“HUD did not do it,” Turner responded. In case you missed that revealing sentence in the February 15 Post Dispatch we repeat it for you here. Mr. Turner spoke in reply to a specific question about what would become of the partially cleared Ruth Porter Mall north of Delmar at DeBaliviere if HUD withdrew promised federal funds.
“HUD did not do it” should become a banner, draped over the Mall area. Also “HUD did not do it” should be posted on the triangle area at DeBaliviere and Delmar that the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council has worked for two years to redevelop. And to round it out, the Operation Rehab units planned for north of Delmar and at DeBaliviere and Waterman could all wear large signs, “HUD did not do it.”
What HUD has done became a national scandal. What HUD has not done would fill a large book. What specifically HUD did not do in this neighborhood is grasp the fact that stable people live normal happy stable lives in the Skinker-DeBaliviere area. And when you have a stable core, by correcting blighted pockets, then adjacent blighted pockets, you enlarge the stable area.
HUD officials have ridden into St. Louis on their high horses, issuing proclamations, and because they control the money, they have controlled housing in the city. Even privately financed housing construction usually requires federal loan insurance so HUD has had a big ax to swing. If they have ever concerned themselves with why public housing has a notorious reputation and a poor performance record, they have kept it mighty quiet.
Only from occasional statements by non-local federal officials and departing local housing workers would we guess that HUD officials are aware of that small segment of the population which destroys any housing, any neighborhood they occupy. And as long as federal officials insist that this segment be placed in housing, other tenants are going to flee, and those too poor to flee are going to be terrorized, and public housing will keep its deservedly bad reputation.
HUD spokesmen also have said nothing about the devastating effects of their interminable procedures on potential redevelopment and rehabilitation. Threatened neighborhoods can’t wait a year or two for approval. What HUD has said, in effect, is “It’s all your fault!” to the cities and the states. “We are going to sit on your tax money until you solve the problems we helped create.”
If any eccentric billionaires, or a possible combination of private business interests, can hop in and build some quite ordinary housing for average citizens on the acres of devastated land in the city, please do it. How splendid to see on some new or rehabbed housing an enormous sign, “HUD didn’t do it.”
Originally published in The Paper, March 1973.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1973_03.pdf, printed page(s) 2.
