As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Housing Investments, 1997-2001, Elinor Bacon administered HUD’s Public Housing Capital Programs including HOPE VI, the groundbreaking public housing program created to transform severely distressed public housing projects and the lives of residents.
In 1989 the “blue ribbon” National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing determined that there were 100,000 severely distressed public housing units that urgently required attention. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D MD), the creator of the HOPE VI Program, with her colleague Senator Kit Bond (R MO), secured an Appropriation of $350 million for HOPE VI in 1992, and the program was launched in 1993.
Since its inception, the HOPE VI Program has awarded 236 grants totaling $5.9 billion to 127 Housing Authorities in 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The new communities created through leveraging HOPE VI funds with Low Income Housing Tax Credits, bonds, other public funds, private financing and foundation support, with leverage now as high as 8:1, spur widespread community revitalization way beyond the borders of the former public housing sites. New mixed-income and increasingly mixed-use communities are created, using New Urbanist principles, which blend into the urban fabric. Public Housing residents, through case management and a full range of supportive programs, are becoming self-sufficient and entering mainstream America, many as homeowners.
The program has demonstrated the viability and desirability of mixed-income communities and has become a model for urban revitalization.
The attached photographs show the HOPE VI public housing transformation that is occurring throughout the United States.