70 years of Foote Homes

The federal HOPE VI program, an attempt to correct the mistakes made by large-tract public housing during Urban Renewal of the late 20^th century, has equally had its fair share of successes and failures.  Rhodes College is fortunate enough to be the third party evaluator for the HOPE VI renovation of the former Cleaborn Homes public housing site in Memphis, TN, now called Claeborn Point.  The Rhodes evaluation is funded and sponsored by the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Dr. Heather Jamerson is the principal investigator in the evaluation.  Last spring, I was part of that evaluation team and undertook a thorough examination of the conversion and its effect on residents—most specifically, the effects on employment prospects for former residents. 

The purpose of my team’s evaluation was to examine employment-related services to former residents of Cleaborn Homes by the organization Memphis Hope, a division of Urban Strategies. Memphis Hope is the official case-management provider for Memphis’ several HOPE VI projects. The study compares residents in Sample 1, who received employment-related services, and residents in Sample 2, who expressed interest in receiving but did not receive employment-related services.  We found that all former Cleaborn Homes residents are experiencing very similar needs with maintenance and rent/utility payments, which can lead to household instability.  Residents in both samples are also experiencing very similar barriers to employment regardless of having received services from Memphis Hope.  Notably, residents with housing choice vouchers are more dissatisfied with their new neighborhood, than residents who relocated from Cleaborn Homes to the nearby public housing unit Foote Homes (McDougal, Tait, and Kearney). 

I found it fascinating to hear Gloria Wade-Gayles speak about Foote Homes in Pushed Back to Strength.  She talked warmly about what a housing project was in the 1940s as just a “stopping off place until you were able to buy a real home” (17).  She describes the flowers people planted, and the pies that were shared, and the stories that were told.  It sounded almost as if Foote Homes resemble a small, rural town in its values for community and trust.  People were well-kempt and “only by your address could [her] teacher know we were residents of the projects” (11).  Yet, later on in Chapter 1, she talks about how much things have changed.  This book was written in 1993 and I think she would be even more awestruck 21 years later.  I got the chance to talk to lots of people living there as part of the research study and some, the one’s that had lived there for 50 or 60 years were fond of Foote Homes.  However, the few that managed to get displaced from nearby Cleaborn Homes were thankful to be conveniently located but frustrated with the lack of upkeep at the Homes.  I agree with Wade-Gayles when she says that “the children are lost because the adults are lost.”  I am left wondering, in what ways are all children lost in our age, not just those confined to the last remaining tract of public housing in the city?  How did we, students of Rhodes, grow up lost?  Are our parents lost?  What are we going to do about it?