H4H Pod ep 12: Mill Creek, public housing, and radon

In episode 12 of the Housing for Huntsvillians Podcast, we discuss City of Huntsville public input hearings regarding a $400 million plan to redevelop Mill Creek. The plan includes mixed-use and mixed-income housing. We also discuss radon exposure in public housing and why cash assistance is a better solution for low-income families than public housing. 

Below are my notes and sources for the episode:

The City of Huntsville and the Huntsville Housing Authority are holding public input hearings on a $400 million plan to redevelop Mill Creek. 

• Resident drop-in open house: Wednesday, Oct. 18, 6PM – HHA Resident Services Building, 212 Seminole Drive SW

• Johnson Tower resident meeting: Thursday, Oct. 19, 4PM – Johnson Tower resident space, 216 Seminole Drive SW

• Neighborhood and resident meeting: Thursday, Oct. 19, 6PM – Boys & Girls Club, 125 Earl St.

We’re going to be at the Thursday evening meeting.

What’s going to be there?

Mixed use: housing, retail, education, non-profits

Mixed income: market rate, Housing Authority, workforce, and senior housing

The 2021 draft plan, approved by HUD, included 1,276 units of housing. “Ideally, the mix of incomes would be 15% public housing, 10% affordable (non-public housing), and 75% market rate.” Subsidized housing would be managed by Huntsville’s Department of Housing and Urban Development. More recently I saw 750 units. 

What is and was there?

Butler Terrace and Johnson Towers

The Butler Terrace Addition was built in the mid-1950s. The Butler Terrace Addition was operated by the HHA. 

Please listen to episode 9 on why subsidized housing alone cannot solve the housing crisis and why a better solution is to combine zoning reform.

The story of Butler Terrace and Johnson Towers perfectly illustrate why cash assistance is a far better way to help needy families than subsidized housing.

Radon

Radon is a colorless, odorless gas that is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the US. 

AL.com: “Public housing authorities across the country have refused to find and remove the radioactive gas from inside tenants’ homes, leaving children, senior citizens and other vulnerable people unnecessarily exposed.”

In 2018, AL.com tests found unsafe levels of radon in Huntsville public housing. Reporters presented their results to HHA officials in 2019. 

As of Feb 2020, Huntsville Housing Authority officials knew Butler Terrace had a radon problem. 

Half the Butler Terrace Addition units had elevated levels. And since this was 2020, residents were forced to stay at home and inhale more than usual. 

But HHA officials didn’t tell residents about the radon. 

They found out when AL.com reporters told them.

“Had you not come by, I would have never known,” said one tenant who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal from housing officials. All but one of the eight residents one reporter spoke to requested anonymity for the same reason. 

Huntsville Housing Authority Acting Deputy Executive Director as of April 2020 Quisha Riche said most families impacted by radon would rather wait for neighborhood choice vouchers to relocate to a new home. Rather than… what? According to former H4H guest Tia Turner, there are 700 families on the waitlist for public housing in Huntsville right now. 

Riche said: “Any residents deciding to stay in their units, we are just encouraging them to open their windows, ventilate it, have as much airflow through the units because that is how much that can mitigate some of the levels during this period.” 

Someone at the Huntsville Housing Authority claimed to have asked the Department of Housing and Urban Development for immediate relief for families, but HUD does not view radon as an emergency. Riche said the housing authority doesn’t have extra funds for radon tests or emergency vouchers to move families out right now.

It’s almost impossible to sue city governments. Much easier to sue private landlords. 

More importantly, where are people living in subsidized housing going to go? “This is a health hazard,” Latoya Jemes said. “I have three small kids. I hope they fix it soon or move us.” Her apartment tested nearly 3 ½ times higher than the level that the federal government says requires fixing. 

If Latoya were getting cash assistance, she could move herself. 

Demolition

In July 2022 the Huntsville City Council approved a resolution authorizing Mayor Tommy Battle to enter into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Huntsville Housing Authority (HHA) to demolish Butler Terrace and Johnson Towers. The city, in a joint partnership with the Huntsville Housing Authority, was slated to pay $200,000 as part of “tipping fees’’ with this approval.

Vouchers

Someone deemed the Butler Terrace Addition uninhabitable due to radon. As of July 2022 the Butler Terrace Addition had “been empty for well over a year.” The City gave then-residents of the Butler Terrace Addition vouchers for relocation.

The City displaced more than 100 individuals and families when they cleared out the Butler Terrace Addition. 

2022: Director of the Huntsville Housing Authority Antonio McGinnis said Butler Terrace residents would get Section Eight Vouchers while developers build new homes. 

District 3 Councilman Bill Kling emphasized a need to look around the ever-growing city and identify affordable housing needs.

“We need to look at dispersal,’’ he said.

In 2014, Huntsville City Schools moved school zone lines as part of a desegregation consent order. This zoned the kids who lived in Butler Terrace, which was majority-black, to majority-white schools like Blossomwood and Jones Valley elementaries, which served some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the district. Five years post-rezoning, Jones Valley went from 6 percent black to 26 percent black. Blossomwood went from 20 percent black to 38 percent black.

HUD and local housing authorities could give a fuck about radon, and presumably other public health problems. 

Reporters “contacted housing agencies from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, spanning 26 states and nearly 125,000 units of public housing. Reporters distributed test kits to public housing residents and filed dozens of public records requests with housing authorities, reviewing thousands of pages of Congressional records, HUD documents, federal radon studies and local agencies’ testing results.

The effort took more than a year, producing the only national picture of radon efforts by public housing authorities and HUD.”