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About 50 people demonstrated in front of Mayor Ray Nagin's house Saturday, demanding the reopening of public housing in New Orleans. Nagin was not present for the demonstration, which capped off a week of several major developments concerning public housing in the city that once boasted about 3,000 apartments that typically rented for $85 a month. During the week, Nagin sent a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking Secretary Alphonso Jackson to immediately place a thousand units into service and open an additional thousand units within 90 days. Nagin also asked that 750 scattered sites, possibly using modular homes, be set up. On Thursday the Louisiana Housing Authority approved $80 million in tax credits to help developers build nearly 7,000 apartments in Louisiana, most of which would be located in the housing-starved New Orleans area.
A long-running effort by the Person County school board to find a site to replace an archaic bus garage could be coming to a conclusion. After months of searching for an alternative location to the one along Leasburg Road, school district leaders are eyeing the old fairgrounds along Virgilina Road. Schools Superintendent Ronnie Bugnar was asked the chances on a scale of one to 10 that the site is going to be the best place. "I would say at this point it's certainly an eight," he replied. "I don't see any problem with it," school board Chairman Gordon Powell said. "It all appears to be going well and we don't anticipate any major problems there." County Manager Steve Carpenter said he believes light is at the end of the tunnel now. "We're always optimistic," he said. "They'll eventually get it worked out." The school board last month agreed to a 90-day option to buy from the landowner, Bernard Fogleman.
WHAT: Presentation of the final plans for a new home to be built on the vacant lot at 1112 Villa St.WHEN: 6 p.m. Wednesday WHERE: St. Catherine's High School, 1200 Park Ave.Architects, UW-Milwaukee students joining forces for revitalization projectsRACINE - The vacant lot at 1112 Villa St. may soon become a single-family home as part of a project aimed at getting architects to work directly with neighborhoods to make them better.The project grew out of a charge the American Institute of Architects gave its chapters: Find a way to give something back to your communities.John Holz, incoming president of the American Institute of Architects-Milwaukee, said their membership wanted to show the community "architects are in the trenches, rolling up their sleeves and working for them."Holz, who is also a senior project designer at Plunkett Raysich Architects in Milwaukee, charged architecture students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with designing affordable, single-family homes for select sites in Racine and Milwaukee."In our initiative, we're not just putting up a house on a vacant lot," he said.
Have you ever searched high and low for that just right piece of furniture only to find everything on the market to be a few inches too wide, a few inches too tall, or a few inches too deep? That's the challenge many clients bring to Portland based Showcase Designs, says owner Grant Hamilton. The solution? To have a piece of custom furniture made that's just right, he says. Exactly What You Want A division of Showcase Furniture Gallery, Showcase Designs focuses solely on building custom furniture piece by piece. "The beauty of custom furniture is you can get exactly what you want," Hamilton says. "Not almost what you want." Shop manager Doug Wilson and a crew of 15 skilled carpenters build all of the company's made-to-order furniture at a 30,000 square foot state of the art woodshop on Hayden Island.
South Carolina has the 10th fastest population growth in the nation, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Upstate's housing market shows it. South Carolina and Georgia were among the top 10 fastest-growing states in terms of population change from July 2005 to July 2006, according to the Census Bureau information. South Carolina was the 10th fastest-growing state, with a 1.7-percent population increase. Georgia was the fourth fastest, with growth of 2.5 percent. Georgia also was among the top 10 states in terms of the raw number of additional people living in the state in the past year, with a population growth of 231,388. The number of Anderson County housing units grew by about 6,000, to 79,350, between 2000 and 2005. The increase presents an opportunity for reviewing whether the available housing is affordable, said Michael Cunningham, assistant county administrator.
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