1937- less than 70 years and still Fort Wayne refuse to build housing for the poor

MORE ON RENAISSANCE POINTE

Click on Cindy Larson to read more about Renaissance Pointe in the News-Sentinel

Now, starting here's, some background on the failure of folks to do the right thing in the Hanna-Creighton neighborhood long before the 1960's.

In the 1930’s, Fort Wayne poors lived in cardboard boxes and abandoned vehicles, this area was called Shantytown. In 1937, the Wagner-Steagall Act established the United States Housing Authority. The government began to provide funding to build decent housing for the poor under this act.
Fort Wayne was just one of many cities short of decent housing back in the 1937, and formed the Fort Wayne housing authority.

The FWHA refused to take the federal dollars because of the requirement by the federal government that the city had to build 500 housings and some of those housing would have go to African-Americans.

The original members of housing authority came up with ways to circumvent the mandate and at the same time how to build a limited number of housings. They were successful in building cheap and durable houses for the poor. Except for one thing, FWHA found that building houses for the poor was not profitable, and offered little return on their money. So, they went back to the federal government to get housing dollars, this time because the government wanted military housing. With military housing fewer African-Americans would qualify when compared to the poor African-Americans.

The practice of using federal dollars and the city's refusal to built housing for the poor continues to this day. In you ever ride past Bluffton road the old military housings( Miami) were replaced with senior housing rather than housing for the families who were displayed after they were torn down.


FORT WAYNE HOUSING AUTHORITY in 1938

Miami Village was selected as a site for the 1st public housing for defense workers.
In 1953, FWHA no longer served as just the landlord but retained control of Miami Village.

1960, FWHA saw a way to continue their opposition to building low income housing for the working poor, by shifting its attention to build public housing for the elderly.

Enacted in 1993 as a result of recommendation by the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing. 1993 was the end of the 40 years contract with cities to encourage building more modern homes for the poor, HOPE VI.

In 1995, FWHA applied for demolition of Miami Village under the HOPE VI program demolition of Miami Village on September 1995.

Demolition did not occurred until 2001
Funding for replacing public housing ended September 2002

Mixed housing was authorited by Hud, and what we got was senior housing under the current Fort Wayne Housing Authority

Hanna-Creighton

The Hanna-Creighton was about Churches wanting to save their institutions and not the people who remain in the neighborhoods. One apartment complex remain in the neighborhood that was built by a church group, under urban renewal during the 1960, but has had several new owners as well as several name changes, Greenfield Square, Oakland Court, and is still standing but is now called Chapel Oaks,


Read Rev. Matthew C. Harrison Executive Director ofLCMS World Relief and Human Care

eyewitness account as newcomer to the Hanna-Creighton Neighborhood through Zion Lutheran Church. His views on the lives of residents who remain behind in an area ignored by the city for years, and what Daniel Moynihan calls simply benign neglect. The solution becomes not to help the people, but become instrumental in tearing down homes to rid the eyesores of lost souls who are left behind. Here is a sample of his comments:


Isn't housing a civil issue?
Two institutions remained in the Hanna/Creighton
neighborhood: A liquor store and the church(es). All others
(groceries, drug stores, furniture store, hardware store, etc.)
were gone. So it is in the chaos. The devil is not happy until
he has successfully destroyed all institutions and all order and
replaced them with chaos. Meanwhile institutions of chaos
thrive. I heartily defend, with full Lutheran gusto, the freedom
of the Christian to make sanctified use of alcohol.

However,the liquor store, which remains in the neighborhood, is of
duplicitous ethical value. Its clientele is made up of an
intolerably high number of addicts. When government checks
are delivered on the first of the month, business booms. When
a bootleg house (selling alcohol illegally and on weekends
to addicts) was finally condemned and demolished, the store
took a financial hit.
The home (a constant focal point of drugs
I witnessed cocaine sold openly at this residence) was the
perennial hangout for the most severely mentally ill and
addicted (often one and the same). I regularly met and
conversed with individuals who could do little more than
ramble in disconnected syllables of gibberish. The home was
of course also a focal point of crime, theft, sexual misconduct,
etc. Most crime in the neighborhood occurred in route to or
from the burn barrel constantly alight in the rear of the home.

I spent nearly six years trying to get rid of this home and
its negative activity. The owner did not live at the address
and was making money from the nefarious activity. The
police were disinclined to deal with the property (the
elimination of vagrancy laws, and the closing of state
institutions has left police with little ammunition for dealing
with such venues). When I informed the police (stationed
only a few blocks away) of the illegal nature of the weekend
business at this residence, I was directed to the State Excise
Agency. Why?

The Fort Wayne Vice Squad did not maintain
weekend hours. The State Excise Agency had jurisdiction
over illegal alcohol matters, but their office was in
Indianapolis, and they would have to get a black agent to do
overtime on the weekend to go undercover on location in
order to document and prosecute the activity. Dead end. All
the while I was stopping by the barrel at regular intervals,
offering assistance to anyone who might be ready to go a
different direction in life. When you want to get serious
about your alcoholism and go a different direction, you come
up the hill to that church up there and see me. I'll help you.

Jesus has something better in store for your life than this.
That comment was often met by the angriest derision I
experienced at any time of my ministry.

I went back to my friend Gary at Fort Wayne City Code
Enforcement. By the time I had left the parish I knew Gary,
his shoe size, the name of his wife and children, grandkids
names, etc. (not really, but nearly so!). Gary a gem of a
human being was one of those innumerable mid-level, nonpolitical
city bureaucrats who actually got things done, and
on a shoestring, while being yanked around by the politicos.
Pastor Harrison, just tell me what buildings you want down
and I"ll do my best to get them on the next bid package. He
would hire contractors to take down five or 10 or 20 derelict
homes at a time.

After six years of incessant negative activity,
finally the home was condemned, and demolished but only
after my work there was done. The burn barrel as I
disaffectionally called the residence, was theologia crucis, my
thorn in the flesh to keep me from becoming elated
Imagine what having that residence and liquor store
within a block or two did to property values, neighborhood
morale, confidence, quality, etc. Imagine the harm to all those
lives, those children who grew up in proximity. Had Zion
Lutheran any role in dealing with that particular problem, or
for that matter the broader neighborhood ills?. Obviously,
my answer was and is, yes. But how does this fit with the
doctrine of the two kingdoms?


What happened to the land? And who are some of the developers..keep reading.

Finalist

The Saint Peters Zion Project (SPZP) is a 10-block revitalization project in the La Rez and Hanna Creighton neighborhoods in Fort Wayne, IN. Together approximately 95% of the residents are minorities and the average median income is $19,120.00.

The once vibrant German Immigrant neighborhoods, slowly transitioned into
extrememly blighted and distressed areas. This project was born when two churches, St. Peter Catholic and Zion Lutheran Church, decided to address the continuing decline. NeighborWorks®Home & Community Development,
formally Project Renew, was invited as a partner to develop a plan.
NeighborWorks® and the churches worked with the residents to create a development plan.

As the developer,NeighborWorks® roles included, fiscal agent, land assembly, project management for the housing projects, mortgageloan provider, provider of homebuyer education and the entity to coordinate & pursue funding opportunities.

The project partners raised in excess of $600,000 to implement the plan.
This is a neighborhood revitalization of unprecedented scope. In two phases, the project addresses the physical needs (improved infrastructure, new and rehabilitated housing stock, job retention and creation) and the social/cultural needs (daycare, youth center, Urban League, Library, green space, recreation, transit hub and
rehabilitation of places of worship.) This project has a sweeping fundamental change on the way the neighborhood looks and feels.

Phase I (Residential Development)

The majority of the properties has been acquired through various acquisition strategies. Those with structures have been demolished, paving the way for the completion of single-family new construction. Seventeen (17) new homes,for an investment of $1,556,810.17, are completed and sold. We have plans to build 11 more over the next two years. NeighborWorks® secured $95,000 from the Federal Home Loan Bank and the City of Fort Wayne and provided rehab grants to 15 existing homeowners.

Phase II is well underway as well
A vista view and parking area has been created for St. Peter's Church. Zion has added a $2,000,000 addition to serve as a fellowship hall, offices and meeting space. Finley Properties based in Florida has purchased St. Peters
Catholic School and renovated the space into 42 units of Senior Housing. NeighborWorks® acquired a city block for
the building of a new Urban League, Library and CANI Head Start campus. This campus block alone is a $10,000,000 investment. All of the entities are open and providing services to our community. Overlooking the campus, on the southwest corner, a new pocket park was designed and installed.

In addition to all of these wonderful structural improvements and developments, NeighborWorks® has been instrumental in coordinating with the City of Fort Wayne over $350,000 of infrastructure improvements such as new curbs, alleys and sidewalks. Funding secured from City Council enabled us to install upgraded street lighting around the campus block.
The key to the success of this project is the partnerships with residents, government and the public and private sector that have been formed. Not one entity on their own could have been instrumental in breathing life back into these neighborhoods.

As you can read the majority of this revitalization has been about land grabs, and developers' interest, not unlike the lenghty takeover of Southtown mall, but the poor battle without deep pockets. See Southtown below.


Overhead photo of the Pontiac-Anthony area that is part of the 36 block development.

Pictures of the old mall. The property will bring in the investors...not the homes. More