Watch: Housing Authority Leader Announces Grant To Redesign Troubled Greene Homes Apartments

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Jillian Baldwin, executive director of Park City Communities that manages the city’s public housing stock, joined Mayor Joe Ganim to sign a $500,000 federal grant to redesign The Hollow neighborhood’s Greene Homes Apartments on the edge of Downtown plagued by maintenance, violence and infrastructure issues.

This process is years in the making that will include, according to Baldwin, input from residents.

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  1. Knock them down. putting more money into that hell hole is ridiculous. Sorry , yes they have some good people there , but the gangs are running it and its drugs and crime infested. Fixing them isn’t going to change the environment that’s will still be there!!!
    Now if you can promise that you will put ever gang member behind bars and eliminate all the drugs that go thru there then hey maybe you can get somewhere…..
    NOTT

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  2. WOW!!!
    Eight years in office almost completed for Ganim2 and he holds a meeting for a document signing for a $500,000 planning/design grant specific to the Greene Homes with the Executive Director of Park City Communities during the last three years, which manages the HUD funded properties affecting the lives of 12,000 citizens city-wide.

    Why hasn’t Ganim2 been more vigilant over City housing issues? He has allowed Fair Rent and Fair Housing Commissions to remain dead and inactive in Bridgeport, a DTC tradition for 20 years or more. It is not as if the voters among the 12,000 residents are not important to the continuation of incumbent power. But what attention is otherwise given to the ‘quality of life’ of those residents between elections? What are the rules for political activism on the PCC properties? Rather than banning one community activist publicly, why is Ms. Baldwin, or the community resident who chairs Park City Communities, Cowlis Andrews, appointed by the Mayor not telling us what the rules are at all City housing units they manage?
    .
    According to Coach T , he reports on resident level issues and concerns with a human environment that includes “gang management” rather than encouragement of resident governance today at Greene (or at each of the PCC properties.) The recent article by Brian Lockhart (CTPost), mentions a Greene Homes resident involved in self- governance in 2018. Where is such self-governance present today at Greene Homes or at other PCC properties? Aren’t these the people in democratically elected groups, the actual residents who have experienced success in coming together to establish problems, issues, and genuine concerns widely shared with Baldwin, entirely absent from the scene today? Does Ganim2 or HUD program director Baldwin really care about these people, or just the buildings and funding as resources? Where is an Executive Summary for each of the past five years for the totality of Park City Communities efforts, managed in the recent past by Baldwin, as well as reports on Baldwin Holdings, an entity adjunct to Housing Authority of Bridgeport for the past 14 years? Time will tell.

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  3. A $500,00 grant to “redesign” the Green Apartments sounds a lot like the $3,000,000 grant to redesign the Congress Street Bridge (I believe that there were others adding up to about the same amount that were requisitioned for the same purpose, years earlier, in the latter case) …

    In any event, it is doubtful that even if the $500,000 is dispersed and applied to a redesign effort, it won’t accomplish that purpose and much more time and “redesign”$ will elapse before any sort of replacement of that terribly troubled neighborhood is accomplished… It’s just another “bridge too far” for Bridgeport…

    All that Bridgeport derived from the $3,000,000 federal “redesign” money for the Congress Street Bridge was the loss of a rare, inland shipping channel that reached well into the East Side (adjacent to the North End) that had served large manufacturing and warehousing concerns for many decades, up until recent times, and which could still serve as a vital transportation link in future Bridgeport redevelopment efforts.

    Now, one has to wonder if the same, nefarious federal sources that used bridge replacement as a means to help kneecap a real Bridgeport economic resurgence will also use housing-development replacement as a means to keep Bridgeport as the socioeconomically-depressed “housing hub” needed to support Gold Coast/suburban prosperity/lifestyle by maintaining Bridgeport as a “servants quarters”/dumping ground(?)…

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    1. Jeff,
      Good catch on dibursement rather than dispersal of funds.
      An even better observation of decisions that are made “on high” but by whom we never really know. And how are folks in Bridgeport to determine when Council Committee meetings as well as Boards and Commissions have their own ways of discouraging public participation or even awareness as to how material their agendas may be.
      Where is public input, seriously, when Federal, State, or City dollars or resources are called for in a plan or program. How will Park City Communities deliver on the expectation created to solicit input from current tenants, from City Council members who represent the residents, and how do those residents participate in self-governance? It is not the first time I question City procedures. Who can or will answer the questions raised? Time will tell.

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    2. I hear that Jeff, 500K, Please? 🙂 I believe upwards of around 2.5 million is needed for the ZOO tiger den. That’s what G2 and Gomes each spent on this election cycle and counting.

      I wouldn’t say the down, Congress Bridge knee-capped a real Bridgeport economic resurgence. What do you think the Prot is going to ship out? 🙂

      However, the replacement of The Greens Homes is a heavy lift.

      PS speaking of bridge replacement. 🙃

      https://www.ctinsider.com/connecticut/article/ct-billion-dollar-bridges-infrastructure-amtrak-18456623.php

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