Homeless in Arizona

I wonder what percent of those new projects are government pork programs created by the same thieves who brought us light rail???

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Projects update public housing

Mesa developments will be near rail line

by Gary Nelson - Dec. 9, 2012 08:47 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

With a few halting swipes of a giant backhoe Thursday, Mesa's mayor marked the symbolic end of a 70-year-old housing project with a bittersweet past.

He also marked a new day for public housing in the city.

Still wearing his business suit -- sans hard hat -- Mayor Scott Smith climbed into the cab, got a few pointers on how to run it, then dug the claw into the roof of a small cement-block dwelling that had been home to generations of families.

The Escobedo Apartments, on the north edge of Mesa's downtown, are giving way to a two-phase redevelopment that will provide low-income housing just a few blocks from a future light-rail line.

Thursday's ceremony was the second in two days -- and the third within the past month -- as Mesa receives a sudden infusion of affordable housing strategically placed to take advantage of light rail.

On Wednesday, a few miles west of Escobedo, ground was broken for new apartments at the La Mesita Family Shelter, which has housed homeless families in a World War II-era motel since 1991.

Escobedo also dates to that era and is interwoven not just with Mesa's history but the nation's.

During the last years of the Great Depression, Mesa decided to use federal money to build Escobedo for low-income families. But before they could move in, Uncle Sam requisitioned the complex for African-American airmen training at Falcon Field, northeast of the still-tiny town.

The city regained control of Escobedo in 1947, and the complex remained officially segregated until the 1960s. Even after that, its tenants were predominately Hispanic and Black.

Two views of Escobedo emerged from comments of some of the approximately 200 people at Thursday's ceremony.

One was that of Teresa Brice, a longtime Mesa activist who is executive director of Local Initiatives Support Corp. in Phoenix, an agency that promotes community sustainability.

Brice would have been Mesa's first Hispanic mayor had she defeated Keno Hawker in 2004. Thursday, she was at Escobedo for memory's sake.

Her mother moved into the complex shortly after it opened, Brice said as she took photos.

"It's bittersweet but exciting," she said of the redevelopment.

To Councilman Alex Finter, Escobedo brought memories of America's segregated past.

"This was very symbolic of the not-so-good things in the community," said the Mesa native. "It's never represented something positive to me."

Finter said he was "giddy" at the prospect of seeing the old units disappear.

It wasn't as easy as that for Maria Mancinas, president of the Washington Escobedo Advisory Committee.

The longtime neighborhood resident said the old apartments are "reminiscent of so many beautiful stories," and when discussions of tearing them down began, "it was hard to let this go."

Most neighbors eventually accepted the new project, she said, because it will be sensitive to the area's heritage. Four of the old buildings will be saved, along with the stately trees that shade them, for use as offices and a museum celebrating Escobedo's legacy.

Mesa decided in 2007 to close Escobedo and move its residents into voucher-assisted housing because necessary renovations would have cost $1.7 million the city didn't have.

The three public-housing projects now under way in Mesa all are products of a federal tax-credit program created during the Reagan administration.

Investors get a tax break for helping to finance housing that otherwise might not attract the necessary funds. This year, the Arizona Department of Housing, which awards the tax credits, gave extra credit to projects tied to public transit.

The projects in a nutshell:

Escobedo at Verde Vista, 125 E. University Drive. This joint project of Gorman and Cos. LLC and Mesa-based Save the Family Foundation will be developed in two phases. It will include 70 low- to moderate-income rental units and a social-services campus from which Save the Family will expand efforts to help nearby residents.

La Mesita Apartments, 2254 W. Main St. A Mesa-based social services agency called A New Leaf and Native American Connections are building 80 units of affordable housing, which will replace most of the old family shelter.

Encore on First Avenue, an 81-unit senior complex at First Avenue and Center Street, the first major construction in Mesa's downtown core in about 25 years, is being built by Mesa Housing Associates.

Michael Trailor, director of the Arizona Housing Department, spoke at both Mesa groundbreakings last week.

"As we talk about ending homelessness in Arizona, I don't mean to demean the problem," he said Wednesday at La Mesita. "But it's really a math problem. If we have 8,000 homeless people in Maricopa County, we just need 8,000 homes."

A new home such as an apartment at La Mesita, he said, "allows people to overcome the demons that have caused them to live on the streets for so many years. For many of them, it's a path toward becoming a self-sufficient, productive citizen again."

He added, "Not only is that the right thing to do for those citizens in our community who are less fortunate than we are, but it also helps us as a community to get better."