This is a great piece of reporting which details exactly the struggle around the Estuary Housing project. The Housing Authority had allowed the homes to become further and further degraded and then wanted to demolish because they put no money into it. Of course it was easy to decide to displace the residents of Estuary Housing because they were largely non white and the Chairman had already expressed his opinions about Black people and their lack of motivation to improve themselves like the lady in the letter yesterday.
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
The Western Projects, current site of Esperanza, were a predominantly if not whites-only, until a few Black Estuary project residents were relocated there.
Your headlined quote reminds me of what i’d say was my most important argument about Alameda’s Housing Authority. With the 1937 Housing Act, local authorities were established to either do slum clearance or provide low-cost housing. Alameda sought neither of these objectives. As redlining map Area Descriptions and Woody Minor have pointed out, Alameda had no “slums.” Alameda established the AHA in order to maintain local land use control. With the Navy and wartime build up, city leaders wanted to control how land would be used and ensure land use earned profits for tax rolls.
Comment by Rasheed — December 21, 2022 @ 6:43 am