Visiting Huntington

[ggmike1992]

I'm up visiting Huntington for a few days and yesterday I saw a lot of work going on over at the projects on HGB. What exactly is going on over there? I thought small retail and housing geared toward the hospital/ young professionals were going in that spot.

 

[oldeherd]

I'm up visiting Huntington for a few days and yesterday I saw a lot of work going on over at the projects on HGB. What exactly is going on over there? I thought small retail and housing geared toward the hospital/ young professionals were going in that spot.

ggmike, what kind of work was it? They are still in the process, I believe, of tearing down some of those public housing units ("projects") on Hal Greer before you get to the underpass. I believe they have been doing it "piecemeal"; whenever the residents can be relocated to other housing in the city and a unit becomes vacant, then steps are taken to demolish it and clean up the land. Last time I looked, it appeared that they still had a couple of units or so to raze and clean up.

 

[ggmike1992]

Last time I was up here (February) they were starting to tear some buildings down. When I drove by a few days ago, there must have been 15-20 of what looked like storage containers wrapped in white plastic. Still looks like there are more buildings to tear down, too. It's nice to see progress and I've really seen this city change the last handful of years I've been up visiting.

 

[Gilbert09]

Hey ggmike,

They are tearing down the public housing on Hal Greer as part of the Huntington Innovation Project (HIP), and part of our attempt at getting an America's Best Communities grant. We are currently a semi-finalist in the round of 8 in the ABC competition. You can read a lot more about what the plan is at the HIP promo on page 13 - http://www.cityofhuntington.com/assets/flipbooks/hip/

 

[RedParallax]

Does anyone know what is happening to the people that used to live in that HUD housing along Hal Greer? I admittedly never took the time to research further, but surely there is a replacement option for those folks and Huntington didn't just raze the buildings and leave them to themselves, right?

 

[TwolfHerdfan]

The plan is to get those residents in homes of their own via habitat for humanity or in homes that are renovated by groups in the city using grants. Good for the city and the residents.

 

[ggmike1992]

Hey ggmike,

They are tearing down the public housing on Hal Greer as part of the Huntington Innovation Project (HIP), and part of our attempt at getting an America's Best Communities grant. We are currently a semi-finalist in the round of 8 in the ABC competition. You can read a lot more about what the plan is at the HIP promo on page 13 - http://www.cityofhuntington.com/assets/flipbooks/hip/

Thanks for the info, Gilbert. Looks promising. The Missus and I are really looking forward to moving up there in early 2018. She is retired and currently spending a lot of time up there remodeling our home and I'm stuck working and making road trips up.

 

[RedParallax]

The plan is to get those residents in homes of their own via habitat for humanity or in homes that are renovated by groups in the city using grants. Good for the city and the residents.

Is that a realistic goal? Genuinely not being condescending, just curious. I've always been concerned that the city wanted to just sweep those projects and their inhabitants somewhere else, that's not as 'visible' to most traffic in/out of Huntington. As long as there's a legitimate plan in place to have those folks find a comparable or better place to live that's affordable, it's a great project for everyone involved.

 

[Rock98Dog]

The trend in public housing, and its been going this way for a long time in larger cities, is decentralization. Basically the theory, which I believe is correct, is that when you put a lot of people on public assistance in a small, defined area you are setting them up for failure. You want to disperse the group throughout the city so those families see more than just other project residents everyday. It also decreases the congregation which leads to street violence and crime (like at the infamous 7-11 on Hal Greer).

That's what they are trying to accomplish. They are going to rebuild some housing there, but lower density, and dispersing the remaining residents.