Heritage Crossing at 5 was prepared by University of Maryland graduate students in the Spring 2008 community planning studios study of a HOPE VI development in Baltimore City. The purpose of the studio and paper was to examine how a completed HOPE VI community satisfies the aims of federal housing policy and how it functions as a community in general.
Heritage Crossing is an affordable housing development with 75 public housing units and 185 subsidized for-sale units targeted to moderate income first time homebuyers. One of the guiding principles of HOPE VI is equity between public housing residents and homeowners. Areas of equity explored in the paper and presentation include appearance of units, responsibility, control, investment, and services. Although HOPE VI is primarily a housing program designed to improve former public housing sites, there are other components of the federal policy beyond bricks and mortar that are intended to create healthy and thriving communities. These areas include community organization, amenities, surrounding neighborhoods, and management. Implications for gentrification and urban renewal include: 1. Reconciling the expectation of equity between homeowners and public housing residents when the relationship in the community is inherently not an equitable one? 2. Defining successes: is the goal achieving the broader policy goals of improving former public housing sites and distressed communities or improving the lives of former public housing residents and other low income families? 3. As more mixed-income and mixed-tenure projects are developed in our post-industrial cities, who will bear the responsibility for and the ownership of these communities when there are potentially conflicting interests? + Lessons in design, management structure, and using community space for building social capacity were revealed through the research and could potentially be applied to other HOPE VI, gentrifying, or mixed-income communities.