I was born and raised in the Riverview housing development and was fortunate that although I was from the stereotyped one-parent household, my siblings and I succeeded through the strong direction and guidance of our mother and never had to live in public housing after we became adults and left the area.
After reading the announcement that the housing in Riverview will now be rental properties, I was just sickened and saddened by that news. Living in a major metropolitan city now, I have seen the outcome of building new project housing. While the property is new, the same problems, way of life and government programs do not solve any of the issues that were in place when the projects were torn down. I thought the whole project was about home ownership, work and pride in what you can own, and beginning anew with a generation of hope.
If in the end, Riverview is back to rental properties, then the government could have just renovated the apartments and kept the same police precinct and presence that will once again be needed. I’ve had a strong desire to move back to the area, in particular Riverview and live. There’s no way now after hearing about the change in the criteria of building the properties that I want to retire and come back home. Maybe you can show me a different perspective, but it seems always the same perpetual wheel. One neighborhood gets the new homes, people can buy and have home ownership, the other neighborhood gets what’s left again because of economic times — rental property. After you’ve uprooted family lives, you say they can come back now to the same old way of life and live in a brand new rental property furnished by the government.
Patricia Leeper Calloway
Atlanta, Ga.
