What is HOPE VI?
Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere
HOPE VI is a funding program sponsored by the U. S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Seattle
Housing Authority has been successful in obtaining over $135
million through this program in order to redevelop four
housing communities in Seattle. For details on those
individual redevelopment projects, click on the headings on
the left for High Point, NewHolly, Rainier Vista and
Westwood Heights.
The material on this page provides general background
information on HOPE VI as it is applied across the country.
Although public housing in Seattle has always been maintained to be livable, elsewhere in the country public housing has been allowed to deteriorate to the extent that people can no longer live in many thousands of units. In the early 1990s, a national commission found that about 100,000 public housing units in the U.S. were "severely distressed" and proposed a national action plan to address this problem by the year 2000.
In 1992, Congress authorized a new program called Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, or HOPE VI, to carry out the commission’s recommendations. Through HOPE VI, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) called for the rebuilding of severely distressed public housing with some specific goals:
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Lessen isolation and reduce the concentration of very low-income families.
Build mixed-income communities.
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Revitalize the sites of severely distressed public housing and, as a result, improve the surrounding neighborhood.
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Provide coordinated, comprehensive community and supportive services that help residents to achieve self-sufficiency, young people to attain educational excellence, and the community to secure a desirable quality of life.
HOPE VI Criteria
Even though SHA is a high performer with a strong national reputation, some of our communities met the HOPE VI criteria for "severe distress." To date, SHA has competed successfully with housing authorities around the country for multi-million dollar grants to
revitalize four of our public housing communities: Holly Park, Rainier Vista, Roxbury House and Village, and High Point.
In many places around the country, HOPE VI has meant a significant decrease in the number of housing units affordable to very low-income people. For SHA's current HOPE VI projects, this will not be the case. SHA has made a commitment to replace each demolished unit of housing for very low-income residents with new housing these residents can afford. SHA is also expanding the stock of affordable for-sale and rental housing in Seattle as a result of our HOPE VI projects.
Building Community Through HOPE VI
The HOPE VI program emphasizes good design to accomplish many of its community-building goals. Principles for inner-city design in HOPE VI projects include:
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Diversity: A broad range of housing types and prices will bring people of diverse ages, races and incomes into daily interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to an authentic community.
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Safety and civic engagement: The relationship of buildings and streets should enable neighbors to create a safe neighborhood by providing "eyes on the street" and should encourage interaction and community identity.
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Neighborhoods: Neighborhoods should be compact, with shops, schools, parks and other activities of daily life available within walking distance.
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Local architectural character: The image and character of new development should respond to the best architectural traditions in the area.
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Streets and public open space: Neighborhoods should have an interconnected network of streets and public open spaces to provide opportunities for recreation and appropriate settings for civic activities.
Click on the links below for more information
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