THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606030045
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 94 lines
Wendy Hill is on a mission to remedy her neighborhood's housing problems - from saggy foundations and leaky roofs to abandoned, boarded-up buildings.
A year ago, she and her neighbors so impressed the city with their need and determination that Hall Place was one of two neighborhoods selected for a housing-rehabilitation program administered by the Suffolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Huntersville was the other.
Work in Hall Place was supposed to start in January, but nothing happened.
When Hill went to the SRHA for an explanation, ``They looked and talked to me as if they had never heard of what I was talking about,'' she said.
Although city officials say they set aside $50,000 for Hall Place and Huntersville, not a penny of it has been used. Housing officials were supposed to appropriate a matching amount.
No one has been hired to manage the program. Housing officials say they need city help to make the hire; city officials say a meeting on guidelines, requested of the SRHA last year, has not been set.
In the meantime, Hall Place residents have been reporting housing violations to the city, holding clean-ups and patrolling the streets to fight crime in the neighborhood, which borders the downtown business district.
So go stories about the housing authority, which has had a hard time cleaning up old problems and responding to pleas from city officials and citizens to do more about Suffolk's housing blight.
It's been three years since the authority was accused of mismanaging a rental-rehabilitation program designed to upgrade some of the city's worst dwellings - homes with leaky roofs, holes in the walls and no running water.
The problems underscored Suffolk's inability to find a strategy to improve its dilapidated housing, a strategy that several community leaders say still doesn't exist. The authority has had no director since last December, and its chairman is leaving in July for a City Council seat.
``They are hindering progress, there's no question about it,'' said Councilman Charles F. Brown, himself a former housing commissioner. ``They . they're going to do.''
Some residents and officials have said for years that the authority needs a complete overhaul because of its rocky history.
In the past three years, the authority has had two directors and gained almost all new commissioners.
V. Janette Rountree, executive director when the authority was accused of mismanaging funds, resigned. James P. Armstrong followed, but his tenure was complicated by problems left over from previous administrations - including being ordered to repay $157,000 to the federally funded rental-rehabilitation program. He resigned after two years, leaving incomplete much of the work he had started.
The board next hired Earl B. Pullen, who decided to remain in Charlottesville one week before he was to start work in Suffolk.
Authority Chairman Leroy Bennett will leave at the end of June because he's been elected to the City Council. Bennett did not return several calls seeking comment.
``The community is saying they're ready and willing,'' Brown said. ``But the housing authority needs a director and needs to work together with the city so we can get the job done.''
But housing officials, who are interviewing for a new director, say the board is moving forward.
``We've done a good job the last few years,'' said Alethia Stokes, vice chairman of the board. ``We've been working to our maximum, and we are looking into avenues to get more housing for our people.''
``The mismanaged funds have been a snare, but we are about to jump over the hurdle with a new director,'' she said.
``. . . Now we are trying to get a better taste in the community's mouth, and the taste is we can manage, and we can follow up, and we can finish. We are getting jobs completed,'' she said.
City officials and community leaders have been pushing the board toward redevelopment, an area that Councilwoman Marian ``Bea'' Rogers says is neglected.
``Part of their name they're using, the other part they're not,'' said Rogers, a liaison between the City Council and the authority. ``They're running public housing, but they're not doing redevelopment at all. . . . They need to expand their scope.''
Hubert H. Young Jr., president of the Property Owners and Managers Association, said the board needs to operate more like other cities' authorities.
``In Norfolk, the housing authority did Waterside,'' he said. ``It's just discouraging that the housing authority has not jumped on the bandwagon. Their contribution to downtown has been minimal.''
He said,``They have not been aggressive in assisting and providing affordable housing. They've been too preoccupied with bureaucratic red tape and trying to find a director.''
Housing officials say a move toward redevelopment is on the horizon.
``We are pushing to focus on redevelopment,'' Stokes said, ``but we want to finish up our sewerage problems first. We have people still going outside using the bathroom. We want to take some of the houses we have and polish them up. We are meeting our obligation.
``We are still making decisions, and we're doing the job - regardless of what some of the people are saying.''
KEYWORDS: SUFFOLK HOUSING AUTHORITY by CNB