Illustration by Karly Andersen
“The days of large public housing projects are over.”
So declared the chief executive of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, responsible for managing the city’s extensive public housing portfolio as well as leading efforts to transform public housing into safe, vibrant, mixed-income communities.
The quote isn’t from RRHA’s new CEO, Steven Nesmith, who took over in late September.
In fact, it dates to fall 1990, months after Richard C. Gentry was appointed CEO of RRHA. Gentry’s relatively long tenure in the role culminated in Richmond receiving a competitive federal grant to redevelop the Blackwell public housing community, news that was greeted with hope and enthusiasm by city leaders in the late 1990s.
As it turned out, the days of large housing projects in Richmond were far from over. The extraordinary concentration of public housing in select pockets of the city remains Richmond’s most significant and most intractable challenge.
It’s been that way for more than half a century. Between 1940 and 1970, Richmond’s public housing authority built a series of highly segregated public housing communities offering affordable housing to low-income families. These communities, which overwhelmingly housed Black people, were built at the same time city and state planners ran highways through established Black neighborhoods such as Jackson Ward and later Randolph.
The effect (and perhaps intent) was to concentrate Black poverty in certain pockets of the city — out of sight and out of mind of the city’s then majority-white population. Over time, social and economic isolation, combined with racism and the stigma attached to public housing, created worse and worse outcomes for residents, whether measured by safety, life expectancy, educational achievement or income.
For the past decade, reputable national studies have consistently ranked Richmond as one of the worst places in America to grow up if you are poor, as measured by likelihood of achieving upward social mobility.
City leaders have long called for change, but it has been painfully slow. The much-criticized implementation of the Blackwell redevelopment (which did not replace all the public housing that was demolished and dragged on for years) raised understandable fears that redevelopment would lead to mass displacement of residents and a shrinkage in available affordable housing.
A major effort under Mayor Dwight C. Jones to obtain federal support for redeveloping Creighton Court (while offering one-for-one replacement housing) in 2016 ended with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development denying the competitive application. (I participated in this effort as director of the city’s Office of Community Wealth Building.)
Given this frustrating track record, it’s all too easy for Richmonders to simply throw our hands in the air in exasperation, or conclude that all efforts to mitigate poverty are hopeless.
But change is happening. Although at a slower pace, the Creighton Court project has moved forward even without HUD funding. Overall poverty in Richmond fell from 26.2% in 2016 to 17.9% in 2020, its lowest level since 2001.
The city has been chipping away at this vast undertaking. What’s needed now is the political will and financial muscle to undo the patterns of entrenched racial segregation and concentrated poverty, which requires more city funding, significant state and federal support, and private investment.
Redeveloping public housing that is equitable and just is hard work. It must ensure replacement housing for all current residents without depleting our inventory of affordable housing. It also involves providing access to supportive services, workforce development, educational resources and more. The imperative is safe, affordable housing paired with supports and opportunities for families to thrive.
None of this is possible without earning and sustaining the trust of residents — the people most affected by change.
Given Richmond’s hot housing market and rapid gentrification, earning that trust will require bolder steps than just offering promises and plans. As a first step, City Council, the RRHA and the city administration should make a commitment to build or provide replacement public housing (or equivalent units) on a one-for-one basis before any existing units are removed. To that end, the city should move aggressively to reclaim tax-delinquent properties and hold them in trust to support affordable housing needs.
RRHA recently received a HUD planning grant for Gilpin Court’s redevelopment, and it has begun residential and community engagement. This is at least the third time in the last 20 years that RRHA has sought change in its oldest and largest public housing community. If the effort is to succeed, community residents need and deserve to be shown, not just told, that they will have a good place to go after redevelopment.
Given our history, Richmond leaders should aim not just to meet, but to substantially exceed HUD requirements for protecting residents. But city officials, no matter how well intended, can’t do the right thing without resources and community support.
Nesmith, who has exhibited a welcome enthusiasm for building relationships with residents in his first weeks on the job, has taken on a tall task. But we must understand that he can’t do it alone.
As Richmonders, we all must support the hard work of undoing our long legacy of racial segregation.
Thad Williamson is associate professor of leadership studies at the University of Richmond and served as inaugural director of Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building. He is co-author (with Julian M. Hayter and Amy L. Howard) of a forthcoming book on Richmond policy and governance from 1988 to 2016.
