The amount of money that is going to be invested in and around Cleveland Avenue is astounding. In a sense, it’s like Cleveland Avenue, and adjacent neighborhoods won the lottery. On the other hand, the infusion of tens of millions of public and private dollars will lead to the displacement of longtime residents if the community … More
At the November 16 meeting of the Winston-Salem City Council, our centrist-Democrat-dominated governing body voted 7-1 to use $1 million from the City’s scarce housing assistance funds to subsidize development at Whitaker Park. Councilmember Dan Besse was the only member of the council who objected.
In today’s blo… More
Last week the Forsyth County Library’s panel discussion on affordable housing got me thinking about all the publicly available resources that document housing disparities in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County. Often new reports attract a great deal of attention when they are released, but get forgotten as time goes by. So, for … More
Crystal Towers is conveniently located in the heart of Downtown Winston-Salem, at 625 W Sixth St. The Housing Authority of Winston-Salem had a buyer lined up to redevelop Crystal Towers, but HUD wouldn’t let them sell Crystal during a pandemic.
Crystal Towers’ residents are just a short walk from the Central Library (w… More
Affordable housing is hard to find even during normal times. It’s even harder to find during a pandemic. It’s a scandal that so many hotel rooms and apartment units are empty when they are sorely needed. It’s estimated that Winston-Salem/Forsyth County has a deficit of 16,000 affordable housing units. We need ma… More
Our local paper has been pretty thin recently. When the COVID-19 crisis first began the Journal admirably stepped up and churned out some excellent content. Since then, they’ve been publishing mostly banal human interest stories. Rumor is, Lee Enterprises has been furloughing employees at the Journal.
Searching the Journ… More
For the last couple of weeks, I have been taking photos of the Liberty Street Corridor, while practicing social distancing. Only a five-minute drive from downtown, it’s a world away. While downtown Winston has received over $1 billion in public and private investments over the last couple of decades, the Liberty Street Corri… More
The Winston-Salem Journal just posted an update on the measures the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem is taking to safeguard Crystal Towers and its other public housing facilities from the spread of Coronavirus. Earlier this week, WFDD reported that HAWS had taken a few steps to address the threat of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 at C… More
“Public housing has always been both a financial proposition and a moral one. About finding not just need, somehow but measuring worth. How do we begin to sort out which of the many people who could be assisted, both need it, and somehow deserve it? It becomes a window into race relations, it’s a window into understanding the role … More
Good things happen to those who demand them. Monday, Dan Rose and Phillip Carter of Housing Justice Now held a press conference calling for “an immediate halt to all eviction and foreclosure proceedings, and to ask city officials to contribute $500,000 for emergency relief during the pandemic.” They then took to socia… More
