here to listen," said Melinda Payne, chairwoman of Roanoke City Manager Bob Herbert's Community Relations Task Force.

Elaina Loritts-Duckett, chairwoman of the city's recently reactivated Fair Housing Board, said that even though Roanoke has won another All-America City award, it cannot overlook the racial segregation of its neighborhoods.

"You have an economic problem, and you have a housing problem, and it impacts everything that we do in this city," Loritts-Duckett said. "Housing patterns in this city are creating a large portion of our problems." After the hearing, she said those problems include the scarcity of jobs in inner-city neighborhoods and the despair of many young people who live there.

Linda Dennison, who grew up in Baltimore, warned that Roanoke is in danger of destroying so much of its historic black neighborhoods that black Roanokers will have few places left to live near downtown. She fears that blacks eventually will be priced out of the oldest houses. "I see that happening in the Henry Street area," she said.

Dennison said local landlords discriminate against people like her with Section 8 certificates for government rental assistance. Many landlords, she said, have rejected her as a tenant as soon as she's mentioned over the phone that she's eligible for Section 8. Dennison said it's because landlords want to avoid government-mandated inspections of Section 8 properties.

After the hearing, task force member Harriet Lewis thanked Dennison for coming.

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