Troubled area transformed

• By JEREMY HARPER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 19, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Willie Johnese was afraid to let his children play outside when they visited him for weekends back when he lived in the old East Boulevard public housing complex in Old South Baton Rouge.

“There was criminal activity and drugs everywhere,” he said. “You didn’t know if you were going to have anything in your apartment when you came back home.”

After years of delays, the housing complex property in Old South Baton Rouge has been transformed into a polished neighborhood of single and multifamily homes called RiverSouth.

With an $18 million federal grant, 171 public housing units were torn down and replaced with 48 new units. What was once a multistory housing complex is now several blocks of bright houses with neatly manicured lawns.

“It’s 900 percent better. I’ll put it that way,” Johnese said. “I don’t have to worry about my children. They can go out now and play.”

Though it has been at least partially occupied since April, local housing officials held a ceremony Thursday to officially open the development along Thomas Delpit Drive and Polk Street between Kansas and Colorado streets.

Several neighborhood residents said the development so far has met their expectations.

Jacqueline Franklin, 39, a longtime resident of the neighborhood, lives with her mother in a two-bedroom apartment in RiverSouth. She said the new construction and an increased police presence have dramatically improved the safety of the neighborhood.

“It’s been wonderful,” she said. “It’s really quiet and peaceful sitting outside on my porch, talking to my neighbors.”

The project was funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI (Helping Out People Everywhere) neighborhood revitalization program.

HOPE VI relocated dozens of families during the construction of the new development. A projected two-year wait turned into more than five years after Hurricane Katrina caused labor shortages and higher construction costs, said Pat Robinson, director of HOPE VI.

“I do apologize to all the residents who were displaced for that length of time,” said Richard Murray, executive director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority.

While mostly residential, the development also includes two mixed-use buildings that should be occupied in the next few weeks once the contractor completes a few final touches, Robinson said. Tenants for those buildings include the Housing Authority and the Baton Rouge Police Department, which will lease office space for a few officers working in the area, she said.