H o u s i n g

with
Di g n i t y

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 Housing
with
Dignit y
Seventy-Five Years with the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority

1938-2013

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 In Memoriam
Hazel V. Morton

T
his book is dedicated to the memory of Hazel V. Morton. As the
28-year-old mother of one son, Morton became a resident of Eliza-
beth Park in 1955. She raised four sons and a daughter in a place
she described as “beautiful.” Morton worked for Akron Summit
Community Action, retiring in 1980. She then served as a leader of the
Tenants Council of Elizabeth Park. For Morton, public housing was “no
more or less than you make of it. I’ve been here all these years, and I
haven’t had a problem.” Her enthusiasm and determination became part
of the AMHA drive to secure a HOPE VI grant to transform Elizabeth
Park into Cascade Village. Morton’s appearances at public meetings re-
garding the grant brought her to the attention of Akron mayor Don
Plusquellic, who appointed her as the first resident member of the AMHA
board of trustees in 2003. She continued to support the expansion of social
and educational services for residents until her death in 2012.

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 Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Beginning
1937–1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Defense Housing
1940–1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Housing Veterans
1945–1954 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Quiet Years

1954–1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

The House That Jack Built

1967–1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

A Different Direction
1982–1992 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

A Changing Time
1992–2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

The New Century

2001–2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Trustees and Executive Directors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

© 1991, 2000, 2013 The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority

All Rights Reserved

This book, or portions thereof, may not be reproduced

without permission from the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.

This book was funded by the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.

Cover photo: Bruce S. Ford

3

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75 BRUCE S. FORD

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5
Acknowledgments

T
his book was made possible through the
efforts of many people. Our thanks go to the
board of trustees of the Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority, which supported this
important project from the beginning, and to
the AMHA staff members and others who
lent their time and expertise to both the original and
updated editions.
We are especially indebted to executive director
Anthony W. O’Leary for his commitment to
memorializing the proud heritage of the agency
and for his contributions to the historical accuracy.
Appreciation is extended to the current board of
trustees, including chairman John Fickes, vice-chairman
Leonard Foster, and board members Elisabeth Akers and
Thomas Harnden. Special thanks to Robin McNichol
for assistance with research, to Christine Yuhasz for
contributions related to early childhood, and to Sherri
Scheetz for assistance with proofreading and editing.
Appreciation is also extended to Diane Waite of the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for her expertise
on the topic of veterans.
For their personal recollections used in the 2000
edition, many thanks to former board chairs Louise
Gissendaner, Ray Kapper, and Kurt W. Laubinger,
vice-chair Leonard Foster, former trustees John Fink
and Jeff Wilhite, and AMHA staffers Thomas E. Gilbert
and Pamela A. Hawkins. Megan Ingham, Marie Ferrell,
and William Liska helped in locating archival materials.
We are also grateful to Paul Belcher, Dorothy Jackson,
Miriam Spiggle Lauer, David Levey, David Lieberth,
Terry Meese, Paul Messenger, Herbert Newman, Janet
Purnell, Claire Stewart, and Robert Turpin for their
contributions to the 1991 book, including oral histories
that became part of the Speaking of Summit Oral
History Collection.
Our thanks to the Akron Beacon Journal and
photographer Bruce S. Ford for photographs and
illustrations, and to the authors of the earlier editions:
Kris Runberg Smith, Stephen H. Paschen, and Michele
Lesie. Finally, we are grateful for the research and
expertise provided by The Osborne Group—including
writer William D. Jenkins, copyeditor Kathleen Mills,
designer Jonathan Browning of Brown Ink Design,
and project manager Richard Osborne.
BRUCE S. FORD

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 1

Introduction
The Akron Metropolitan serve as a member of the
Housing Authority was created board for 43 years, granted
75 years ago at the height of interviews in his late 90s.
the Great Depression. When asked about the early
struggles, his answer was
Founders Paul Belcher and characteristic of his low-key
Martin Lauer exhibited vi- demeanor: he saw nothing un-
sionary leadership, persis- usual about the legacy he left.
tence, and political savvy in But in fact, public housing in
establishing housing services Akron and around the coun-
for the poor. Housing was try stands as one of the few
seen as a way to both help remnants of the New Deal.
those in need and create jobs Public housing, which is resil-
for the unemployed. For more ient in addressing the chang-
than seven decades, AMHA’s ing needs of the community, is
successes and challenges have now accepted as contributing
mirrored the patterns of to the economic development
change reflected in the local of the larger community.
community and beyond. AMHA is grateful for the
2 Belcher, who went on to support over the past 75 years

6
6

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 7

75 Years of Excellence
of far too many to mention, 8
and is very much aware that
we entered the 21st century
with high-quality housing and
services thanks to this heri-
tage. Although federally subsi-
dized housing remains one of
the most controversial areas
10
of public policy—just as when
it began—AMHA continues
building for tomorrow.
These photographs
remind us of what has been
accomplished.
9

1. Cascade Village, a vibrant mixed-income

community, replaced Elizabeth Park with the aid of
HOPE VI funding.
2. Early childhood learning and development are key
strategies to address poverty.
3. AMHA’s Norton Homes Office and Community
Building, 1942
4. Award-winning Edgewood Village stands on the site
of AMHA’s second oldest public housing.
5. Curb appeal and management expertise
earned Gold Key Awards from the Northeast Ohio
Apartment Association.
6. Aerial view of Edgewood Village
7. Stephanie S. Keys Towers, a senior housing
development built in Stow in 1982
8. Marian T. Hall Senior Building, completed in 2012
9. Low-Income Housing Tax Credits underpinned
financing of the Retirement Residence of Green.
10. Vouchers assisted residents of Midtown
Apartments in relocating prior to the
building’s demolition.
11
11. Elizabeth Park, AMHA’s oldest
public housing, prior to
its demolition
12. Cascade Village Senior Center
(ALL PHOTOS: AKRON METROPOLITAN
HOUSING AUTHORITY)

12

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 The first AMHA building project was Elizabeth Park Homes, pictured here under construction on July 30,
1940. The earliest residents were very happy with the modest, comfortable apartments. For many, it was their
first home with all the “modern conveniences.” The housing project also provided a real sense of community.
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

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 The Beginning
1 9 3 7 – 1 9 4 0

I
t took a tragedy, the perseverance of two men, and the misfor-
tunes of Canton to bring public housing to Akron more than 75
years ago. Although the United States Housing Act of 1937 cre-
ated the federal program, communities had to provide local ini-
tiative, administration, and support in order to bring public
housing to town. A local architect, Martin P. Lauer, provided the
initiative and, with the assistance of banker Paul E. Belcher, gener-
ated enough support to establish the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority on January 27, 1938.

One-Man Band
After an automobile accident killed his son, Akron architect Martin
Lauer sought a project to channel his energies. Ernest Bohn, an old
friend from his early career days in Cleveland, interested Lauer in a
developing field that was gaining increasing political support: public
housing. As director of the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Author-
ity (CMHA), Bohn lobbied nationally for legislation supporting pub-
lic housing and, after several years of work, found success in the
Wagner-Steagall Act of 1937. Also known as the United States Hous-
ing Act, it allowed loaning funds to local housing authorities for
slum clearance and decent housing for low-income families.
Bohn was also the first director of the National Association of
Housing Officials (NAHO), and in November 1937 he brought the
association’s fourth annual meeting to Cleveland. The meeting fo-
cused on the implications of the new federally subsidized housing
program. Lauer attended the meeting with “many misgivings,” be-
cause after considerable public discussion regarding low-income
housing in Akron, “the outlook seemed rather hopeless.”
Lauer came away from the conference, however, filled with inspi-
ration. “After listening to all this for several days,” he wrote, “it be-
came clear that provided this was done and that was done and many
other things, that we in this community could profit by taking ad-
vantage of the Act and really begin to clean up some of the sordid
areas existing in our community.”
To overcome what Lauer rightly felt was the greatest hurdle—
gaining enough public support to secure federal dollars for the pub-
lic housing program—he sought the aid of a man he knew only by
reputation as an excellent and inspiring speaker. An energetic and
dynamic young lawyer with the First Central Trust Bank, Paul E.
Belcher had gained a following as a public speaker by persuading
local groups to once again believe in the banking industry after the
bank holiday in 1933 shattered customers’ confidence.
Belcher agreed to join Lauer in his efforts, and together they
formed an alliance that would last the next 23 years. In 1939, as
chairman of the fledgling Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority,
Belcher spoke before the sixth annual NAHO meeting. “When . . .

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 The Beginning

[Belcher] gave his talk entirely without notes in his characteristic

forceful manner, everyone sat up and listened,” Lauer later reported.
“He was characterized at the conference as a regular dynamo.”1
Lauer had chosen well.

United States Housing Act of 1937

When President Franklin Roosevelt initiated his broad, sweeping so-
cial programs in 1933, collectively promoted as the New Deal, Bohn
and others had attempted to include public housing for the many
lower-income families hurt by the Depression. With limited success,
some public housing was built under the Project Works Administra-
tion, including the Green Belt cities like Greenhills outside Cincinnati.
PAUL BELCHER
BOARD CHAIRMAN, 19 3 8 – 19 8 2
A few local housing authorities were established, including the Cleve-
land Metropolitan Housing Authority, and the National Association
of Housing Officials was formed in 1933. However, a Supreme Court M uch was written about Paul Belcher over
the years he served as AMHA’s chairman of
the board, but very little of it was negative. That
decision against federally created public housing prompted support-
says a lot about the man who held a visible
ers to turn their attention to legislation that would legally set up a
position in an often controversial organization.
program to provide housing for low-income families.
When an overwhelming majority sent him back to the White He worked with five directors, providing a
House, Roosevelt at his second inauguration spoke elegantly of philosophy that gave the housing authority
continuity and respect. When asked why he
“one-third of a nation ill-housed.” The votes in Congress material-
stayed with the agency, he replied, “I was willing
ized long enough to pass the Wagner-Steagall Act, or the United
to do it because I could see that . . . [AMHA]
States Housing Act of 1937, and the president signed the controver- was accomplishing a purpose and we were being
sial bill on September 1. Largely in response to the Depression, the successful. I’m a lawyer, and I’m not afraid of
bill passed during a brief period when political forces happened to controversy; I thrive on it. If I have to overcome
line up to support public housing. opposition, that’s my meat and potatoes.”
Of all the New Deal programs, public housing was perhaps the Born in Gallipolis, Ohio, Belcher graduated
one least in harmony with the American myth of “making it on your from Ohio University. He started as a messenger
own” and with the Puritan work ethic so ingrained in society. Even at Peoples Savings and Trust in 1922, and as
the National Association of Housing Officials acknowledged from the bank grew, so did Belcher’s responsibilities.
the beginning that the program would require a hard sell. In promot- He retired in 1973 as chairman of the board for
ing the cause, they emphasized such issues as creating more jobs, what became First National Bank.
buying local materials, assisting in slum clearance to make a safer The skills that earned him a reputation at the
city environment, and producing housing for the lower class, some- bank—a quick mind and an excellent speaking
thing that was economically infeasible for the private housing indus- style—also made him an extraordinary board
try to build.2 chairman for AMHA. He worked closely with
Against the backdrop of the Depression, with its “Hoovervilles,” all the directors, developing community and
national relationships that lasted through the
mass unemployment, and visible poverty, the time for public hous-
years. With the board, Belcher encouraged that
ing—if there ever was to be a time—was now. When normal economic all decisions be unanimous. “We took the
stability began to return, the housing coalition quickly fell apart. position that there were just five of us and none
The Act set up a framework for housing and slum clearance as a of us are getting paid for this,” he explained.
federal responsibility. It involved federal loans to construct housing, “Following that kind of approach, most of them
and federal subsidies to enable lower rents for those in need. Yet it were perfectly willing to go along with whatever
also tried to decentralize public housing and ensure local participa- recommendations I eventually had to make.”
tion and financial responsibility. It established the first permanent Belcher never claimed AMHA success for
federal agency on behalf of low-rent subsidized housing but man- himself, asserting it was a group effort. But
dated the creation of state housing authorities, which in turn al- Belcher deserved much credit because,
lowed communities to establish local housing authorities. These while so many housing authorities became
authorities could then sell tax-free government-backed bonds to embroiled in politics and forgot their mission,
he kept AMHA growing and serving the needs
pay for actual construction. The federal government would pay the
of Akron families.
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 The Beginning

authorities a subsidy over a 40-year period to retire their debt on

the buildings while the rents from tenants would pay for operations
and maintenance.
To further complicate the process, the Housing Act also empha-
sized slum clearance, an early attempt at urban renewal. It required
that a unit of slum housing must be razed for every subsidized unit
constructed in a city. However, the slums cleared did not have to be
in the same area of town as the new housing, a concept which proved
confusing to the public and local officials. This requirement became
unworkable, and by 1940 was eliminated. Housing authorities had
to show a local need for low-cost housing and had to raise 10 per-
M. P. LAUER cent of the cost (which could include the value of the land acquired).
D I R E C TO R, 1938–1961
While the property became exempt from taxes, housing authorities

S erving as an advocate and the first director

of the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority, Martin Philippe Lauer was a man with
usually paid 10 percent of the tenant’s rent to the city for services.
Finally, before public housing projects could be approved by the Fed-
eral Housing Administration (FHA), the local city government also
vision. At age 50 he had lost his only son in an
needed to sign a letter of agreement for the selected building site.
automobile accident and began looking to
redirect his talents and energy. His career
Proponents played down the social implications, but the realities
background led to his advocacy of public were clear. “You must provide dwellings and accommodations for
housing. A Cleveland native, he had apprenticed the population of the community which cannot pay economic rent
under Gustav Bohm, a well-known architect. because of substandard incomes,” explained Hugh Pomeroy,
While he designed several projects such as the NAHO’s field service chief. “This is a field in which private enter-
Summit County Home in Munroe Falls, and the prise cannot operate profitably—cannot break even.”
Trianan Ballroom in Akron, much of his early The problem was compounded by the fact that the people who
career focused on engineering.
needed housing the most were too diverse and unorganized to speak
Taking on the AMHA directorship in 1938, for themselves; thus, their only voice was with elected officials, mak-
Lauer worked for much of the first year without a ing public housing a political issue. So here was the challenge facing
salary. He persevered through the public storm Lauer and Belcher: In order to bring public housing to Akron they
of controversy and remained director for 23
needed to sell a politically unpopular and rather complicated pro-
years. When he died on April 16, 1967, at the
gram to the community and, more importantly, to city officials.
age of 80, the Akron Beacon Journal lauded him:
“He was a man of vision and determination and
he had the courage to fight for what he thought Meanwhile, Back in Akron
was right.” When U.S. Representative Dow Harter secured from the Wagner-
Steagall Act $5 million earmarked for Akron, the strings attached
Early in Lauer’s tenure, the paper described him
as “quick-tempered, thin-skinned and painfully
and the social implications made the money a double-edged sword.
blunt, yet kind-hearted almost to a fault.” A The first step to secure the funds required the creation of a housing
colleague recalled, “He has never been known authority, an independent local agency that operated somewhat like
to run away from a battle and often has been a school district. To date, only four cities in Ohio—Cleveland, Co-
known to start one.” lumbus, Cincinnati, and Youngstown—had such arrangements,
“It annoys him when casual acquaintances call formed before the necessity of a state board. The founding of Ak-
him Martin, although he does not object to ron’s authority was stalled when the state held up the formation of
M. P.,” observed the author of a feature article. the Ohio Housing Board and the selection of a chairman. Sure that
“New acquaintances will get along with him sooner or later it would have to pick up the tab, the state balked at
better if they call him Mr. Lauer. He does not involvement with public housing.
discuss his beard, but is believed to have grown Finally on December 24, 1937, Akron received state authoriza-
it at an early age to cause himself to appear
tion to organize. A little more than a month later, on January 26,
older than his years.”
1938, at the Builders Exchange building at 640 North Main, the
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority officially began its service
to the community.
Not surprisingly, at that first meeting Martin P. Lauer became

11

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 The Beginning

executive secretary and Paul Belcher was named chairman of the

board. As the federal law required, various government officials
appointed members of the housing authority board based on rec-
ommendations from Lauer and Belcher. Mayor Lee D. Schroy
named A. W. Dickson, executive secretary of the Builders Exchange,
and A. J. Frecka of the Tri-County Building Trades Council. Judges
of Common Pleas Court selected Forrest L. Myers, president of the
Akron Real Estate Board. The county commissioners tapped J. R.
Barr, and probate judge Dean May rounded out the board with
Belcher. They established an office at 31 North Summit Street and
set boundaries for activity that included all of Summit County ex-
cept for Sagamore Hills. The reason for its omission was to keep
the housing authority independent of the control of county govern-
ment, per state legislation.
Just a week after their appointment, the board members left for
Washington, D.C., to meet with officials and try to get $1.8 million
for Akron. “They returned home with a pledge for the amount,” ac-
cording to Lauer’s annual report. Despite this quick victory the com-
munity remained skeptical, an attitude reflected in a Beacon Journal
editorial: “We hope also that it [AMHA] keeps its goal constantly in
mind. The primary purpose of the housing authority is to rid the
community of slums and provide low-cost housing for people who
need it.” The editorial also complained that no one on the board had
any experience with the social aspects of housing.3
The areas most frequently mentioned for the first public housing
project were Lakemore and Sawyerwood, southeast of Akron. Saw-
yerwood began as a fishing tent camp, but as the booming rubber
industry intensified the need for housing, the tent camp became per-
manent. The result was many people living very close together with-
out adequate water, sewers, or streets and in very poorly constructed
buildings not meant for year-round living. About 50 families lived
within 800 square feet.
While public support ran high for assistance to the area, it be-
came apparent after AMHA was organized that, as needy as Sawyer-
wood was, it lacked the necessary city services to qualify under the
program. So AMHA began considering sites in Akron that met with
the approval of the federal guidelines, and of the local political pow-
ers that soon threatened to overwhelm the fledgling authority.

Cooperation from City Council

To get operations up and going, the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority requested $15,000 from the county commissioners—who
promptly turned them down. The commissioners were not “sold” on
the plans for low-cost housing. More importantly, neither was the
Akron City Council, whose approval AMHA needed before federal
money could be released. The FHA required an Agreement of Coop-
eration between the local housing authority and the city government
to ensure some community control in public housing.
For the next two years, public housing polarized the Akron City
Council as members debated, stalled, postponed, passed, and then

12

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 The Beginning

rescinded, agreed upon, and then changed their minds about an

Agreement of Cooperation with the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority. As Lauer reported in 1938, “[The Agreement of Coopera-
tion from the city] precipitated a rather free-for-all dog fight. We
were all rather severely bitten.” Commenting on a second year of
turmoil in 1939, he wrote that “the year has been one pitched battle
after another.”4
The first confrontation came in March 1938, when the Agree-
ment of Cooperation came up before council. Besides the Agreement,
AMHA wanted the city to clear the slum properties—with the hous-
ing authority doing the rebuilding. But some council members were
tired of federal projects and accused this program of being just an-
other “piece of New Deal trickery.”5 Trying to persuade the council
at a public hearing a week later, Ernest Bohn, chairman of the Cleve-
land Council Housing Committee, promised, “You are going to get
into low-cost housing sooner or later because you have to do it.”
Reporting on Bohn’s success, Lauer commented, “It is regretted that
some of our council were not very courteous to Mr. Bohn.”6
The following week in late March, the Beacon Journal urged the
council to quit “dilly-dallying” around as an April 1 deadline ap-
proached for federal funding. Yet another week passed as council-
man Thomas Wigley charged that the rent would be too
high for the poor to afford, and that the program had
been misrepresented by the housing authority and the
newspapers as a slum clearance project. Councilman Burt
Secrest “heard that the houses which would be built
would be knockdown affairs sent in here by a mail order
house,” and Edmond Rowe claimed that “government
would step into Akron, ruin personal initiative, wreck val-
ues of private property, and set up distinct classes by stat-
ing who could live in the units and who could not.”7 With
such strong sentiment against public housing, weeks of
delays followed until April 25 when, with a vote of 10 to
3, an Agreement of Cooperation was finally reached.
But the battle had barely begun. FHA officials, dissat-
isfied with the city’s tacit agreement, requested an
amended resolution of cooperation, and so the fight over
Akron public housing began again in July 1938. Tensions
escalated at City Hall this time, as much of the argument
focused on site selection. AMHA lobbied for a Sumner
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
Park site—land on Inman Street that the city rented from
the Sumner Home for the Aged and used as a park. Sumner Home
trustees now wanted to sell the land in order to upgrade their newly
acquired Merriman Road property.
On August 2, Akron City Council gave approval for housing for
300 white families on the Sumner site. But a week later the council
rescinded the vote and then left on vacation until the end of the
month, leaving the housing authority in limbo. In the meantime, East
Akron residents organized and protested. Councilman Rowe claimed
that AMHA was “bringing the wrong kind of people who would

13

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 The Beginning

decrease housing values.” He also charged that public housing was

intended for slum clearance, and that Sumner Park had no slums.
The East Akron Board of Trade and a group calling themselves
the Sumner Park Protective Association held meetings and circu-
lated petitions. One of AMHA’s own board members, Forrest
Myers, also voiced his disapproval of the site. He favored one of
Akron’s worst slum areas, Elizabeth Park, a dilapidated black
neighborhood tucked out of sight beneath the North Hill Viaduct
along the Little Cuyahoga River.8
Myers was not alone in his choice of Elizabeth Park. School board “Is all this worthwhile?”
member and community gadfly Gus Kasch proposed taking almost wondered Lauer during
a square mile of the Elizabeth Park area for slum clearance. A few
days before the next meeting, councilman Luther A. Park sponsored this trying time. Why, he
an amendment to restrict AMHA to Elizabeth Park instead of Sum- thought, should he subject
ner Park. Covering the ongoing conflict, a Beacon Journal editorial himself to the daily
implied that opponents to public housing pushed to have the Sumner
Park property debated. They felt it would be easier to snipe at and onslaught of uninfor med
then submerge the whole program rather than look at Elizabeth councilmen? Believing
Park, which would be much easier to get approved and therefore the end was in sight,
allow public housing a toehold.9 The council did approve Elizabeth
Park in October, so the housing authority finally could go ahead Lauer continued to
with its first project, apply for federal approval of the site, and begin push public housing .
planning to acquire the property.
The city council fight became even more heated almost a year
later when the trustees of the Sumner Home for the Aged raised the
issue of public housing in Sumner Park again so they could sell the
land. This time the housing authority stayed out of the fight as East
Akron Board of Trade member Kurt Arnold bellicosely proclaimed,
“We cannot see our way to depreciate 1,000 homes so 26 old ladies
can have a comfortable haven.”10 While the Sumner Park property
was being debated, AMHA reminded council that the remaining
$3.5 million earmarked for Akron would be lost if they did not grant
approval on another site for public housing.
The city council then dropped the question of Sumner Park and
began a general free-for-all about public housing. Week after week
they deferred the issue. Nathan Straus, head of the U.S. Housing Au-
thority, telegraphed the council to threaten that, without their coop-
eration, Akron would lose the $3.5 million. The fight continued to
rage as councilwoman Virginia Etheredge shouted that anyone who
voted not to take time on the project was “narrow minded and bi-
ased.” Councilman Secrest hurled a charge of improper interest at
council president Robert M. Sanderson, who answered “red faced
and quivering with rage,” calling Secrest “the smallest potato I know.”
Still they fought on. The next week Congressman Dow Harter
warned that “council can’t play horse indefinitely with this proposi-
tion.” But council simply tabled it for another 30 days—until after
November elections.11
Meantime, Akron’s organized labor, which strongly supported
public housing, opposed the re-election of the four vocal opponents
on council. The Beacon Journal demanded that the council “fish or

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 The Beginning

cut bait.” Editorials in the West Akron News proclaimed, “It is time we
called a halt to socialistic experiments [like public housing] and the
trend toward state socialism.”12
The members continued to battle, with a session in late October
that “produced the most dramatic scenes the council chamber has
witnessed in many a year.” One sickly councilman defied his doctor’s
orders and arrived at council chambers to cast his vote in favor of
public housing, only to have another member suddenly stricken ill
and have to be taken home.
“Is all this worthwhile?” wondered Lauer during this trying
time. Why, he thought, should he subject himself to the daily on-
slaught of uninformed councilmen? Believing the end was in sight,
Lauer continued to push public housing.13 The two-year battle fi-
nally ended after the federal government took away $2 million ear-
marked for public housing in Canton on October 30, 1939, be-
cause of that city council’s lack of action. The next day the Akron
City Council approved plans to build 274 units on Edgewood Av-
enue off Wooster Avenue.

A Campaign for Education

While Akron’s fight was more intense than that of most communi-
ties, it reflected the battle raging nationally over public housing. “Ev-
erybody was afraid of it,” recalled Belcher. “They thought that it
would change the conditions that existed at that time. Private initia-
tive would be supplanted by public initiative in the housing field.”
The private housing and construction interests, like the National
Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), vigorously opposed
public housing. Their membership locally represented the kind of
opposition that would continue to obstruct public housing both in
Akron and across the country. To combat the negative attitudes and
misinformation, Lauer and Belcher spent countless hours talking to
community groups, from the Lions Club to the North Akron Recre-
ation Association, from the Twenty-five Year Club of Summit County
to the Summit County Federation of Democratic Women.
“Our earliest activity,” said Belcher, “was one of creating an
environment in which the public would be willing to accept a pub-
lic housing authority and permit us to do what the [Wagner-Stea-
gall] Act provided.” An argument often presented by Belcher was
that “[national public housing] must be paid for whether Akron
gets any benefits or not; Akron has to pay taxes that in part go
toward this program,” and more plainly spoken another time, “If
our money has to pay for public housing, we want it spent in our
backyard.” The two men often showed a film called Housing in Our
Time and by 1940 had produced a 12-page booklet titled “Public
Housing Comes to Akron.”
Besides courting favor at home, the pragmatic board chairman
also realized the importance of outside support: “We had to cultivate
all the federal authorities, all the people who were connected with it
from the national level to the regional level, to the local state level,
and that was a great public relations effort.”

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 The Beginning

Whether nationally or locally, the housing authority tried to pre-

sent an image of an organization willing to negotiate and to compro-
mise if need be to expand public housing in Akron. AMHA tried to
balance the sometimes shrill concerns of the community with the
frequently changing demands of the federal government. “You
couldn’t really accomplish anything without money and all the
money was coming from the federal government,” said Belcher. “So
we had to satisfy the people at the federal level.”14

Elizabeth Park
Referred to as “Akron’s Little Harlem,” Elizabeth Park, hidden along
the Little Cuyahoga River under the North Hill Viaduct, became the
site for the city’s first public housing. Tucked down in the valley, it
had been home to much of Akron’s African-American population
since the middle of the 1800s. The Beacon Journal, writing in favor
of the site for public housing, described the area: “The houses there
are ripe for razing. It is one of the oldest sections of the city. Its con-
tribution to crime, vice and juvenile delinquency is notorious. Put- Some 120 dilapidated buildings, such as those
ting a federal housing project there would not only raise living condi-
shown here, were torn down to make room for
tions, it would benefit the whole city by cleaning up one of its most
the Elizabeth Park project. Irish immigrants first
antisocial areas.”15
settled in the area along the Little Cuyahoga River
The United States Housing Authority was less impressed with the
site, and countered that vacant land was much cheaper than buying when they found employment digging the canal in

land that must be cleared. The newspaper also published rumors that the 1820s. Throughout its history the area earned
Lauer was not willing to have a project at Elizabeth Park.16 At the a reputation for vice, poverty, and squalor, making
time, most public housing projects in the country served low-income it an easy candidate for slum elimination.
white families, not black ones. “That was not our first choice by any (AKRON METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY)

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 The Beginning

means, but if that’s where city council wanted us to go, that’s where
we were going,” recalled Belcher. “And so we went down in the valley
and established Elizabeth Park development.”
Once Akron City Council made the decision, Elizabeth Park
proved to be a difficult site on which to build housing. It took al-
most a year to obtain some of the necessary parcels of property.
The committee relocating families also struggled; housing in Akron
was already scarce in general and almost impossible to find for
African Americans. The architects found the site challenging be-
cause the river cut the property in two and created soil conditions
poor for building. Finally, before any construction could begin, 114
dwellings had to be razed. But given the city council’s disposition,
the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority made the site work.
Groundbreaking finally took place on April 11, 1940, just be-
fore crews began razing the buildings. George Thompson, execu-
tive secretary of the Association of Colored Community Workers,
turned the first shovel. Director Lauer claimed the date as the
“Emancipation of People from Slums.” Assistant law director Na-
than Koplin declared, “We are this day digging up earth that people
might live, instead of protecting ourselves
from bullets.”17 The men then took crowbars
and started in on Akron’s biggest construc-
tion job in a decade.
Once the project began, the long brick
row houses went up quickly under the North
Hill Viaduct. By November the first units
were ready. According to federal regulations,
the apartments could not be luxury ones, but
merely adequate in order to inspire residents
to be upwardly mobile. Each unit contained
a combination dining room and kitchen. The
kitchen boasted a sink and sanitary tub in
one unit for both dishes and the laundry.
Small, divided panes of glass made the win-
dows easier to repair. Steam heat ran
throughout the buildings, so tenants received
AMHA stressed that construction of Elizabeth Park
instruction on using the new utilities.
would bring employment to Akron, which in AMHA furnished a model apartment with Goodwill Industries
1940 still felt the sting of the Depression. Between furniture for $10 to demonstrate how nice the units could look.
200 and 300 men were employed during the Lauer also hoped one day to add to Elizabeth Park a medical clinic
construction, and most of the building materials and even a swimming pool because there were few places in Akron
were purchased locally. where African Americans could swim.
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
For the first residents, Elizabeth Park was wonderful. Many had
never had electric lights before, and some had not had running water.
According to new resident Gus Fletcher, “All I know is that we’ve
been married 50 years and this is the nicest place we ever lived.” Of
all the improvements, the one that impressed him the most was the
place below the bathroom cabinet to put old razor blades.
Families living in substandard housing or who were displaced got
first choice to move in. Before the opening, the Beacon Journal ran a

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 The Beginning

An architect’s concept of Elizabeth Park, with its 32

small article trying to negate the impression that Elizabeth Park was
neat brick building and recreation areas, made a
chiefly for African Americans. It explained that because Akron’s
sharp contrast to the slum conditions that existed.
population was something less than 10 percent black, African-Amer-
ican families would get only 10 percent of the units. When tenants (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

moved in, the percentages were actually closer to the reverse—with

15 percent white families and 85 percent African-American families.
A white family moving into Elizabeth Park starred in an AMHA-
produced film used to gather continued support for more projects.
By 1942, all white families had moved out of Elizabeth Park.
The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority was unusual nation-
ally for building its first project primarily for black families, and
even more so for hiring an African American, James Miller, to man-
age the site. Miller ran Elizabeth Park efficiently, creating a real sense
of community among the tenants. One resident who grew up there
recalled, “If you put fences around the yards, it would have been a
middle-class neighborhood.”
When Miller died in 1946, Lauer praised him as both ardent and
vocal in promoting the welfare of Akron’s African-American com-
munity. “He never had the ‘gimmes’ and believed that everyone, re-
gardless of race, creed, or color, should earn what they get.” A Beacon
Journal editorial stated, “Jim Miller was the type of citizen who is an
asset in any community.” C. W. Seiberling wrote that “by his wise
counsel and unselfish work he did much for our community, which
I assure you is a better community for his having lived in it.”

Edgewood and Norton Homes

While the Akron City Council fought over public housing, the Bar-
berton City Council with much less struggle unanimously passed in
October 1939 an Agreement of Cooperation with the Akron Met-

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 The Beginning

ropolitan Housing Authority. At about the same time as the ap-

proval for Edgewood in Akron, they passed a project to be built on
Norton Avenue.
Construction began in the fall of 1940 on both projects. Like
those at Elizabeth Park, the brick row houses each contained sev-
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
eral units, with about 300 units total. This was state-of-the-art
public housing for its day, boasting Georgian-style
architecture and recreation areas. But even as
Edgewood and Norton Homes began construc-
tion, AMHA faced a new challenge: housing de-
fense workers.

Notes
1. M. P. Lauer, “A Brief History of Public Housing 9. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal,
in Akron” (typescript), January 1950, p. 2. 2 October 1938.
2. National Association of Housing Officials 10. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6 October 1939.
Yearbook, 1937.
11. Akron Beacon Journal, 6, 10, 11 October 1939.
3. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal,
12. West Akron News, 26 October 1939.
28 January 1938.
13. Lauer, “Brief History,” p. 3.
4. National Association of Housing Officials
Yearbook, 1938 (p. 103), 1939. In the first 14. Interview with Paul Belcher, November 1988.
several years of the Yearbook, each housing 15. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal,
authority submitted an annual report. 2 October 1938.
5. Akron Beacon Journal, 9 March 1938. 16. Akron Beacon Journal, 28 January 1938.
6. Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, 17. Akron Beacon Journal, 11 April 1940.
minutes of board meeting, 16 March 1938.
7. Akron Beacon Journal, 23 March 1938.
8. During the month of August 1938, the battle
over Sumner Park filled the Beacon Journal’s
pages. Significant articles appeared on August 3,
4, 9, and 17.

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amha75FINAL15.indd 19 12/6/13 12:13 PM

 During World War II, people migrated to Akron to work in the burgeoning defense industries that had to
quickly retool for war production. The sudden influx brought on a severe housing shortage. East Barberton
Homes, pictured here, were constructed to replace the Van Buren Trailer Park. The trailers had been brought
in as temporary lodging for the families of the many workers at Babcock & Wilcox. Unfortunately, even after
East Barberton Homes were completed, housing was so scarce that the trailer park had to remain open.
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

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 Defense Housing
1 9 4 0 – 1 9 4 5

W
ith Elizabeth Park opening and Edgewood and Norton
Homes approved, it looked as if public housing had
become a permanent part of Akron. But if anything,
the opposition grew louder.
Late in 1940, the National Association of Real Es-
tate Boards passed a proposition that the United States Housing
Act should be repealed. Locally, real estate proponents had been
protesting AMHA throughout the year. Albert Ritzman, chairman
of the Ohio Board of Real Estate Examiners, called public housing
“obnoxious and cockeyed.” “The housing program,” he said, “is
not slum clearing but slum spreading, . . . it is not American, it is
un-American.”1
In April a recall petition was circulated against one of the council
members who had voted for a housing project near the airport.
Councilman John Head complained that the man circulating the pe-
tition was a “Real Estate Board stooge.” In August, a Beacon Journal
editorial accused the Real Estate Board of starting a whispering cam-
paign, promoting the idea that Lauer, Belcher, and a handful of oth-
ers were the only support for public housing. The realtors feared
being accused of selfishness and short-sightedness if they were too
public with their comments. C. C. Howell, president of the Real Es-
tate Board, claimed that big-city slum clearance was out of place in
a town like Akron since it had so much vacant land surrounding it.
This was not a place for apartments, but a city of individual homes.
Meanwhile, the Beacon Journal ran photographs of Akron’s
slums and featured stories of families living in squalor, revealing an
unpleasant side of the city most citizens rarely saw. In a Sunday
Forum Poll the newspaper asked, “Do you believe that Akron
should continue to seek federal housing projects?” Less than 10
percent of those who responded said no. The next question: “Do
you believe that slum clearance projects hold back building and
extend slum conditions rather than clearing them up?” This time
less than 15 percent said yes.2
However, even with such overwhelming public support, Mayor
Lee Schroy disapproved a third housing site on Seiberling Street near
the municipal airport. He called for time to observe the Elizabeth
Park and Edgewood Avenue projects before committing to another.

The Debate
While the debate over public housing continued in Akron, M. P.
Lauer was requested in June 1940 to travel to Washington, D.C.,
where he sat as a member of the Defense Housing Committee of the
United States. Later he recalled:

It was at this meeting that we were informed that despite

anything that anyone might say we definitely were getting into
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 Defense Housing

a war, and that it would be necessary in the industrial centers

of the United States to build Housing Projects for the express pur-
pose of accommodating workers who would be called into the vari-
ous industrial centers. This Committee was cautioned about talking
of a war, as it was fearful that we might be termed warmongers; and
to announce that we were going to build a Housing Project for de-
fense workers had to be handled rather diplomatically.3

On June 28, Congress amended the United States Housing Act of

1937 to authorize its use for housing defense workers, and on
October 14 they passed a basic defense housing law, the Lanham
Act. Instead of slum clearance, the priority in public housing became
housing defense workers. Said Langdon Post, special assistant
to the administrator of the U.S. Housing Authority, “Rehousing is
just as much a part of national defense as building battleships.”
Federal agencies concerned with housing, Post remarked, are
“strategically situated to play an important part in the national
defense setup. They are just waiting for the curtain to rise so they can
take their cues.”
Such arguments did not impress members of Akron City Council.
The war in Europe remained far away for most Americans. When the
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority requested 300 more family
units, councilman Luther Park accused Lauer of being pernicious and
misleading to attempt to tie housing to the national defense program.
“The arguments for housing formerly were that it was needed to find
jobs and eliminate slums,” said Park. “Their arguments are shopworn
so now they have a new one. The inference is that if you’re not for
defense—you are a traitor or a filthy ­communist.”4
Early in 1941 as the war in Europe expanded, both Lauer and
Belcher were called back to Washington to discuss defense housing.
Officials regarded Akron as a key industrial center because of
the rubber parts in bombers, artillery, tracks and tanks, gas masks,
and nonrigid airships. They agreed that the Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority would accept the responsibility for building
defense housing in Akron. The units would be owned by the federal
government and need no local approval, unlike earlier public
housing projects.
AMHA became the first local housing authority chosen to build
a defense project directly for the Federal Works Administration.5

Skep tical Akron

News of the housing agreement at home merely refocused the hous-
ing debate, raising questions as to the need for additional homes. The
West Akron News opined, “Akron lost 12,000 people from 1930–1940
so why do we need new housing? Akron will have no difficulty in
taking care of any mechanics who may move in on war orders.”
The real estate community also protested that no housing short-
age existed. “We anticipate no future shortage,” claimed C. C.
Howell. Four days later on February 8, 1941, however, his com-
pany ran a sales ad for a boarding house which boasted, “Increas-

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 Defense Housing

ing employment and the housing shortage will make this a profit-
able investment.”
The United Rubber Workers sent out telegrams endorsing defense
housing and attacking the “selfish real estate interests.” “Local real
estate interests oppose the defense project because they want to force
an increase of rents . . . and because they want to unload sub-stand­
ard houses on defense workers at exorbitant prices.”6 Real estate
interests countered that they were not being given an opportunity to
show they could handle the housing situation.
“We anticipate no future After Earl Smith, president of the Akron Real Estate Board, pro-
shortage,” claimed C. C. tested that private enterprise could take care of any growth Akron
might experience, National Defense Housing coordinator Charles
Howell. Four days later on Palmer killed the 300 units for the city approved by President Roos-
February 8, 1941, however, evelt. The next day, on March 5, 1941, the Beacon Journal headline
his company ran a sales ad read: new goodyear airplane parts factory will employ 5,000.
The paper encouraged people to advertise rooms for rent to ease the
for a boarding house which housing shortage, while Smith promised that 1,000 new rental units
boasted, “Increasing would quickly be made available.
employm ent and the housing Belcher charged the Real Estate Board with failure to recognize
the gigantic scope of the national defense effort. The East Akron News
shortage will make this a reported that homeowners and businesses had bitter feelings against
profitable investment.” First Central Bank because of Belcher, and there was a movement to
boycott the bank. Even the Beacon Journal remained somewhat skep-
tical about any tremendous growth, but did admit that “if there is [a
housing shortage], building men must take the blame.”7 To prove the
housing need, surveys multiplied, produced by a range of organiza-
tions including the Akron Real Estate Board and the Defense Coor-
dination Committee.
Regardless of local opinion, on April 24, 1941, Charles Palmer
gave the go-ahead for a $1 million 300-unit defense housing
project on Cole Avenue. Defense housing also gained two more
projects with Norton and Edgewood Homes, under construction
since January by the housing authority. Edgewood would have
274 units in 36 buildings and Norton Homes would have 219 units
in 42 buildings. Planned for low-income families before the need
for defense housing arose, construction on the projects had slowed
in the fall because the housing authority was unable to get
priorities on building materials. AMHA solved the problem by
making both projects part of defense housing, thus ensuring access
to needed supplies.

No Rooms for Rent

As the country geared up to enter World War II, Akron became an
important industrial center. In October 1940, the first major war
contract went to the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation for six blimps
to help track German submarines. At the airship dock, the com-
pany had employed 30 workers to make airplane bomber parts in
1939. By 1942 the company was hiring at the rate of 1,000 a month
and in 1943 had 33,500 on the payroll.
Over at Firestone, 1,500 anti-aircraft guns a month came off the

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 Defense Housing

production line, along with tank tracks, machine gun cartridges, and
gun turrets. The B. F. Goodrich Company produced all types of rub-
berized clothing. Akron historian Karl Grismer claimed it was un-
likely that any American soldier went through the war without using
some piece of Goodrich-made apparel. Akron companies supplied
millions of tires, for trucks and tractors, for jeeps and bulldozers, for
fighter planes and staff cars. They made “Mae West” life vests, life
rafts, rubber pontoons for bridges, and barrage balloons.
In 1939 Akron manufacturers employed 52,656 people. By 1944
the number had climbed to 130,253. With much of the traditional
workforce enlisting to go off to fight, the companies hired women
and older men, as labor scouts recruited throughout the southern
states to round up more workers.8 “The federal government told
By the spring of 1942, arguments about the need for housing in the housing authorities what
Akron had ended—because there was no housing. One week the
Beacon Journal listed only two unfurnished houses for rent. they wanted, and it was up to
The paper urged homeowners to make spare rooms available. us to present specific plans
It ran one hardship story after another about families trying to and specifications for what we
make do, living in garages, in places with no water, men separated
from their families. It wrote about the plight of workers trying to wanted to build in a given
answer want ads only to find the apartment taken, or finding no area. Because of our contacts
children allowed. with various federal officials
The city faced the worst housing shortage since the rubber boom
of 1917 and 1918; in Washington, D.C., Akron’s housing problem that we had developed, they
was recognized as one of the toughest and most acute in the nation. looked upon us, I think, even
In an analysis of the problem, Beacon Journal writer Karl Grismer to a greater extent than we
blamed it on two factors: (1) Akron failed to heed government
warnings of needed housing, and (2) the government failed to be upon them fo r guidance.”
straightforward about its planned defense role for Akron. What- —Paul Belcher
ever the reasons, AMHA found itself in the spotlight for filling the
desperate need.

Building, Building, Building

There was an air of urgency at the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority, with one building project seeming to start after another.
Some projects like Ardella Homes began almost without notice,
while others, like Wilbeth-Arlington, were covered step by step by
the local paper. After the Cole Avenue project came plans for 500
units at South Arlington and Wilbeth Road. Wilbeth-Arlington, as it
became known, was temporary housing constructed of concrete
block. In preparing the site, crews saved the topsoil for victory gar-
dens and then promised to respread the dirt over the entire area after
the buildings were torn down at the end of the war.
“The federal government told the housing authorities what they
wanted, and it was up to us to present specific plans and specifica-
tions for what we wanted to build in a given area,” explained Belcher.
“Because of our contacts with various federal officials that we had
developed, they looked upon us, I think, even to a greater extent than
we upon them for guidance.”9
By early February 1942, the housing authority approved the

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 Defense Housing

contracts for the 500 units at Wilbeth-Arlington and in March

signed off on the Ardella Homes project. Made using “panelized”
construction instead of concrete blocks, the 160 units in Ardella
Homes were built for African-American families. The same con-
struction was used for a site known as South East Homes. In 1944,
500 units known as Hillwood Homes were completed, as were the
240 units named East Barberton.
With each project Lauer became increasingly frustrated with the
lack of workmanship and the problems with supplies. The earlier
cement block construction found at Wilbeth-Arlington soon gave
way to quicker, cheaper building materials. Finally, Lauer refused to
accept the recently completed East Barberton Homes project. He
found “warped floors as high as six inches, practically all of the
plumbing leaking, floors badly stained, and not one window opera-
tive in the entire Project.”10
The housing units failed to meet ever-expanding defense needs, so
the federal government brought in trailers for the Akron workforce.
In December 1942 the first trailers arrived at a park on South Arling-
ton Street and were opened to families in May 1943. That spring,
240 more trailers, known as Van Buren Trailer Park, came to Barber-
ton for the specific purpose of relieving the labor housing situation
at the Babcock & Wilcox Company. When constructed, East Barber-
ton Homes was to replace the trailer park, but the housing situation
remained too tight and both projects remained full.
The trailer parks provided central laundries, toilets, and show-
ers. Tenants bought their own oil for heating, gas for cooking, and
ice for the coolers. While some families were pleased to have shel-
ter, others complained that the beds were bad and bathrooms
shared by four families quickly became a mess. The sites offered no
shade and no place to play for the almost 300 children who called
the trailer parks home.

Instant Housing
Even with the temporary dwellings and the trailer parks, Akron
needed more housing, especially for African-American families. So
the federal government added “mobile units,” a cross between a
trailer and a house built by the Palace Coach Company. Set up on
vacant lots and resting on wooden foundations, the units looked like
trailers until the sides were swung out, creating a 24-foot living/din-
ing room on one side and two bedrooms on the other. The bathroom
and kitchen occupied the center section.
About 570 mobile units on vacant lots dotted the city, though
most were concentrated in the South Arlington area. African-Amer-
ican families rented about 200 units, placed in areas “that won’t
cause trouble.”11
Although the mobile units relieved some of the housing short-
age, it quickly became apparent that these mobile units were fire-
traps. The square, compact houses became potential bombs with
heating and cooking units that could easily be misused. The hous-
ing authority provided instructions for the new equipment, but

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 Defense Housing

after a number of fires and several deaths, sprinkler systems were

installed. In the winter, poorly fitting doors and windows let in the
cold, while the roof insulation caused severe condensation, creating
roof and wall leaks.
AMHA also built dormitories near Ardella Homes for workers
from Jamaica jointly recruited by the War Manpower Commission
and the rubber companies. Four buildings held 270 men who ate in
a common cafeteria. At one time during the war, AMHA housed
almost 400 Jamaicans both in the dormitories and at the Van Buren
Trailer Park. Unlike the majority of tenants, Lauer wrote, “[The
Jamaicans] have been a constant source of annoyance as they are
destructive of property, extremely demanding and not inclined to
be too clean.”12
Between the temporary dwellings, the trailers, the mobile units,
and the dormitories, the housing authority made strides in reducing
Akron’s housing shortage. But the makeshift structures were not
without problems. The cold winter of 1944 revealed a lack of proper
insulation, freezing hundreds of pipes. The authority formed an
emergency team to wage war against the leaking plumbing. Many of
the projects lacked good drainage and tenants battled mud or dust,
depending on the season.
Yet the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority filled a critical
role in wartime Akron and had done it almost overnight. In 1940 the
authority housed only 104 families. Just four years later, almost
14,000 people called AMHA their landlord.

The Tenants
Workers employed by local defense industries and their families
filled the overgrowing number of units. Workers with families
residing outside the city received preference. Families came from
all over the country. In Norton Homes there was even a South
Dakota Club. In Barberton, Mexican families lived on one side
of the trailer park and Southerners lived on the other. People
from 38 states called Hillwood home. Blacks from the Deep
South occupied most of Ardella Homes. In general, folks from
West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee represented the largest
part of the population. Many of these new tenants had never
had indoor plumbing, did not know how to use a gas stove, and
some were frightened the first time they heard the sound of a
flushing toilet.
Turnover was fairly low in the housing projects, with the exception
of the trailers. There was no other place to live in Akron. Some of the
projects formed close-knit communities, while others had their share
of disturbances—especially considering the number of children being
raised among families with different backgrounds in such close quar-
ters. In Hillwood Homes, 1,117 of the 2,224 tenants were children.

Hous ing African-American Families

The defense housing was not under rent control as was Elizabeth Park.
But most families living in Elizabeth Park enjoyed higher wages be-

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 Defense Housing

The well-planned brick buildings of Elizabeth

cause of defense work. By the end of 1942, 52 percent of the families
Park and Edgewood Homes gave way to quickly
there had income too high to qualify for the rent-subsidized project.
constructed housing developments like Hillwood However, AMHA balked at evicting them, in part because housing for
Homes, erected to ease the city’s severe housing African Americans was even harder to find than for white families. To
shortage during World War II. Because of the rubber solve the dilemma, Belcher announced that rents would be raised and
companies, Akron became an important center the housing project would be self-supporting during the war since the
to the defense industry and attracted thousands majority of the workers were in defense.
of new workers.
The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority received complaints
from the African-American community about Edgewood Homes. The
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
project displaced black families but they were not allowed to sign up
for apartments. AMHA, like most local housing authorities in the na-
tion at that time, practiced segregation. When the first Akron Inter-
racial Clinic was sponsored by the Akron Ministerial Association in
1945, Lauer attended but did not follow up on the group’s recom-
mendations. The clinic encouraged integration, no public housing
built in unhealthy or unsightly locations, and the addition of a black
member on the public housing board. While AMHA could boast about
the quality in buildings, Edgewood Homes would not be integrated
for 10 years and William Fowler, the first African-American board
member, would not be appointed until 1961.

More Than Housing

As the defense industry took off and Akron’s population soared,
complaints grew about juvenile delinquents, lack of child care, and
housing shortages hampering the factories. Besides the housing
problem, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority took on child
care when no other agency in the city responded to fill the need.
When the schools refused to participate, the Works Progress
Administration cooperated with the housing authority to set up
child-care centers at Edgewood Homes. A few months later, in May
1943, the agency received money from the Lanham Act for addi-

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 Defense Housing

tional child-care centers. “The Akron Metropolitan Housing Au-

thority,” said Belcher, “was the first one in the country to sponsor
a child-care program and it is the first one to which a federal grant
has been made.”13
Mary Cook, who held a Ph.D. in child care, oversaw the centers
at Edgewood, Cole Avenue, Norton, Ardella, Elizabeth Park, and
two at South Arlington. After AMHA’s success, the Ohio Civilian
Defense Office argued that it should run the program. “It was said
that we are largely a building and engineering organization, not de-
signed for child care,” responded Lauer. “The housing authority
builds, manages the tenant buildings, provides playgrounds, recre-
ation centers and child care centers, all in accordance with the law
and its purpose.”
After a 1944 ruling from the Ohio attorney general that it was
not within the province of the housing authority to carry on such
programs, the AMHA board created the nonprofit Summit County
Child Care Association. Under this name, child care at the Akron
Metropolitan Housing Authority proved to be very successful, and
when the federal money ran out in 1945 there were protests in order
to keep them open.
Defense housing workers and their families enjoyed a range of
services, often provided in conjunction with other organizations. The
Akron Community Service Center sponsored classes on homemak-
ing at Elizabeth Park, and the Akron Health Department offered a
New Baby Clinic. At Wilbeth-Arlington, home nursing was taught.
Most housing projects had recreation programs, tenants councils,
and organizations like the Girls Club, Boys Club, and Mothers Club.
At Edgewood, under the management of Mrs. M. P. Lauer, tenants
published a newspaper, the Edgewood Home Bulletin. They also en-
joyed a hobby shop sponsored by the YMCA, a Sunday school, and
a nursery. Edgewood Homes sponsored a flower garden contest
judged by a landscape engineer who personally furnished prizes of
unusual daffodil bulbs. The Ministerial Association provided a full-
time worker to get people interested in Sunday services. The public
library maintained branch libraries in several projects.

Gaining Acclaim
Unlike the reaction during its infancy, the Akron Metropolitan Hous-
ing Authority received a great deal of positive publicity and praise
from community leaders during the war years. The Beacon Journal
apologized for its prewar short-sightedness about housing shortages
and praised Lauer for his vision. Many lauded Lauer’s role in the
child-care centers. Nationally, the federal Public Housing Authority
exhibited photographs of neatly kept Cole Avenue with its white
buildings and wide lawns.
The local papers frequently ran human-interest stories featuring
defense housing, most of it positive though some less flattering, like
a report in January 1941 when the housing authority evicted its first
family who failed to pay rent. The most unusual story came out
when a family left Edgewood Homes for three days during fumiga-

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 Defense Housing

tion. AMHA had understood they were going to stay with relatives.
Evidently arrangements fell through, so after the mother with several
small children got tired of walking around, they took shelter in a
Glendale Cemetery mausoleum. Police rescued them about midnight
in the middle of a storm after the caretaker thought he saw someone
on the grounds.
By the war’s end, AMHA controlled 2,794 units of housing within
Akron and Barberton. Belcher summarized the war years for the
housing authority as “a period of great rapid development. And hav-
ing developed it in this fashion and given the public an idea of what
we could do and how we could do it, it created a reputation on our
part so that the public itself came to the conclusion that whatever we
[AMHA] said we’d do, we’d do.”14
The housing authority would not see another era of real growth
until after 1967. Thus, the legacy of World War II defense housing
would define AMHA for the next 20 years.

Notes
1. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 27 August 1940. 8. Karl H. Grismer, Akron and Summit County
(Akron: Summit County Historical Society,
2. Akron Beacon Journal, 8 August 1940.
1952).
3. M. P. Lauer, “A Brief History of Public Housing
9. Interview with Paul Belcher, November 1988.
in Akron” (typescript), January 1950, p. 5.
10. M. P. Lauer, “Yearly Report to the Akron
4. Akron Beacon Journal, 30 July 1940.
Metropolitan Housing Authority Board of
5. M. P. Lauer, “Yearly Report to the Akron Directors,” 1944, p. 2.
Metropolitan Housing Authority Board of
11. Akron Beacon Journal, 11 July 1943.
Directors,” 1941, p. 2.
12. M. P. Lauer, “Yearly Report to the Akron
6. Akron Beacon Journal, 19 February 1941.
Metropolitan Housing Authority Board of
7. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal, Directors,” 1945, p. 2.
17 March 1941.
13. Akron Beacon Journal, 18 March 1943.
14. Belcher interview, 21 November 1988.

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 Akron, like most urban industrial areas, faced a critical shortage of housing during and after World War II.
This property was typical of late 19th century construction showing a great deal of deterioration by the 1940s.
This apartment building was demolished to make room for the construction of Edgewood Homes.

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 Housing Veterans
1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 4

T
hough the National Housing Agency foresaw defense hous-
ing needs long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, they had
given little consideration to the need for veteran housing
after V-J Day. As veterans started to stream back, their expec-
tations for a home of their own caught housing experts and
city governments by surprise.
After four years of fighting for their country, veterans looked
forward to settling down with their new brides in new homes
bought with GI Bill loans. Over a million more marriages took
place between 1940 and 1944 than in the previous four-year pe-
riod. While the number of families grew during the war, however,
private building did not. Except for defense housing, there had
been no homebuilding since Pearl Harbor. And workers living in
defense housing showed little inclination toward going back to
wherever they had come from.
By the end of 1945, according to an Associated Press survey,
housing had become the number one problem in America. In Akron,
“the housing shortage which has been serious for the last four years
is now worse than ever before,” reported the Beacon Journal in
October 1945.
Housing was tight. The Veterans Information Center put scores
of families in cottages at Portage Lakes until winter hit. One veteran
living with his wife and six children in an abandoned dance hall near
Turkeyfoot Lake claimed, “I spent two years on Attu [Alaska] and
it’s colder in that old jive joint than it ever was up in the Aleutians.”
Frustrated veterans lived with in-laws, in converted garages, or dou-
bled up in apartments. As did the defense workers only four years
earlier, needy veterans raced to every advertised apartment, only to
find it filled or unavailable to families with children.
At first, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority did not see
itself as a player in the solution to the veteran housing shortage.
“There’s only one solution to the housing problem,” said Lauer. “Pri-
vate enterprise must get into it and do the job.” Yet surprisingly, most
builders initially expressed reluctance to begin any development. In
part, they still suffered from supply shortages, but most were protest-
ing government war housing regulations that required six-month
vacating notices and maintained rent and price ceilings.
The few houses available around town sold at inflated prices,
making ownership out of reach for most veterans—even with GI Bill
home loans. In Akron there were exceptions, like AMHA board
member Ray Heslop, who during the war had been the only builder
besides the housing authority to provide new housing on a large
scale. Right after the war, the Heslop Building & Realty Company
began construction on what would become the largest postwar hous-
ing project in Ohio.

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 Housing Veterans

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 Housing Veterans

By the fall of 1946, builders had ended their standoff with the
government and Akron experienced its greatest building program
since 1929. But even with all the building, housing in Akron re-
mained tight well into the 1950s. AMHA ran a full house for the
next decade.

Defense Housing Stays Standing

In September 1945 the War Housing Center, which helped defense
workers, closed and in its place the Veterans Information Center
opened. AMHA, which had been on the front line for housing de-
fense workers, now found itself trying to meet the expectations of
the returning veterans.
In less than two months in the summer of 1945, the housing au-
thority placed 127 veterans and their families; by the end of the year
the authority’s waiting list had grown to 2,000 veterans who needed
public housing. At the same time, the turnover in the projects was
smaller than ever—as the vacancies predicted in defense housing did
not materialize after the war ended. An estimated half of the 15,000
families who came to Akron for defense jobs stayed after the war.
AMHA director M. P. Lauer wasn’t surprised. “To some the war
housing is the best they ever had,” he said. “They’ll want to stay.”1
Defense workers also held leases, ensuring housing for two years
after the war.
As the war drew to a close, the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority had made plans to dispose of its defense housing. In au-
tumn 1945, Lauer spoke before the Akron Real Estate Board and
promised that the defense housing would be taken down as quickly
as possible. Trailers would go first, then the mobile homes. Next the
The mobile dwellings brought in during the
frame buildings would be razed and then the concrete-block ones of
war continued to serve as housing until 1952.
Wilbeth-Arlington and Cole Avenue Homes. Lauer felt only Ardella
While a few residents made improvements on
Homes should remain standing. They had been built for African-
the poorly constructed, trailer-like buildings, American families who came to work in Akron’s defense industries;
most quickly became dilapidated. Lauer predicted most would want to stay in Akron, and if Ardella
(AKRON METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY) was razed, “where are they going to live?” Blacks in the city, who
could buy or rent only in certain neighborhoods, faced a housing
shortage twice as severe as that for white families.
Keeping his promise, Lauer tried to shut down the trailer parks.
But by January 1946, as the housing situation only grew worse in
Akron, Lauer gave in to community pressure and reopened the Ar-
lington trailer camp for veterans only. “We were tickled to be able to
move into the trailers,” recalled veteran Robert Turpin. He and his
new bride had been living in an attic apartment with a hot plate, no
running water, and the bathroom on the floor below.2
The newspaper carried daily stories of veterans frantically search-
ing for homes, making do with cellars, attics, or family guest rooms,
a situation that made even the trailers appealing. “It’s far better than
living with in-laws or crowded in small quarters with a lot of other
people,” reported one trailer dweller.
Housing problems continued to mount and, by the spring of
1946, the city and federal housing authorities agreed to share the

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 Housing Veterans

expenses of bringing in more public housing to add to the defense

housing. Under AMHA’s supervision, barracks brought down from
Kellogg Field in Battle Creek, Michigan, were placed on the shores
of Summit Lake. After frustrating delays caused by a shortage of
labor and plumbing supplies, the projects known as Margaret Park
and Lane Field opened in January 1947.
Veterans with the neediest cases were given priority for the units
after the housing authority received three times as many applications
as they had units available. While many were pleased with the hous-
ing, the quickly constructed projects were not without problems, as
veterans found out the next summer. The ungraded site and screen-
less buildings became mired in dust, mud, and mosquitoes.
Families in Margaret Park and Lane Field also discovered that
finding their own units at night was a problem. The Navy furnished
surplus battleship gray paint for the projects, which made the
buildings invisible at night. A year later AMHA repainted the build-
ings a cream color so residents could find their homes in the dark.
Veterans housed in units on Wooster Avenue faced other unique
problems when the Ringling Brothers­–Barnum & Bailey Circus
set up on vacant land behind them. Not only were the flies, crowds,
and odors overwhelming, but elephants ran into their cars parked
in the AMHA lots.

A Sense of Community “They would rather

In most of the projects, a spirit of neighborliness grew. The veterans pay rent than have to
were all about the same age, with children about the same age. go see Miss Spiggle.”
Wilbeth-Arlington and Hillwood Homes worked to establish a
YMCA. Hillwood Homes held a fundraiser to provide supervisors — a n o n y m o u s e m p l oyee
t o W i l b e t h - A r l i n g ton manager
on the playground after the city closed it because of a lack of funds. Miriam Spiggle
There were so many children at Hillwood that the former nursery
was turned into two classrooms, one for a kindergarten and one for
first grade. Community Chest funds operated a nursery at Edgewood
Homes for two years after federal funding ended. The Ardella House-
wives League sponsored such events as a children’s beauty contest
and garden beautification campaign.
Wilbeth-Arlington, with more than 500 families, functioned like
a small town with manager Miriam Spiggle serving as a stern but
respected mayor. “They would rather pay rent than have to go see
Miss Spiggle,” remembered one employee.3 The project even included
a clinic with a doctor and three nurses, and an interdenominational
church. Spiggle recalled later that, for her, the heyday of the project
was during those years with the veterans.

Closing Defense Housing

Edgewood and Norton Homes became the first projects to return to
normal after the war crisis. Unlike most AMHA-managed housing,
these prewar projects fell under subsidized housing guidelines—
which included income ceilings. In May 1947, Washington ordered
the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority to evict those families
over the income limit. Of the 769 tenants, 384 received notices, with

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 Housing Veterans

two years to find new homes. Civic leaders drafted an appeal to Pres-
ident Truman to lift the restrictions on evictions. He refused. Sup-
porting the president’s stand, the Beacon Journal stated, “It is proper
that low-rent housing should be restored to its original purpose.”4
The housing authority finally closed the Arlington and Van Buren
trailer parks at the end of the decade. In order to dispose of the trail-
ers, veterans could bid on them for $75 to $200. A lottery drawing
was held to select who would choose their trailers first. Almost twice
as many veterans attended the auction at the Arlington park as there
were well-worn trailers to purchase.
The Korean conflict in 1950 suspended AMHA plans to close
down the mobile units—“cracker boxes,” as Lauer called them. The
“temporary” defense units like Wilbeth-Arlington and Hillwood
Homes remained full and, while Akron’s housing crisis had eased
some, plans to raze them were abandoned.
“Akron’s temporary housing is getting more permanent all the
time,” commented the newspaper in 1951,5 when AMHA still had
1,200 families on a waiting list. The schools began to wonder, too,
since the veterans’ growing families affected their planning. Increas-
ingly, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority affected the city’s
planning and influenced growth patterns.
Defense housing built under the Lanham Act, such as Cole Ave-
nue, did not have the same guidelines as Edgewood Homes since the
Public Housing Authority, not AMHA, owned the buildings. A group
of veterans at the Cole Avenue project enjoyed living there and, rec-
ognizing the economic opportunities, proposed to buy it. Built early
in the war, the 300 units at Cole Avenue were more substantial than
later projects. The group incorporated in April 1950, changed the
project name to Park Lane Manor, and offered everyone living there
a share for $300. While AMHA would have preferred to take over
ownership, they assisted the veterans in negotiations with the Public
Housing Authority.
Before an agreement could be signed, however, the military con-
flict in Korea froze all government housing. It was not until June
1952, after several years of negotiation, that the group officially took
control of their tenants cooperative. Many of the families in the de-
velopment bought shares, but 10 apartments remained rentals.

Race Problems
Finally in 1953, the housing authority received orders to close the
mobile dwellings because of federal budget cuts. Since Akron was
one of the few cities in the country that still maintained temporary
dwellings, families received only five months’ notice. Making the
situation worse, of the 480 families affected, 280 were African Amer-
ican, who faced a much more difficult time finding new housing.
While the black population in Akron had risen 100 percent since
1940, rental properties available to them remained scarce. This was
true nationwide, as African Americans’ income had doubled during
the war but lending institutions were hesitant to provide mortgages.
With the wartime housing shutdown in Akron and across the coun-

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 Housing Veterans

try, many families got caught, being neither poor enough for public
housing nor rich enough to buy a home of their own.
The mobile unit evictions became an issue in the 1953 mayoral race
and prompted a survey by a group known as Americans for Demo-
cratic Action. Of 50 families living in the units, half white and half
black, 36 percent had three or more children. Thirty worked in the
rubber plants and only two families had cars as new as 1952. While
the white families maintained a slightly higher standard of living, only
five breadwinners took home more than $80 a week.

AMHA Gets War Housing

Also in 1953, the federal government made decisions on the de-
fense housing that originally was slated to be torn down three years
after the end of the war emergency. Congress amended laws to
allow cities control of the property built under the Lanham Act. In
Akron, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority was awarded
title to the projects if it acquired the underlying land. Under the
War Emergency Act, the government took the land by publishing
vague descriptions and then constructed the defense housing on the
leased land. AMHA took on the task of tracing land ownership and
then purchasing the property.
Excitement over the ownership quickly wore off as the housing
authority faced several challenges in acquiring the land. Hillwood
Homes became the first problem. A realty company had bought the
site from the original owners who had leased it to the government,
and offered to sell it to AMHA for an inflated price. The company
threatened to tear down the 320 units if AMHA didn’t buy the land.
The case went to court and on December 19, 1953, the parties
reached an agreement allowing the housing authority control of
Hillwood and South East Homes.
Wilbeth-Arlington, the best-built of the war housing (except for
Cole Avenue), came under AMHA ownership last. Wilbeth-Arling-
ton was owned by the Navy, which not only refused to relinquish the
project but also continued to require that Navy families receive pri-
ority. Of 500 families living in the development, only 19 had ties to
the Navy. Not until July 1954 did the Navy agree to give up Wilbeth-
Arlington. AMHA then tracked down the 138 different owners of
the land to acquire the property.
By the end of 1954, the agency possessed all the Lanham Act
properties, amounting to 1,572 units.

Ohio Taxes
In 1942 the Ohio legislature, never supportive of public housing,
changed the law that allowed public housing to be tax exempt. To
circumvent this provision, Ohio’s local housing authorities turned
over their projects, on paper, to the federal government. To punish the
state, the federal government then barred Ohio from any further pub-
lic housing since it was the only state in the country to charge tax.
When in 1947 the local housing authorities lobbied the state leg-
islature to change the law, the real estate interests fought back. “The

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 Housing Veterans

Akron Authority is doing a good job—they are doing a good job of

making their jobs secure,” charged realtor Earl Smith.
In 1951 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of public housing
after the state legislature passed a bill declaring that such housing had
a public purpose and that the housing authority should pay a service
fee equivalent to 10 percent of the value of the property taxes owed.
The margin was so narrow that bond attorneys were still hesitant to
get involved with financing projects. Yet conditions had improved
enough by October 1951 that AMHA was able to “buy” back Edge-
wood, Elizabeth Park, and Norton Homes from federal control.

The Housing Act of 1949

The battle among the National Real Estate Association, the National
Home Builders Association, and the National Association of Hous-
ing Officials over whether the government should build public hous-
ing came to a head in the postwar era. Those involved in the con-
struction industry considered public housing a step toward socialism
"Public housing is still in America; they contended they could build good housing for all
experimental, and the economic levels. NAHO officials, however, complained that private
enterprise had not proven its ability to provide decent housing for
experiment has been very low-income families. Democratic Senator Robert Wagner of New
much confused by the York and Republican Senator Robert Taft of Ohio managed to bring
intervening of the Second about a compromise bill that finally passed the liberal Congress pro-
duced by Truman’s surprise victory in 1948. The bill favored private
World War and the large enterprise by allowing the federal government to buy land in slum
amount of war housing areas and sell it at one-third of its value to builders to construct in-
constructed directly dustrial, commercial, or residential developments. Thus, urban re-
newal was the bill’s central concern, but there was also provision for
or indirectly by 135,000 houses per year. As a strong conservative, Taft was the crit-
the government.” ical factor in the compromise; he admitted that private enterprise
—Senator R o b e r t Ta f t could not provide affordable housing for low-income families, and
he convinced other Republicans, including U.S. Representative Fran-
ces Payne Bolton of Cleveland, to vote for the bill.
The Act could have given a boost to public housing. However, the
Korean War led once again to a drain on housing supplies and to
funding overall. Then the nation elected Dwight Eisenhower, a mod-
erate Republican, as president. Under Ike, the goal was reduced to
35,000 homes per year, as he funneled money into the escalating
Cold War and the development of nuclear weapons. Also affecting
citizens’ support for public housing was the continuing deterioration
of war housing that had been rapidly and poorly built, and then kept
going beyond its useful life because of the housing needs of veterans.
“Public housing is still experimental,” Senator Taft noted, “and the
experiment has been very much confused by the intervening of the
Second World War and the large amount of war housing constructed
directly or indirectly by the government.”6

The Referendum of 1952

Passage of the Housing Act of 1949 proved to be a signal for intense
local conflict over its implementation. Bitter campaigns were waged

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 Housing Veterans

against public housing in Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Houston,

Miami, and Akron.
At the same time, AMHA came under scrutiny to determine how
many over-income families were still living in public housing and
how many families on the waiting list really did qualify as low-
income. Actually, many of the residents were veterans, and officials
were reluctant to evict them because of the lack of decent housing,
but the doubts continued about the housing authority’s administra-
tive abilities. Despite the insinuations, council approved the units,
prompting the Akron Real Estate Board to call for a referendum
against further public housing.
The National Association of Real Estate Boards had already been
involved in campaigns in other cities and helped locally to organize
Citizens Against Socialized Housing, or CASH. “CASH is a stooge
for the NAREB,” Lauer claimed, citing literature the group distrib-
uted that had the board’s Washington, D.C., address on it. In turn,
CASH accused Lauer of being overpaid and allowing Cole Avenue
Housing to “get away.”
The Beacon Journal wrote that the “CASH charges against AMHA
and Lauer made for one of the hottest special issue fights in Akron
in many years,” and thought the race was too close to predict. But
when the vote came up in August 1952, Akron turned down public
housing by a two-to-one margin. “We underestimated the effective-
ness of the real estate lobby,” admitted the newspaper.7
Nationally, out of 60 such referendums, 40 were rejected and
20 approved. The combination of initiative and money from local
realtors, along with the national guidance, encouragement, and
coordination they received, proved effective against local housing
authorities. “We didn’t have any money to spend on a campaign,
we ­couldn’t,” recalled Chairman Belcher.8 However, Akron was
one of the few large midwestern cities to reject public housing,
and the restrictive referendum badly hurt low-income housing for
the next 15 years.
In 1953 housing remained scarce around the city and nearly non-
existent for low-income families. Akron had fewer units of public
housing per capita than most other Ohio cities, including Youngstown
and Dayton. While the newspaper continued to print housing hard-
ship stories, the president of the Property Owners Association of
Summit County proclaimed that “public housing smacks of com-
munism and socialism.”9 In the era of Joseph McCarthy and his
House Committee on Un-American Activities, these were strong
words to fight against, and to fight again would require another
referendum for public housing.

Mayor Slusser Goes to Washington

In July 1953, Eisenhower appointed Akron mayor Charles Slusser as
public housing commissioner, heading up the Public Housing Au-
thority for the country. The irony of his appointment was noted, as
he came from a city that had defeated public housing a year earlier.
“The mayor has taken little part in local public housing matters,

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 Housing Veterans

except to urge more of it for low income families whether negro or

white,” wrote the Beacon Journal.10
Summing up the challenge he faced, Slusser commented, “Public
housing long has been a storm center in Washington, with the ‘Real
Estate lobby’ versus Senate Majority Leader Taft. Improving public
housing relations with Congress and in hostile communities around
the nation is the big item.”11
If his own city proved to be any indication, Slusser had accepted
a very difficult assignment.

Notes
1. Akron Beacon Journal, 19 August 1945. 6. Akron Beacon Journal, 29 January 1949.
2. Interview with Robert Turpin, January 1989. 7. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal, 8 May 1952.
3. Interview with Miriam Spiggle Lauer, 8. Interview with Paul Belcher, November 1988.
November 1988.
9. Akron Beacon Journal, 22 January 1953.
4. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal,
10. Akron Beacon Journal, 6 August 1953.
31 March 1949.
11. Ibid.
5. Akron Beacon Journal, 15 August 1951.

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 Photograph, before remodeling, of Wilbeth-Arlington, the last of the war housing to be remodeled.
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

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 The Quiet Years
1 9 5 4 – 1 9 6 7

A
fter the conflicts in establishing the Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority and the tremendous growth during the
war, the 1950s and early 1960s were quiet times for public
housing in Akron and across the country. President Eisen-
hower expressed little interest in it and when he “left the
White House the public housing program was alive, but small, sterile
and widely unpopular.”1 Although John Kennedy pledged to meet
the vision of the Housing Act of 1949, he initiated few real changes.
The field of public housing witnessed a time of transition. In
major urban cities, high-rise apartments took the place of the row-
house-style projects favored in the early years. The cost and avail-
ability of land for such projects was one factor, but the desire to
segregate blacks in such buildings—especially in Chicago—was an-
other. In St. Louis a concrete complex know as Pruitt-Igoe won
national architecture awards for its design to house 2,800 families.
However, Ernie Bohn warned that such housing would not work
for families with children. Akron never built such high-rises except
for senior citizens.
Some housing officials, including Public Housing Authority di-
rector Charles Slusser, took an opposite approach and began pro-
moting “scattered sites”—homes and small complexes integrated
into neighborhoods. “It gives people more of a sense of individuality
and being part of a community,” explained a local expert.
Housing for the elderly created increased interest, in part because,
as housing expert Leonard Freedman wrote, “It taps the only remain-
ing reservoir of poor people who are white, orderly and middle-class
in behavior. Neighborhoods which will not tolerate a ten story tower
packed with negro mothers on AFDC might tolerate a tower of sweet
but impoverished old folks.”2 Congress first provided for housing of
the elderly in 1956. The Housing Act of 1959 established three new
housing programs specifically for the elderly, and in 1961 qualifica-
tions were eased for senior citizens to live in subsidized housing.
During the next decade, a gradual but major shift in constitu-
ency also changed the face of public housing. Initially, public hous-
ing had served white and black families that had fallen on hard
times during the Depression, but often were of middle-class back-
ground and values. With the prosperity of the 1950s, families with
more initiative worked their way out of public housing. This left
the very poor, often African-American, mostly fatherless families in
public housing, without the stability and leadership of the more
upwardly mobile families.
Growing public resentment against special services for the poor
caused Congress to curtail money for remodeling and rebuilding as
projects deteriorated. At the same time, rapidly expanding urban
renewal and highway construction programs displaced thousands of
families, mostly the black or elderly. This forced exodus only in-

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 The Quiet Years

creased the demand for decent low-income housing. While these

problems began to affect the Akron Metropolitan Housing Author-
ity by the end of the decade, for the most part the agency maintained
a low profile in the community until 1967.

Referendum of 1955
Beginning in 1954, several city council members initiated a cam-
paign to clean up Akron slums. While Akron did not have solid city
blocks of slums like many urban centers, it did have scattered pock-
ets of poverty. Slum landlords owned many of the old buildings
crudely divided into apartments. Often they lacked hot water, central
heat, or fire escapes. In one apartment investigators found a dozen
people living in two rooms sharing one toilet with no tub, no shower,
and no sink.
But to raze the dilapidated and condemned old buildings meant
new housing had to be found for their unfortunate occupants, and in
the city there was no available low-income housing. “It shows pri-
vate industry didn’t measure up and housing is needed,” wrote the
Beacon Journal.
Public housing went before the voters again when the Akron City
Council agreed 13-0 in June 1955 to put the issue on the ballot so
they could proceed with a slum clearance ordinance. “I don’t believe
public housing would be voted down by the people again,” assured
one councilman.
This time a Committee for Housing and Rehabilita-
tion was formed to support the public housing “en-
abling” legislation and to fight back against the real
estate interests. Drawing from diverse groups, the com-
mittee included members from the AFL, CIO, URW, the
Council of Churches, the AAUW, the Federated Wom-
en’s Club of Summit County, the NAACP, and the Jew-
ish War Veterans.
The committee tied the housing not just to slum
clearance but also to future plans for an expressway
near the central business district, asserting a lack of
housing would seriously slow relocation efforts for the
families affected. Mayor Leo Berg used public housing
as a campaign issue, promising the new units would be
Additional housing was built at Elizabeth Park
brick unlike the temporary war housing. Even the head of the Public
in 1956 to accommodate larger families. Inspecting
Housing Authority, Charles Slusser, himself a former Akron real es-
tate man, came out against the primary opponents, the National the building is M. P. Lauer; his secretary,

Association of Real Estate Boards. “They have taken a useful cow Mrs. Weyrick (right); and Elizabeth Park manager

[public housing], painted it black and hung a socialistic tail on it.”3 Wilhelmina Winston (left).
In the center of the storm, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Au- (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

thority, still stinging from the result of the 1952 referendum, refused
to enter the fray again. Said Chairman Belcher, “I took an awful belt-
ing the last time. I don’t want any more of it.”
In September, public housing once again failed in Akron, but this
time by a narrow margin, 51.6 to 48.4 percent. Proponents blamed
the loss on the fact Akron had such a high percentage of homeowners.

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 The Quiet Years

The living room of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Nurse,

who moved into the new building at Elizabeth Park

A Few New Units
after construction in 1956.
The loss of the referendums put the housing authority on hold. What
federal funds it could secure went to remodeling defense housing and
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
maintaining its projects. “Wherever it was possible to get into a field
the referendum had no bearing on, we could do that and we did,”
recalled Belcher.
AMHA did do some building during these years, using the
money earned from the war housing rents for construction to get
around the public housing referendums. African-American families
benefited from two of the projects. In 1955 Lauer designed 24
apartments for Elizabeth Park with four bedrooms and a full base-
ment to fill the needs of larger families. Later that year AMHA
announced plans for 28 units to replace slums in South Barberton.
Controversy reduced this project to 12 apartments, after taking
four years to resolve. In 1962 AMHA lost units when the housing
moved in by veterans at Margaret Park and Lane Field was torn
down to make way for the West Expressway.

Housing for Senior Citizens

In 1955 Lauer attended a conference titled “Housing and Living Ar-
rangements for the Aging.” He came back to Akron with an idea to
build specially designed units at Wilbeth-Arlington for senior citizens.
The units would be unique, “not unlike the better-class motels

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 The Quiet Years

that dot the Florida East Coast and the far West.” They would be
modified for older, handicapped people, with low cabinets and spe-
cial bathrooms. “We want a place where older folks can live decently
and independently without going to live with their children—when
the old folks don’t want to do it and neither do
the children,” said Lauer.4
Called Arlington Gardens, the 10 units opened
in September 1958 to much praise. Up to this
time, even nationally, little attention had been
given to housing the elderly and almost no consid-
eration to their special needs. However, for all its
good intentions, Arlington Gardens fell short of
its goal. Filling the units proved difficult because
at the time Arlington Street was too far away
from the services and friends older people needed.
AMHA also limited occupancy to couples.
Undaunted, Lauer tried again in 1960 with the
Cedar Hill Apartments, a two-story white brick
building near downtown for single senior citizens.
It proved to be a success and so another project
Arlington Gardens was Akron’s first public housing
was built at Pine and Chestnut Streets.
for the elderly. Designed to resemble a modern
The agency then asked city council to approve a federal applica-
tion for a seven-story high-rise for senior citizens, because the hous- motel, it boasted special features to make living

ing authority had run out of its own construction money. When the easier for those with physical disabilities.

Community Action Council asked about more family units, Belcher (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

blamed it on the defeat of the referendums and added that the Akron
Metropolitan Housing Authority was focusing on senior housing.

Life in the Projects

Each housing project, whether subsidized or former defense housing,
operated in a similar fashion. A virtually autonomous manager ran
each project. On staff were a cashier and a stenographer as well as
several maintenance men, depending on the size of the project. Pro-
spective tenants applied directly to the project in which they wanted
to live. The manager screened the tenants, accepting only complete
families. “Women with children but no husband give projects a bad
reputation,” said Lauer.5 He also complained about too many pen-
sioners: “The first thing you know we’ll be operating an infirmary.”
Tenants paid their rent to the managers and called them for mainte-
nance and repairs.
“The managers could get away with a lot,” recalled a former
employee. “[The projects] were like little fiefdoms.” While the man-
agers might have infringed on tenants’ rights, they kept the projects,
for the most part, well maintained and the evictions down. This strict
control kept AMHA better managed and better thought of than
many local authorities—and the tenants in public housing were often
given more rights than in most private tenant-landlord relationships,
especially when it came to evictions.
The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority hired both women
and African Americans for managers at a time when neither were

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 The Quiet Years

often given supervisory roles. According to Belcher, after some dis-

cussion the board said, “Look, this is an approach that is coming,
let’s do it. Let’s be a leader in this community and the industry.”6
Miriam Spiggle at Wilbeth-Arlington oversaw 600 families. Jeanie
Luella Thompson, with a background in social work, managed Hill-
wood Homes for 10 years, retiring in 1955. Her involvement with
the PTA led to the establishment of a kindergarten and a first grade
at the project. Like a number of managers, Nettie Dalrymple began
as an assistant at a project and moved up when a position opened at
Norton and East Barberton Homes. When Elizabeth Park manager
James Miller died in 1946, Wilhelmina Winston was appointed. She
first came to Elizabeth Park when it opened in 1940 and worked her
way up from cashier to assistant. During WWII she managed the Van
Buren trailer camp.
“So we got women, we got blacks, we got
minorities,” said Belcher. “We hired them and
they did well. And I think they were dedicated.”
The interest, the money, and the response
for social programs and activities at the proj-
ects quickly declined after the war and as vet-
erans moved out. A few programs begun dur-
ing the war continued, such as the weekly Well
Baby Clinic at Edgewood sponsored by the
Akron Health Department. Except for repairs,
tenants maintained their own units, doing the
painting and upkeep themselves. They cared
for their own lawns and gardens, and AMHA
held an annual lawn and garden beautification
Each housing development was similarly staffed,
contest after giving tenants fertilizer, topsoil, and grass and flower
with a manager and office assistants. With seed. The first-prize winner received a lawn chair. When the Pinecrest
Miriam Spiggle as manager, this is the office of senior building opened in 1963, Senior Citizens, Inc., which was
Wilbeth-Arlington in 1952. meeting in the Krumroy building, was given a clubroom.
(AKRON METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY)
Racial Issues
As the demand for racial equality grew in the 1950s, public housing
came under increasing scrutiny. The mobile unit evictions in 1953
raised the segregation issue at the Akron Metropolitan Housing Au-
thority, and continued pressure by the African-American community
about exclusion at Edgewood Homes kept the problem visible.
When in April 1954 an interracial group demanded the end to
tenant segregation in Akron public housing, AMHA announced it
would wait to act until the Supreme Court ruled on a pending case
known as Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education. In the landmark
case the court ruled against the idea of separate but equal schools for
blacks, banning segregation in public schools.
The implications of the case for local housing authorities who
managed “separate but equal” projects placed them in a no-win situ-
ation. With tacit public support at best, if the Public Housing Au-
thority mandated desegregation, they faced the certain loss of public
acceptance and tax dollars. In fact, shortly after the Supreme Court

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 The Quiet Years

ruling, Southern Democrats in Congress, angered by the decision,

changed their votes against public housing funding. The dilemma
raised the question that continued to plague public housing: Were
the agencies only to provide low-income housing, or were they to be
an instrument for social change?
After the 1954 Supreme Court ruling, the Akron NAACP asked
for Paul Belcher’s removal as chairman of the housing authority be-
cause of his unwillingness to change. Belcher insisted that AMHA
was following FHA policies on segregation and could not change
them without approval from the government. In January 1955, the
NAACP filed suit against the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Au-
thority to end segregation in Ohio’s capital. The next month, AMHA
announced that Edgewood Homes would soon be accepting African-
American families. In June, after Lauer had added 24 larger apart-
ments to Elizabeth Park, the black-run Ohio Informer newspaper
claimed the apartments were built “in order to salve us over so we
won’t be asking to move to the lily-white Edgewood.” The paper
added, “It is true that Paul Belcher is liberal about everything but
something where one of ‘us’ is concerned.”7
After the opening of Edgewood Homes to black families, racial
issues quieted at the housing authority until April 1960, when city
councilman Edward Davis asked for a written desegregation housing
policy from AMHA. Only a few weeks earlier, Belcher had an-
nounced that at the new senior citizen building at Cedar and Pine
there would be no discrimination against African Americans. “Inte-
gration at public housing here has been a slow gradual process,” he
added. Too slow for Ed Davis, who wanted a written policy that
covered not just the one building for the elderly, but the family proj-
ects as well. Davis, the city’s first black councilman, knew the prob-
lem firsthand, having lived in Ardella Homes after the war.
In August 1960, Davis’ tenacity forced the Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority to send the city council 25 pages of rental pol-
icy which said AMHA only discriminated against pets and appli-
cants who refused to say they didn’t belong to subversive organiza-
tions. The report did not satisfy Davis and the conflict continued
until July 1961, when he asserted there is “very clear evidence the
AMHA takes an extremely poor position on racial mixing in hous-
ing projects.” Lauer replied by calling Davis a “troublemaker.” “He
wants colored people any place,” retorted Lauer, “and that isn’t
going to work.”8
Three months later Lauer retired as director of the Akron Metro-
politan Housing Authority after 23 years. Two weeks after that, in
October, the city council asked AMHA to pass a no-segregation pol-
icy and issued these warnings: “[The housing authority’s] practice
made it liable to a federal lawsuit,” and “People have shown admi-
rable restraint in not taking action [against AMHA] so far.”
The housing authority assured council it practiced open housing.
It reported that as early as 1940, when Elizabeth Park opened, it was
85 percent black and 15 percent white, but by 1942 it was all black
because white families chose not to live there. Since Edgewood

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 The Quiet Years

Homes allowed open housing five years earlier, it went from all white
to 80 percent black.
Finally, on December 8, 1961, AMHA passed unanimously a no-
racial-discrimination policy, a full year before President Kennedy
ordered discrimination outlawed in federally assisted housing.

A New Director
After 23 years, at the age of 75, M. P. Lauer retired from the organi-
zation he had founded in 1938. Under his direction the Akron Met-
ropolitan Housing Authority grew from one which could not afford
to pay him a salary for the first year to one with a $3 million budget
A. W. DICKSON and a staff of 80 in 1961.
D I R E C TO R, 1961–1967
Over the years Lauer gained a “reputation for hitting hard, speak-

A llen W. Dickson joined the crusade

for public housing before the Akron
Metropolitan Housing Authority was created.
ing his mind, talking straight, and occasionally losing his temper,”
recalled a colleague. “His reputation has him typed as a very kind-
hearted man but slightly crotchety.” He fashioned the housing au-
An early ally of M. P. Lauer, Dickson was first
thority over much protest and often personal attacks. He oversaw
appointed to the board in January 1938 and
was reappointed every five years until he became
the tremendous growth during the war and secured defense housing.
director in October 1961. Besides Paul Belcher, Along with Belcher, Lauer courted regional and federal housing of-
Dickson served AMHA longer than anyone else, ficials, ensuring that AMHA always had its fair share of the public
yet his contributions were primarily housing pie even through the lean years.
behind the scenes. A Beacon Journal editorial paid tribute to Lauer: “He was a man
When Dickson first joined the board, he was of vision and determination and he had the courage to fight for what
executive secretary of the Builders Exchange. he thought was right.”
Over the years he had served as president After Lauer retired, the AMHA board appointed A. W. Dickson
of Summit Hardware and administrator of the to the directorship in October 1961. Allen Dickson needed no intro-
Tri-County Building Trades Welfare Fund. duction. He had joined Lauer in promoting the idea of public hous-
Perhaps Dickson’s greatest contribution to ing even before Belcher became involved in the late 1930s. Since
the agency, besides his many years of service, 1938 Dickson had served on the AMHA board. He was administra-
was the work that began under him for the tor of the Tri-County Building Trades Welfare Fund and past execu-
construction of AMHA’s first high-rise, later tive secretary of the Builders Exchange. He was also president of
known as the Belcher Apartments. Summit Hardware, Inc.
At age 67, Dickson continued to operate the housing authority
as it had been run during the years he served as a board member.
There were few changes between the Lauer and Dickson adminis-
trations, although Dickson dealt more squarely with the racial is-
sues facing AMHA.

The Dark Side of Urban Renewal

Racial problems for the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority
were exacerbated by federal urban renewal programs in the city. The
federal government required suitable low-income housing for fami-
lies forced to relocate, which Akron lacked. Some put the blame on
the failed referendums that prohibited AMHA from constructing
new family housing. The renewal projects also raised questions about
segregation in Akron because many of the relocated families were
African American.
In 1959 a lack of housing for 1,360 displaced people delayed
work in the Washington-Grant Street area, just southeast of down-
town. When the city created the innerbelt highway route in 1963 just

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 The Quiet Years

west of downtown, the issue of inadequate low-income housing

came up again. In 1967 the urban renewal program south of down-
town, known as Opportunity Park, also raised questions involving
the housing authority when 65 percent of the 1,414 families dis-
placed were African American.
Urban renewal, with its segregation overtones, brought the Akron
Metropolitan Housing Authority and many other authorities across
the country to public attention. Besides the referendums’ restraints
and a lack of federal funds, public housing in Akron had gradually JACK SAFERSTEIN
DIRECTOR, 1967–197 3
fallen into disfavor. According to new director Allen Dickson, many
of the families relocated did not even want to live in public housing.
Only 34 families out of 500 displaced from the Washington-Grant
Street area program moved to AMHA housing. By 1967 only 1.5
J ack Saferstein managed to cram two careers
into his 49 years. Both of them—as a
businessman and a public official—were
percent of the 1,414 people dislocated by Opportunity Park were enormously successful. Because of his efforts as
willing to move into public housing. The agency could not fill 20 executive director of the Akron Metropolitan
vacancies at Elizabeth Park. Housing Authority, the Akron area is a better
place in which to live. And that is the highest
“They don’t want project living,” explained Dickson. “The day of
tribute that can be paid any citizen.
the rowhouse is past. Anything we do in public housing except for
the elderly must be on scattered sites.”9 A child of the Depression, Jack Saferstein
knew poverty and hunger and the need to work
A New Director, A New Direction very hard to succeed in life. He also learned
compassion, as his impoverished parents
This dilemma and other increasingly apparent concerns brought the
received aid from religious groups and the
quiet years of the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority to a not- government. That background drove him to be an
so-quiet end in the fall of 1967. Because of his age, Dickson’s con- achiever, first as a prominent real estate
tract came up annually, and in October 1967 several board members and grocery executive and later as the man who
openly expressed concerns about renewing it. turned Akron’s lackluster public housing
Dickson wanted to stay another year before retiring and passing program into a nationally-acclaimed success.
the agency on to his heir-apparent, M. Carl Bacon. Bacon had served Tall, lanky, an impeccable dresser, silver-
the agency well since 1944, beginning as deputy director. Board mem- haired Jack Saferstein could be abrasive or
ber William Fowler regarded him as “a fine statistician and detail charming, whichever he figured would get
man.” But said another, “Bacon has a lot of old habits and ideas that him what he wanted. He usually got his own way.
he claims are policy.”10 While Bacon represented traditional-style pub- Controversy swirled about him, and he
figured it meant he was making progress.
lic housing, new programs and new monies were beginning to flow
out of Washington, D.C., available to agencies willing to try new ideas. What made this complex man who had enough
Some on the board felt that AMHA needed a “go-getter” for di- money to retire at age 40 drive himself in
rector, and the Beacon Journal saw a need for “energetic leadership 18-hour days? He explained that when he faced
to get the [federal] money.” One board member, Jack Saferstein, felt open heart surgery in 1964, his outlook on life
changed. He began to count the hours remaining
that he fit the bill.
to him instead of the dollars accumulated, and he
Flamboyant and outspoken, Saferstein had already earned a rep- felt he owed his community something. He spent
utation as a “can-do” man when he was appointed to the AMHA too much time on the job, he admitted, and he
board two years earlier. Raised in a poor family, Saferstein peddled used to fly off to Chicago or Washington to
fruit door to door as a boy. After graduating from high school, he confer with Federal housing officials the way
started a small grocery store on Wooster Avenue. By 1958 he had most people commute across town. He drove his
become president of Sparkle Markets, which included more than 50 staff hard, and his high-voltage operation wore
stores in the Akron area. In 1964, at the age of 41, he suffered a heart out many people—including, finally, himself.

attack that changed his outlook on life. In the final few years of his life, Jack Saferstein
“He began to count the hours remaining to him instead of the tried in his way to do something worthwhile for
dollars accumulated, and he felt he owed his community something,” his community and his fellow man. He did just
according to the newspaper. Saferstein saw the Akron Metropolitan that, and we shall miss this remarkable person.
Housing Authority as a way to make a difference. Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal, 3/20/73

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 The Quiet Years

When it came time to vote on hiring their fellow member as direc-

tor instead of Bacon, the AMHA board was split. Saferstein himself
cast the deciding ballot in favor of his own appointment. Needless to
say, this action caused considerable comment. The board then re-
ferred the matter to the Department of Housing and Urban Develop-
ment (HUD), which waived a regulation that required Saferstein to
sit out one year before going from the board to director. However,
they made the provision that Ohio law must be followed, which
meant Saferstein would have to resign from the board so Akron
mayor John Ballard could appoint a new trustee who would then
break the tie vote.
Board chairman Paul Belcher opposed Saferstein’s maneuvering.
“The law provided we could not hire one of our members in any
capacity and he wanted us to do that,” Belcher recalled. “Nothing
doing.” To solve the dilemma, Belcher arranged a compromise
whereby Saferstein would resign from the board and then the board
would unanimously vote him in as director.
On November 17, 1967, Jack Saferstein became the third director
of AMHA and began bringing dramatic changes to the institution.
On his first day he averted a strike by 48 custodial employees, re-
searched a family housing project in Barberton, discussed with devel-
opers the new federal “turnkey” housing program, and tried to make
peace with Carl Bacon, who continued to serve as deputy director.

Notes
1. Leonard Freedman, Public Housing: 5. Akron Beacon Journal, 9 April 1955.
The Politics of Poverty (New York: Holt,
6. Interview with Paul Belcher, November 1988.
Rinehart & Winston, 1969), p. 30.
7. Ohio Informer, June 1955.
2. Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream:
A Social History of Housing in America (Boston: 8. Akron Beacon Journal, 12 July 1961.
MIT Press, 1983), p. 234. 9. Akron Beacon Journal, 12 October 1967.
3. Akron Beacon Journal, 12 October 1954. 10. Ibid.
4. Akron Beacon Journal, 22 March 1956.

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 During the Saferstein years, much attention was drawn to new AMHA
building projects. This development at Biruta Street featured amenities like
the contemporary-design playground equipment in the foreground.
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

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 The House That Jack Built
1 9 6 7 – 1 9 8 2

I
f the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority named a golden
age, it would be the next 15 years, from 1967 to 1982. Jack
Saferstein, along with the directors who followed him, Herbert
Newman and David Levey, created an ever-expanding housing
authority that Akron pointed to with pride.
Rapid growth transformed the agency into a very different in-
stitution from that of its first 29 years. The number of units both
for senior citizens and for families doubled, then grew again with
amazing speed. Even the older housing projects received facelifts
that left only the outside walls the same. Tenants could take ad-
vantage of trips, from the hairdressers located in their own build-
ings to bus tours of Washington, D.C. From infant stimulation
programs to hot lunches for senior citizens, AMHA provided not
just an affordable roof but an improved quality of life for more
than 20,000 people.
The three men responsible for this transformation of AMHA—
from an organization the Beacon Journal called “pretty content to be
little more than a collecting agency for rent coming from WWII proj-
ects” to “one of the most dynamic public housing programs in the
country”—shared a number of traits. Perhaps most importantly they
brought imagination into the web of federal housing red tape. Fol-
lowing Chairman Belcher’s advice, they went after any available
money for either housing or social programs. They gobbled up Ak-
ron’s share of the public housing pie and any other pieces they could
manage to secure. They nurtured a close relationship with HUD of-
ficials in the regional and national offices.
They ran AMHA like a business, not as a governmental bureau-
cracy. Their management style was decentralized. They paid atten-
tion to the aesthetics of their buildings and to the needs of their
tenants. They were skilled at gathering flattering publicity and kept
the housing authority in the spotlight. They listened to chairman
Paul Belcher and trusted his advice as he trusted their abilities.
Finally, Saferstein, Newman, and Levey all considered their jobs
to be fun, creating an atmosphere of energy and expectations. And
they provided housing, lots of it, all over Summit County.
Such a transformation was not overlooked nationally. The Akron
Metropolitan Housing Authority was lauded by HUD as a model
local housing authority. Publications such as the Christian Science
Monitor, Business Week, and the Journal of Housing reviewed AMHA
developments. The agency even made it onto NBC’s Today Show. “It
is a gem of a housing authority,” said Carla Hills, secretary of HUD.1
“One of the most dynamic public housing programs in the country,”
wrote the Journal of Housing.2
AMHA earned a reputation for getting action, and heavy mail
from across the country poured in asking for advice. Early on, the
press nicknamed the ambitious agency “The House That Jack Built.”
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 The House That Jack Built

The National Scene

When Saferstein became director in 1967, tremendous changes were
already under way in public housing. America’s urban cities were
exploding with violence and unrest. Policymakers viewed public
housing as both part of the problem and part of the solution.
To stem the rise of this urban crisis, public housing featured
prominently in President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” With his
backing, the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 and the
Demonstrative Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966
became law. With the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968,
Johnson declared, “The Act can be the Magna Carta to liberate our
cities.” It promised 26 million homes over the next 10 years. For the
first time the old nemeses of public housing—the NAHB and the
NAREB—supported a bill for low-income housing because of the
increased private-sector involvement the bill allowed and because of
a nationwide building slump.
These changes provided more money than subsidized housing
had seen before. Proponents hoped these new programs would cut
costs, time, and government red tape. In Akron this proved true. In
1971 Belcher attributed the explosion of growth at AMHA in part
to the changes in Washington: “There are just more possibilities to
get federal backing now.” But he also gave credit to the new director:
“The zeal with which our executive director, Jack Saferstein, has
undertaken his task has been a real key.”
Saferstein was the right man at the right time to transform the
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.

Saferstein the Man

There was no doubt that Saferstein was motivated; the question was
where did he get his zeal? His deputy director, Herbert Newman, felt
that “Jack saw AMHA as a vehicle for his imagination.” According
to Akron mayor John Ballard, Saferstein was “go-go, imaginative.”
A couple years into his directorship, Saferstein himself com-
mented, “As a businessman, I felt our failure to provide good hous-
ing for low-income people was both unnecessary and tragic. I run
this authority as I ran my business—except that my product here is
better living conditions for people.”3 He felt urban renewal was mis-
named, better called “urban removal” because of a lack of concern
for the people it dislocated.
When Saferstein was sometimes criticized as high-handed, he
would answer, “My job is to build housing. I am sensitive to the
needs of the people I serve and somewhat insensitive to the bureau-
cratic structure.” Commented one builder, “Jack Saferstein is a spe-
cial case. He may not be so hot on public relations, but he gets things
done and that’s what counts.” Saferstein’s outlook was, “It may
sound dictatorial and smell of one-man rule, but by golly if what I’ve
done to date in this community has alienated a lot of people and
­hasn’t been acceptable to the so-called powers that be then I’m con-
tent to say the ends justified the means.”4
In contrast to such strong statements, Saferstein felt that one of
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 The House That Jack Built

Under Dickson, plans were announced for a new

the secrets of his success was his ability to work with the bureau-
AMHA administration site that would allow the cracy. “First I feel I have a good relationship with city hall, the mayor,
staff to be housed in one building. The first board the councilmen,” he said. “I maintain a good relationship with re-
meeting was held in the facility at 180 West Cedar gional and national agencies. I always stay in contact on a day-to-
in February 1968. day basis on each project, following it until it’s done.”
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL) Unlike Lauer and Dickson, Saferstein visited the developments
often, “just for the satisfaction of contact.” Site manager Robert Tur-
pin recalled that “Jack was at the developments, I’d say, at least once
a week. He would talk to everyone.” However, he was known to take
his moods with him; one week he might spend some time chatting
with a typist, but the next week she would be invisible. While these
surprise visits were unsettling to the rather isolated site staff, they
were appreciated and missed when Newman and Levey did not con-
tinue the practice as frequently.

Getting the Ball Rolling

As Saferstein began to change the thrust of the agency, its public face
also changed. Two years after announcing plans for a new headquar-
ters, AMHA moved to Cedar Street near a number of senior citizen
housing complexes. The new offices allowed consolidation of all de-
partments under one roof. In February 1968, the housing authority
board met for the first time in the new building.
When Saferstein became director, Allen Dickson had begun to get
the ball rolling on a number of new projects to take advantage of
increased federal support. The Paul E. Belcher Apartments was the
largest project and a dramatic step for the agency. Besides being

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 The House That Jack Built

AMHA’s first high-rise, the Belcher Apartments more importantly

signaled a greater awareness of and commitment to senior citizens.
The numbers alone speak of its importance: The building held 199
units, more than doubling the 82 units for seniors the housing au-
thority had up to this time. AMHA’s long-serving chairman agreed
to the honor of having the apartments named
for him, but stipulated that other board mem-
bers would likewise be remembered with fu-
ture buildings.
The Akron-based John G. Ruhlin Con-
struction Company received the general con-
tract for the high-rise, the first new building
in Opportunity Park, a major urban renewal
area just south of downtown Akron. Elderly
who were displaced from the area had first
priority to be placed in the new high-rise.
When questioned about the effect of the
1950s referendums on the project, an AMHA
The Paul E. Belcher Apartments was AMHA’s first
spokesman replied, “The answer may be that helping poor old folks
is somehow more acceptable to the general public than assisting high-rise building. Only senior citizens were

poor young people.”5 placed in the high-rise, thus avoiding the many

But Dickson also had investigated housing for “poor young peo- problems faced by other housing authorities
ple,” through a relatively new concept called “scattered-site hous- that put families in multistory buildings.
ing.” First discussed in Akron by Charles Slusser while he was direc- (AKRON METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY)
tor of the Public Housing Administration, it was an idea whose time
had come. “[Family tenants] don’t want project living,” said Dick-
son. “The day of the rowhouse is past. Anything we do in public
housing except for the elderly must be on scattered sites.”
These comments came in response to the startling statistic that
only 1.5 percent of the 1,414 families relocated by urban renewal’s
Opportunity Park were willing to move into public housing. Several
months later, in July 1967, when AMHA approved the request of city
council to apply to HUD to rent 500 scattered-site homes, Mayor
Ballard said, “In my judgment this is a very significant step for the
city of Akron.”
In a cooperative plan developed by AMHA, B. F. Goodrich
made interest-free loans to area builders to construct scattered-site
housing, which the agency would then buy. In 1968 it financed 10
low-income homes and 21 more the next year. Housing throughout
the city owned by the agency, whether single homes, duplexes, or
small developments with only a few units, became a part of scat-
tered-site housing.
These two new Akron projects—the senior citizen high-rise and
the scattered-site housing for families—reflected national changes in
public housing. But Saferstein made the transition complete. His am-
bitions dovetailed with the Johnson administration’s new ideas for
financing public housing and the forms that housing took.
AMHA eagerly latched onto new concepts such as the “turnkey
program” in which local housing authorities bought units built for
them by independent builders. Explaining the program, Saferstein

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 The House That Jack Built

said, “Builders submit plans. If we like ’em, we’ll contract ’em.” This
approach was a far cry from the slower bidding procedure of the past.
The “Acquisition Program” promoted the scattered-site concept,
where HUD provided funds for the housing authority to buy, con-
struct, or renovate units which they could then rent out. AMHA
worked through real estate agents to find the properties. The city
could also buy homes and then sell them to AMHA.
Under a program known as Section 23, authorities could lease
private housing to tenants, with federal funds paying the difference
between the rent price and the rent the tenant could afford. By 1977,
a somewhat similar program known as Section 8 had the landlord
collecting the rent and AMHA paying the subsidy.

Building AMHA
When Saferstein took the helm, HUD money started rolling in.
Money came in to buy and build facilities specifically for senior citi-
zens. “Our system for taking care of the aged is in a sad state,” said
Saferstein. “It’s catch-up time.”
And catch up the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority did. In
May 1968, AMHA received $2.1 million from HUD to buy two
buildings off East Market Street, which became known as Buchtel-
Cotter. The following May it received $3.7 million for senior housing
in both Barberton and Akron. The approval for the 213-unit Safer-
stein Towers, built under the turnkey program, came in October
1968. By 1970, Martin P. Lauer Apartments on North Howard Street
were completed. That same year the agency bought Brittain Towers,
eliminated the swimming pool, and converted the high-rise to senior
housing, renamed Fred W. Nimmer Place. By April 1970, the housing
authority owned a total of 1,072 senior citizen units. In July 1973,
Cuyahoga Falls got approval for its first senior citizen housing proj-
ect with a $4 million grant from HUD despite a national freeze on
federal housing funds. Known as Sutliff Apartments, this was the
first building erected by AMHA in Cuyahoga Falls.
By 1971, eight senior high-rises had gone up, seven built by
Thomas J. Dillon & Company. A local builder, Dillon used a con-
crete system he developed to efficiently and economically produce
quality high-rises with precast concrete exteriors. “We probably han-
dle more senior citizen housing through the turnkey program than
any other builder in the country,” boasted Dillon’s development co-
ordinator in 1971.6 In Akron they constructed Buchtel-Cotter and
Brittain Place as private ventures and then sold them to AMHA.
Their other high-rises—known as Dickson, Lauer, and Saferstein—
were part of the turnkey program.
In June 1968, when HUD awarded $2.16 million to AMHA to
buy and remodel 128 homes, Akron became first in the nation for
the amount of public housing building programs and federal funds
received by any similar-size city. But Saferstein did not stop there. Six
months later he received another $2.9 million to build or buy an ad-
ditional 187 homes. Six months after that, AMHA received $4.4
million for 250 housing units, one of the largest grants of its kind

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 The House That Jack Built

made by HUD to date. “This shows that what we’re doing here,
we’re doing right,” said Saferstein.
Three months later, $11.9 million came, the largest grant Akron
had received. A few weeks later another $10 million came from HUD
for 500 housing units, bringing the total amount in federal dollars
awarded to the housing authority in just two
years to $45 million. “The money is there for the
taking,” said Saferstein. “You have to get there
firstest with the mostest.”7
Saferstein did not ignore AMHA’s older hous-
ing projects. In February 1968 he got $1.7 mil-
lion of HUD money to renovate Elizabeth Park,
Edgewood, and Norton Homes—providing new
recreation areas, outside lighting, new kitchens
and bathrooms, and trash ­dumpsters.
Ardella, Hillwood, and East Barberton
Homes, all frame “temporary” war housing,
had badly deteriorated and needed to be re-
The “instant housing” units were constructed
placed. But before those projects could be destroyed, AMHA still
needed to provide housing for the families living there. The Barber- in Rochester, New York, and assembled on-site in

ton City Council requested a phase-out of East Barberton Homes. Akron. While the process allowed AMHA to provide
Akron City Council was concerned about an integrated project with housing quickly, the construction methods did not
Ardella, a black project, and Hillwood, a white project, being torn hold up well over time, creating major
down. In 1971 city council approved replacement of Hillwood maintenance problems.
Homes and, in 1972, Saferstein made the replacement of Ardella and (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
East Barberton a top priority.

Operation Breakthrough
By 1969, even with the infusion of HUD funds, the housing industry
still had not fully recovered from the 1966 credit crunch—so hous-
ing remained tight, especially for low- and moderate-income fami-
lies. Housing prices went even higher with the shortage, so only one
in eight families could afford the market price for a standard house.
“We’ve been losing ground in housing, and the shortages will grow,”
warned Secretary of Housing and Urban Development George Rom-
ney. “The existing housing supply is deteriorating faster than we are
rehabilitating or building new units.”
To significantly reduce this housing crisis, Romney conceived Op-
eration Breakthrough. Romney, a millionaire businessman from De-
troit, took the idea of using preconstructed housing and created a
high-profile program of promotion, production, and the hard sell.
He tried to enlist U.S. know-how and capital in an effort to house
low- and moderate-income families. He encouraged companies to
submit plans for housing that was mass produced using assembly-
line methods. Not without critics, however, the program faced prob-
lems of concerns with new housing techniques, community zoning
and building codes, the opposition of craft trade unions, and the lack
of land in many urban areas.
Romney found an ally in Saferstein, who played an early and
important role in this project, believing such a system could save

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 The House That Jack Built

money and time in housing the needy. Akron was chosen for a fed-
eral testing program using both module homes and the high-rises
with precast concrete slab techniques. For the high-rises, AMHA
worked with the Dillon Company, and for the module homes, Safer-
stein hired the Stirling Homex Company. These companies were two
of only 22 builders in the country to receive initial grants with Op-
eration Breakthrough.
After investigating a number of prefab housing companies, Safer-
stein selected the small but growing Stirling Homex, based in Roches-
ter, New York. After Saferstein took local building inspectors to the
plant, Stirling modified their buildings to meet the Akron building
code. In December 1968 the Akron Board of Building approved the
idea of prebuilt homes. Meanwhile, in Rochester, for the first time
union carpenters agreed to work on modular homes at Stirling. Local
builders protested: “Stirling units are chintzy and won’t last.” “Sour
grapes,” replied Saferstein, impressed that it took only 10 days from
start to finish to complete a townhouse complex.8
The first Stirling Homex structures, English Tudor-style town-
houses, were placed on Summit Lake at Ira and Lakeshore Boulevard
in February 1969. “Modules signal the beginning of a new era in
low-cost housing for Akron and for the rest of the United States,”
Jack Saferstein’s use of prefabricated buildings
declared company president David Stirling. He also promised a plant
allowed the World War II housing of Ardella Homes for Akron by the fall. Saferstein saw it as the wave of the future: “It
to be replaced without having to relocate families for will be just like ordering a new auto in a showroom.”
the interim, a lengthy and expensive undertaking. Akron received national attention for the development on Sum-
Saferstein renamed the development Joy Park. mit Lake, including mention on NBC’s Today Show and an article in
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL) the Christian Science Monitor. Reporters, housing officials, and for-

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 The House That Jack Built

eign experts besieged the Summit Lake residents hoping to get in-
sight into this trend.
Saferstein put up a number of Stirling Homex buildings, with the
replacement of Ardella Homes the largest project. By using the “in-
stant housing,” Saferstein was finally able to replace housing without
having to relocate the tenants. Stirling Homex produced a promo-
tional movie featuring families in Ardella Park (now renamed Joy
Park), Saferstein, and AMHA. By September 1971, 600 Stirling units
dotted Akron. “No city in the nation has come close to this,” boasted
Saferstein. “We are the pacesetters.”
Like much of Operation Breakthrough, however, the Akron story
did not end happily. Stirling Homex manufactured homes faster than
it could sell them, helping to bring about bankruptcy in 1972. Because
the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority was its largest customer,
the relationship was scrutinized closely and Saferstein was called to
testify. In a strongly worded letter to the editor of the Beacon Journal
explaining the relationship, AMHA board chairman Paul Belcher
stated, “The fact that Stirling Homex went bankrupt is a matter of
deep regret to us and its collapse has given us many problems.”9
Saferstein faced other controversy as well. From April 1968 to
August 1969, AMHA spent $15 million to purchase about 200
houses, working through real estate agents. With so much money at
stake, some agents protested they had been excluded. “[Saferstein] is
not an easy man to get along with,” said one. African-American con-
tractors also complained that they were not getting a chance to bid
on AMHA housing projects.
Saferstein also ran into trouble in Barberton getting sites ap-
proved and by February 1971 stated he no longer wanted to deal
with Barberton politics. The Akron School Board voiced concern
about the new concentrations of children in some neighborhoods
because of large housing authority projects while several other neigh-
borhoods, such as Goodyear Heights, refused to have any AMHA
housing at all.

The West Side Story

As the agency expanded, critics expressed concern about AMHA’s
growing impact on the city’s housing patterns. Especially notable
was the city’s west side, which was changing from a primarily white
neighborhood to a mostly black one.
Urban renewal and innerbelt construction forced African-Ameri-
can families to migrate to the west side, joining friends and family
already living there. Because the area was affordable, AMHA also
bought up homes for “scattered sites,” but was then criticized for
contributing to segregated housing by buying in African-American
neighborhoods. Saferstein argued that the housing authority could
not afford the prices charged in many of the white neighborhoods
and then challenged his critics by asking if AMHA should be an in-
strument for social reform as well as improved living conditions.
The biggest uproar came in 1969 when AMHA proposed a hous-
ing project on Biruta Street near Wooster Avenue and Hawkins on

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 The House That Jack Built

the west side. City council expressed concern about the quantity of
AMHA housing on the west side, but after much debate gave its ap-
proval. The Beacon Journal proclaimed that AMHA had won its bit-
ter and most important council fight. The Biruta neighborhood did
not see the council approval as final and wanted city planning direc-
tor James Alkire fired.
To fight back, a neighborhood group known as WHEN (Wooster,
Hawkins, East Neighbors) began a referendum drive and in a dra-
matic last-day move delivered 10,000 names in favor of having the
issue placed on the ballot. After the names were
checked, however, WHEN fell short of the
number needed and gave up the Biruta fight.
Three months later, the housing authority proj-
ect was renamed Bon-Sue after Saferstein’s
daughters Bonnie and Susan.
While the Biruta Street controversy was the
most visible sign of continued racial tensions at
AMHA, other issues and incidents plagued Saf-
erstein. African-American board member Wil-
liam Fowler urged the agency to build scattered-
site housing in middle-class neighborhoods.
When AMHA bought a couple of homes in an
increasingly integrated area of the North Hill,
arsonists burned them down in August 1968. To
fight against the notion that the agency housed
primarily African-American families, Saferstein
released figures in October 1969 that showed
55 percent of all applicants were white.
This was at a time when a number of devel-
opments were still segregated. Two years earlier
the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that South Bar-
berton Homes was 100 percent black while
Norton Homes was 100 percent white. To try to
Construction of the Bon-Sue development
remedy the situation, AMHA made its first major change in client
on Biruta Street created some of the sharpest placement. Since 1939, clients had applied directly to the develop-
controversy Saferstein faced. West side residents ment in which they wished to live. In April 1968, AMHA created a
protested, feeling that the public housing central list for prospective residents to sign up at the Cedar Street
would adversely affect property values in headquarters, taking away authority from the managers to choose
their neighborhood. their tenants.
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
A Tough Stand
While the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority rapidly expanded,
it also worked to keep up the sites it already owned. A tough stand
was taken on rent collection. “We’ve no inhibitions of evicting any-
one regardless of their hardship if they don’t live up to their lease,”
said Saferstein. The Community Action Council rightly accused
AMHA of refusing to rent to applicants who had past records of not
paying rent, and making inspections of the applicants’ homes to de-
termine whether they were clean. Yet, with the same standards, cur-
rent AMHA residents who showed they could care for their units got

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 The House That Jack Built

first crack at new housing, as Saferstein tried to develop more pride

in these projects.
It wasn’t until 1967 that AMHA considered opening all its hous-
ing facilities to unwed mothers. Because government subsidies cov-
ered only building costs, rent was used to offset operating costs.
According to regulations, rent was determined by income, so local
housing authorities had to accept more families who could pay
higher rent. With the Brooke Amendment, authorities could collect
no more than 25 percent of a family’s income in rent. This cut in
local authority income then led to the federal government also pro-
viding operating cost subsidies to make up the difference.

Dorothy Jackson and Human Services

If Jack built the houses, Dorothy Jackson took care of the people
who lived in them. In 1968 HUD created positions known as Social
and Tenant Services to deal with the social problems that plagued
public housing, recognizing that housing alone could not relieve ten-
sions in urban areas.
For the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority Saferstein hired
Dorothy Jackson over college-trained social workers because of her
energy and 10-year experience at Goodwill Industries. To ease Safer-
stein’s reservations about hiring her, Jackson agreed over a hand-
shake that she would work three months and if either was not satis-
fied, she would quietly leave. "I guess I’m a glorified
For the next 17 years, Jackson was an integral part of AMHA and beggar. Tell me about
a national leader in human services. “Providing new housing is only
the beginning,” she said. “If you don’t involve that person or family a program in the area
in social areas, you’ve defeated the whole purpose. We must have a and I’ll see if we have
program of social activity in all degrees for the family.” an ­a udience.”
Often noted as an important component in the agency’s success,
tenant relationships became highly personalized. Akron’s human ser- —Dorothy Jackson

vice programs received national attention within the housing field

and were profiled in professional journals and positively presented
in the local media.
Jackson had a natural affinity for the tenants in public housing.
She grew up just outside Ardella Homes and even as a child recog-
nized the social needs that came from poverty and public housing.
Her charismatic personality helped as she took on an advocacy role.
“Dorothy Jackson was a very atypical person,” explained a co-
worker. “Dorothy somehow was able to get whatever we needed,
whatever the tenants needed, whatever some people said could never
be obtained.”
“I guess I’m a glorified beggar,” Jackson once said of herself. “Tell
me about a program in the area and I’ll see if we have an ­audience.”10
Under Jackson, the Social and Tenant Services department grew
to fit the needs of the residents and to take advantage of public
money. Over the years the programs and personnel changed, but get-
ting people to enjoy life remained the goal. During her first couple of
years at AMHA, Jackson was the department, but with new pro-
grams and more money her staff and range of services grew. In time,

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 The House That Jack Built

the department had five representatives assigned to certain develop-

ments and buildings and an assistant, Terry Meese, who kept track
of the paperwork flow. In 1981 Social and Tenant Services changed
its title to Human Services, but still worked to meet the needs of both
families and senior citizens.
Early in her tenure Jackson created Scoop, a newsletter for AMHA
staff members. The first issue in August 1969 reported that the
agency had received funding to conduct a nutrition center, child care,
and a well-baby clinic at Edgewood Community Center. Many of the
family programs focused on the well-being of the children and on
parent education. They included upbeat opportunities like scouting,
baseball teams, and dances along with more vital programs that
dealt with drug abuse, alcoholism, and infant stimulation and care.
One of the first programs created by Jackson in September 1969
offered training sessions to teach new residents how to care for
their homes. By 1974, with an expanded staff and a project named
Homemaker Aides, Jackson received national acclaim. The aides
were responsible for placing residents and conducting orientation
meetings, discussing the appliances and furnace, and even recom-
mending cleaning products. Perine Nealy, then head of the pro-
gram, explained, “We go over everything from the floor to the ceil-
ing in the unit they will occupy.”
One of Jackson’s favorite—and most successful—programs
proved to be the Summer Youth Employment Program, which hired
teenagers from the developments. During summers, they helped with
site maintenance, as homemakers, and in the day-care center.
In the early 1970s kids from a much more privileged back-
ground worked with the housing authority. In the altruistic spirit
of the times, three college students created the Summer Experience
Center. After receiving a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings
Foundation for needy kids, Steve Snyder, Sue Rothmann, and John
Earhart rented an empty greenhouse and painted it. But when they
got ready to open, they had not found any children in Stow who
met their qualifications. A phone call to Jackson provided kids
from AMHA housing to attend the combination day camp and
education center. So successful was the program that it was moved
to Hillwood Homes the next year with the addition of playground
equipment supplied by the NAACP.
Senior citizens, with more time and often more discretionary in-
come, took advantage of an even wider array of opportunities—
from ice cream socials to bus trips to the Cleveland Zoo, from exer-
cise classes to the public library bookmobile, from nutrition pro-
grams to resident-operated snack bars. A Homemaker Service pro-
vided extra help to allow seniors to live independently longer, along
with a hot meal program at some of the buildings. By 1979, the
Home Service Program reached about 1,000 seniors a month. Geri-
atric clinics provided podiatrists, and hearing and blood pressure
checks. Beauty and barber shops were put on site. Jackson even made
services available for the hearing-impaired.
Bus trips for seniors became one of the most visible social pro-

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 The House That Jack Built

grams. Joking remarks between the tenants and Jackson about a

trip to Washington, D.C., became a reality in the spring of 1969.
That trip was followed by others around Ohio and around the
country, from Niagara Falls to Greenfield Village. To keep costs
down, the seniors raised money between trips. When the AMHA
bus overturned on a rain-slick highway in Seneca
County, Ohio, in August 1975, resulting in the
deaths of two AMHA residents, Dorothy Jackson
wanted to call a halt to the program. But family
members and senior residents were determined
that it continue. An effort was made to purchase
another bus, complete with a lavatory for the
long road trips. A group of real estate agents
headed the fund drive, but after a few months
succeeded in raising only a fraction of the money.
The imagination of director David Levey suc-
ceeded in securing a bus, by trading AMHA land
to the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in re-
turn for a bus the company had used to support
the blimp crew.
Tenant councils for both the family develop-
ments and the senior citizen buildings became an
important part of Human Services. “Each of our
developments has a tenant council to plan activi-
ties and prompt involvement of residents,” ex-
plained Jackson. Residents voted on an executive
committee that was governed by a constitution.
Depending on the development, the councils var-
The first of many senior citizens trips toured
ied in success and in activities sponsored, with the senior buildings
proving to be more involved. By 1981, joint tenant council meetings Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1969. The trips

were being held at Human Services for both senior and family resi- stood as a symbol to many in the community of

dents, facilitating greater communication between the AMHA ad- the quality of life to be found in public housing.
ministration and tenants. (AKRON METROPOLITAN HOUSING AUTHORITY)

While the Human Services division staff developed a number of

programs, many were in conjunction with other social agencies.
Tenants and co-workers agreed it was Jackson, with her ability to
cut red tape, who made the cooperative programs work. The Akron
Health Department worked with the housing authority in clinics
for both senior citizens and families. In 1971 three of the city’s 12
baby clinics were at AMHA sites. “We don’t actually treat patients,”
said Dr. Paul Sauvageot, director of Public Health Medical Services.
“What we do is counsel and advise and keep close contact with a
tenant’s personal physician.”
The American Red Cross provided home nursing, and the Ohio
State Agriculture Extension Office offered nutrition courses. The
Western Reserve Girl Scout Council and AMHA cosponsored craft
workshops in the senior buildings, with the girls learning skills from
the older teachers. In conjunction with the home economics pro-
grams at Kent State University and the University of Akron, students
worked with tenants one-on-one. AMHA’s facilities were also used

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 The House That Jack Built

for nonresident programs. Hillwood Homes housed a kindergarten

and a workshop for the mentally retarded, using buildings at Wil-
beth-Arlington. Wilbeth-Arlington, Hillwood, and Elizabeth Park
housed the preschool Head Start program.
While some AMHA employees viewed the Human Services
­department askance, and few had any desire to work in the often
spontaneous office, many others saw Dorothy Jackson and her de-
partment as the heartbeat of the agency. Commenting on Jackson’s
­frequent ­involvement of other staff in her projects, especially the main-
tenance department, one staff member explained,“She had this unique
way of helping to get their cooperation and yet let them know that we
were doing this for the good of other people. They would laugh and
say, ‘Oh, it’s Dorothy. Now what does she have up her sleeve!’”
Jackson encouraged her staff to serve on other committees
throughout the community, believing that if people were receiving,
they had to give. This philosophy also led to AMHA staff working
out in the community. “She never lost sight of the fact that the indi-
vidual tenants we served were the whole reason we were here and
that sometimes the paperwork needed to wait.”

An Impressive Era
By 1969, Saferstein had gotten the attention of Akron with his suc-
cess with HUD. He said simply that the money had been there but
no one in Akron had gone after it before. He said he preferred getting
things done to spending time on idle chitchat and amenities.
In his first year Saferstein had opened the 12-story, 199-unit
Belcher Apartments, bought Buchtel-Cotter Apartments, bought or
built 128 scattered-site homes, and leased another 400 homes—
opening up 879 units. “From a city that for 20 years did almost
nothing to house its needy citizens, Akron has suddenly emerged as
one of the leaders in the nation in providing public housing,” wrote
the Beacon Journal.
Rumors circulated that HUD wanted Saferstein to come to work
in Washington, D.C. The B’nai B’rith awarded Saferstein its highest
honor, the Guardian of the Menorah Award, the first given in Akron,
in June 1969. “He’s leading the nation,” said Paul Belcher that same
year when AMHA’s newest high-rise was named Saferstein Towers.
“He’s done more for public housing in Akron in the last year and a
half than any other authority in the country.”
On September 14, 1971, U.S. Representative John Seiberling en-
tered into the Congressional Record accolades for the Akron Metro-
politan Housing Authority and its remarkable achievements, not-
ing that Jack Saferstein had been the agency’s driving force for the
last four years. It recorded that Saferstein, a self-made business-
man, had applied business methods and his dynamic personality to
spur a rapid acceleration in public housing for low-income families
and senior citizens.
Despite all this success, Saferstein compared being head of AMHA
to fighting quicksand: “Quick as things are built, more people need
housing.” He also reflected, “Sometimes the attitude of the general

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 The House That Jack Built

public depresses me. With all that’s happened in the last five years in
social upheaval, we still seem to have the [anti-]attitude.”

The Next Generation

Jack Saferstein died on March 19, 1973—of a heart attack at age
49—devastating AMHA’s staff. The search committee moved quickly
and in June hired Herbert Newman to fill the void.
A familiar face at AMHA, Newman started working with the hous-
ing authority soon after his graduation from the University of Akron’s
law school in 1968, doing the rather uninspiring tasks of evictions,
small legal work, and collections. But with the advent of the turnkey
program, Newman began earning what would become a national
HERBERT NEWMAN
DIRECTOR, 1973–197 8
reputation for his skill in subsidized housing financing. In 1971 he
served as Saferstein’s deputy but resigned after a year because “the
housing authority is really a director-run organization.” Newman F ollowing the untimely death of Jack
Saferstein, Herbert Newman was the easy
choice from a field of eight to become head of
continued to do a great deal of consulting work for AMHA, constitut-
the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.
ing about 60 percent of his business.
Besides having served as Saferstein’s deputy
Newman seemed the logical choice for director, chosen from eight for a year in 1970, Newman served as legal
other candidates. According to Newman, Chairman Belcher’s advice counsel for five years and was instrumental
was just like that given to Saferstein: “When I become the director, in the financial arrangements for the
my instructions are to get all the money that’s coming to Akron, ever-expanding agency.
Ohio, and to get all the money for Akron that’s coming to everyone
An Akron native, Newman received his
else.” He also recalled Belcher’s words, “The world was your apple undergraduate degree in economics from Ohio
and all you had to do was take a bite out of it. Also I would always State University and a law degree from the
do good for myself if I did good for the tenants.”11 Newman took a University of Akron. He continued to develop
pay cut to head AMHA. “I don’t regret it,” he reflected. “At age 33, AMHA in a flamboyant style that rivaled
it was one of few chances for a guy that young to make a significant Saferstein’s. The Beacon Journal once
impact on the community.” commented, “If Herbert Newman is overbearing,
arrogant and abrasive, as he has been described,
Newman continued to improve the agency’s reputation as a
then Akron and the country need more
model public housing authority. He shared Saferstein’s flamboyant
overbearing, arrogant and abrasive leaders.”
and aggressive style. Said one HUD official, “Sure [Newman’s] over-
bearing, but assertiveness is to AMHA’s credit. They’ve got a good When Newman resigned to become chief legal
counsel in 1978, he was among the highest
reputation nationwide.” Another added, “AMHA officials are pro-
paid directors in the nation. He continued to
moters, short on modesty and proud of accomplishments.” HUD
work with successor David Levey to further
secretary Carla Hills agreed that AMHA and Newman “get an A+ develop AMHA into one of the finest public
for effectively utilizing HUD programs to deliver public housing to housing authorities in the country. As director,
Akron area residents.” Newman felt his greatest accomplishment was
As a lawyer, Newman had an extra edge in dealing with HUD. giving “tenants dignity and respect.”
Besides his stature as director, he could also go to the legal depart-
ment and speak their language. Newman sometimes told a story of
meeting an old Roosevelt “New Dealer” in Washington who sug-
gested that Newman read certain sections of the housing code which
stated that local housing authorities are tax-free. Newman built on
the idea to pioneer a new vehicle to finance public housing: the tax-
free mortgage. Bond attorneys soon sought AMHA’s advice on these
“tax-free bonds.”
When President Richard Nixon halted public housing building in
1973 and supported the Section 8 program, Newman conceived
methods so that the programs could benefit AMHA. By 1976, using
the tax-free bonds, Newman began overseeing a $19 million con-

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 The House That Jack Built

struction plan, made even more impressive by the fact that public
housing construction was at a national standstill under the 1974
Federal Housing Act.
In October 1974, Newman presented his first major project, the
Parade of Urban Affordable Homes. Born of necessity, the project
gained national press coverage for the housing authority. Public resis-
tance had prevented AMHA from building on a site it had owned in
Goodyear Heights for eight years. When Newman proposed a multi-
ple-family housing project for the Orchard Park area, it met with
much hostility. So Newman came up with the idea of the ­“Parade.”
The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, in conjunction with
the Home Builders Association of Greater Akron, announced a de-
sign competition for single-family housing. The houses had to be
consistent with the character and quality of existing homes, but the
cost could range only from $25,000 to $35,000, below the national
average of $44,000. They received 35 entries and constructed 12
winning designs. The split-level and ranch homes with elements like
cathedral ceilings, skylights, balconies, and walkout decks were a far
cry from the original row houses AMHA had constructed in 1939.
After construction, like the houses in other parades of homes,
they were opened to the public. A crowd of 6,000 came to tour
AMHA public housing, paying $1 each for the privilege. No other
agency in the country had sponsored such an event. The Beacon
Journal commented that the concept was the key to bringing badly
needed public housing to scattered sites in Akron suburbs. “Proj-
ects like the Urban Affordables put neighborhood fears to rest,”
said the paper. “Besides easing neighborhood fears, the project
demonstrated that a partnership between the public and private
sector can fill the housing void.”
Cedar Metropolitan Housing Authority built two of the houses
in the Parade of Urban Affordables. Named for the location of the
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, this entity was created and
directed by the AMHA board to allow the housing authority the
means to undertake special experiments in low- and moderate-
income housing. It permitted AMHA to take advantage of opportu-
nities not allowed public housing agencies under state law. Cedar
Metropolitan Housing Authority was also used to take advantage
of Section 8 certificates and allowed AMHA to gain more subsidies.
The agency also created Summit Metropolitan Housing Author-
ity, a housing development corporation that encouraged private
building of subsidized housing. This corporation issued tax-free
securities and lent public housing expertise to create public/private
partnerships. By 1982, this arrangement had provided housing for
2,000 people.
The creation of the Cedar Metropolitan Housing Authority and
other financing arrangements by Newman reflected the ever-changing
and decreasing funding for public housing from the government. From
Presidents Johnson to Reagan, each administration proposed a num-
ber of housing programs, each of which had a different theory of why
public housing was not working and promoted a different approach.

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 The House That Jack Built

This changing stream of programs meant that local housing au-

thorities had to be flexible and creative. For example, in 1973 the
Nixon administration, disappointed by the failures in Operation
Breakthrough and the ineffectiveness of public housing nationally,
called a halt to funding. In its place, they tried a number of other
programs, including a revamped Section 8. The ever-flexible AMHA
took advantage of the program early, while other housing officials
remained skeptical. Though the changing agendas of each adminis-
tration affected the way AMHA paid for housing, it did not have
much impact on the amount of building in Akron.
“Even though there was more or less money from different ad-
ministrations, we always had most of it because we asked the most,”
explained Newman. “We asked and asked and asked. We were grab-
bing every penny we could from the government.” Said HUD area
director Paul Lydens, “That’s Newman’s strong point: bringing to-
gether developers and the financial community.”
Newman continued, as Saferstein had, to resist running the hous-
ing authority as a government bureaucracy. It was “very straightfor-
ward, you were expected to do your job,” recalled one staff member.
Both Newman and later Levey found their work fun and challeng-
ing—an attitude that eventually permeated the staff. “I will never
love a job the way I loved working here then,” said one secretary.
Running AMHA like a private business, Newman added extra
touches to projects—producing high-quality brochures and slide
shows, making true occasions of groundbreaking ceremonies, win-
ing and dining HUD officials. In retrospect, Newman said, “You
can’t run a public agency the way I ran it because ultimately some-
body gets pissed off because you are flaunting it—you are doing too
much—you are not doing enough.”
Newman resigned as director after five years to return to private
practice, but the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority retained
him as a consultant. Citing a personality that did not fit an adminis-
trative position, this arrangement allowed Newman to continue to
hold all development capabilities, which was the work he most en-
joyed at the agency. He named his deputy, David Levey, as director.
Levey had begun at AMHA four years earlier as a housing inspec-
tor. He moved up to deal with the Section 8 program. Little changed
at AMHA when Levey took over, since he had a similar philosophy
of public housing. “There was almost a flipflopping of roles when
Herb stepped down,” said one staff member.
Even Levey admitted that sometimes it was hard to tell where
Newman’s role ended and his began. Not as high-profile or flamboy-
ant as Newman, Levey gave more attention to internal management.
Both men were among the highest paid local housing authority em-
ployees in the country.
Newman and Levey continued Saferstein’s emphasis on aesthet-
ics. Saferstein had the foresight to be concerned about the quality of
environment when selecting areas to build. Other cities such as
Cleveland used the least desirable, cheapest sites, which created a
number of problems. Besides site selection, Newman and Levey em-

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 The House That Jack Built

phasized landscaping, trees, and grass. Levey even named family de-
velopments built during his tenure after varieties of trees. Newman
felt that for both the community and the pride of the tenants it was
important that the housing projects be attractive living spaces. “Tax-
payers always see the outside of the buildings and rarely the inside.”
Neither director identified the buildings with signs as public housing,
out of respect for their tenants.
The longstanding Akron Metro-
politan Housing Authority tradition
of good maintenance was vigorously
followed, and the agency continued to
enjoy a reputation for service to ten-
ants. This was at a time when the
“evils” of public housing gained na-
tional attention as the notorious
Pruitt-Igoe project in St. Louis was de-
molished. “Anybody can build a nice
building, but what does it look like
five years afterward?” said Newman.
“Ninety-nine percent of being an
owner is managing it.”
Levey agreed. “The management is
the secret,” he said. “A well-managed
and maintained project leads to greater
acceptance of public housing and al-
lows dispersal of constituency.”
Saferstein’s emphasis on ties with
the city was also maintained. “You
can’t afford to embarrass elected offi-
cials,” said Levey. “Our cardinal rule is
no surprises.”
Besides close contact with public of-
ficials, Levey also realized that good
management requires being a tough
landlord, and he emphasized stricter
Wilbeth-Arlington was the last of the war housing rent collection. To facilitate better relationships with tenants and
to be remodeled. In 1978, AMHA completed a staff, he hired AMHA’s first personnel management administrator,
$7.4 million rehabilitation of the development, Dr. Leon Friedman, in 1980.
increasing the size of each unit and adding

parking, recreational areas, and open space. War Housing Still

The old war defense housing from World War II continued to receive
attention and money. Renovating Wilbeth-Arlington presented the
biggest challenge. Money and government regulations did not allow
the buildings to be razed, but the small cinderblock units were no
longer considered suitable housing. The $7.4 million rehabilitation
job “virtually left the smokestacks standing,” spanned 18 months,
and involved relocating hundreds of tenants.
When completed, the development was reduced from 508 to 328
units, allowing for long-needed open spaces, recreation areas, and
additional parking. Because federal money was used for the renova-

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 The House That Jack Built

tion, Wilbeth-Arlington housing became subsidized—and for the

first time, federal standards for rent applied.
Soon after Wilbeth-Arlington was completed, AMHA received
the city’s approval to raze Hillwood Homes. In the winter of 1977,
the last of the “temporary” war housing was removed, more than 30
years after its hasty construction. The following year, AMHA’s oldest
project, Elizabeth Park, received a $2.1 million facelift. Thanks to
Congressman John Seiberling, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Au-
thority was one of only 30 local housing authorities to receive the
available money out of 158 requests.

New Old Buildings

Money to adapt historic structures became available, so the agency
decided to renovate old buildings. Akron’s grand downtown hotel,
the 1931 Mayflower, became AMHA’s first project. A private firm
using FHA money poorly adapted the building for senior citizens
after the hotel closed in 1973. When it failed, the building reverted
When the agency proposed to create senior
back to HUD, which arranged with Newman to act as interim direc-
tor. Their interest piqued, Newman and Levey approached HUD, housing at West High School, the close proximity

with the blessing of the city, about taking over the management. of Glendale Cemetery was one of several reasons
AMHA arranged for a buyer and promised to assist in securing Sec- given by protestors for their opposition to the
tion 8 subsidies and tax-free bonds. project. AMHA managed the innovative housing
The second renovation of the Mayflower began in March 1980. project until 1986.
When it reopened in 1981, the project received praise for retaining (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)

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 The House That Jack Built

the integrity of the grand hotel while creating quality living space for
seniors. The facilities included a party room, a game room, an arts
and crafts area, a library, and a community room. Levey even ar-
ranged for a Lawson’s convenience store to occupy ground-floor
space because downtown lacked a grocery store. While the housing
authority did not own the Mayflower, it maintained a management
agreement with the owners, Transcon Builders, Inc.
The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority’s next selection for
adaptive reuse was not as popular as the Mayflower project. When
the Akron School District considered closing West Junior High
School in 1979, AMHA expressed interest in renovating the building
DAVID LEVEY for senior citizens. Originally built as a high school in 1917, the
D I R E C TO R, 1978–1982
structure was located on the near west side, bordering the expansive,

D avid Levey gained his experience in

public housing as he rose through the
ranks at the Akron Metropolitan Housing
150-year-old Glendale Cemetery. Detractors deemed it an unsuitable
site because of lack of stores in the neighborhood, a high crime rate,
and the questionable suitability of putting senior citizen housing
Authority. Soon after graduating from Bowling
overlooking a cemetery.
Green State University, he began as an inspector
and collected overdue rent. He then moved to
“The key to AMHA’s success is not construction but an emphasis
the Section 8 program and on to administrative on social programs, maintenance, and creative management,” said
assistant and deputy director under Levey. He viewed the school as creative management because, like
Herbert Newman. the Mayflower, the housing authority would not own the site, only
manage it and secure financing under Section 8. When the school
When the board appointed him director
after Newman’s resignation, they recognized board voted in March 1980 to close the school, renovation work
that Levey had been handling most of the proceeded. It took $2 million and two years to convert the class-
administration duties at AMHA for the last rooms into 68 apartments. When West High Apartments opened in
several years. It was said of him, “He’s bright, May 1982, the project became the first in Ohio and one of the first
intense, pushy, too meticulous about details, in the country to adapt an old school building for senior housing.
stern, and understanding—depending In a somewhat similar relationship, AMHA worked with devel-
on the topic.”
oper Patrick Neiman to renovate the downtown Akron Tower Motor
While Levey continued the public housing Inn with Section 8 money. They created a congregate care center,
philosophy of Saferstein and Newman, he which consisted of housing for senior citizens that provided services
also began to focus on the ever-expanding between a senior high-rise and a nursing home. The hotel remained
administrative needs of the organization.
single-room occupancy (SRO) or, in HUD language, zero bedroom.
Levey always kept in sight the importance
Residents ate in a common dining area. Named the Herbert Newman
of “making a house a home.”
Senior Resource Center, the project made public housing national
news because it was the nation’s first Section 8 congregate facility
and one of the first in public housing. It opened on November 15,
1975, with 194 units. While AMHA did not own the building, it
served as manager until 1981 when the arrangement was no longer
financially viable for the agency.
As during Saferstein’s time, AMHA recognized the need to pro-
vide increasing care for elderly tenants who could no longer care
for themselves in the high-rises. The Herbert Newman Senior Re-
source Center was a moderate step in that direction. In 1978 New-
man and Levey proposed their most ambitious housing project, an
$18 million development named Highpoint. Designed for land near
Saferstein Towers, overlooking downtown, the project called for
420 units, including family units along with 300 senior citizen
apartments complete with a life-care center. Money would come
not from the government but from AMHA funds collected from

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 The House That Jack Built

WWII housing, tax-free securities, and a syndication of the project

for sale to private investors.
The proposal was a radical departure for a public housing agency.
It never materialized. In that same year, however, just 10 years after
the opening of the first senior high-rise, the Paul E. Belcher Apart-
ments, the housing authority was landlord to 5,000 senior citizens in
14 buildings with a three- to five-year waiting list for new tenants.
Under David Levey, in 1979 AMHA began planning what would
become the Dorothy Jackson Terrace. The 28-unit development ex-
clusively for lower- and moderate-income handicapped residents
and their families again broke new public housing ground. Named
in honor of Human Services director Dorothy Jackson in recogni-
tion of her long-term commitment to the handicapped, the facility
opened in 1982.
Besides new housing, AMHA expanded its own facilities. In 1973,
with HUD money, the agency constructed a maintenance building,
moving the Central Warehouse crew from a barracks-type building
at Wilbeth-Arlington. That same year AMHA bought Sharp’s Mar-
ket on Wooster Avenue to convert it to a recreation center for nearby
Edgewood Homes. Questions arose because the store had been a
Sparkle Market owned by Jack Saferstein and was part of his estate.
He had closed it after the 1968 riots. But the housing authority
proved that there was no conflict of interest and radically renovated
the market, creating administrative offices, craft rooms, and space
for social activities.

Breaking Out
One of the most important legacies of Newman’s tenure, which was
greatly expanded under Levey, proved to be substantial develop-
ments outside Akron city limits. Besides that in the city of Barberton,
AMHA had been unable to develop housing outside Akron despite
the fact that the agency’s jurisdiction since its founding in 1938 in-
cluded all of Summit County except Sagamore Hills. The 1974 Pa-
rade of Urban Affordables made important inroads. “This should
show that we can be a good neighbor all over Summit County,” said
Newman. In 1978, a tight budget year for the authority, HUD
awarded money for 450 family units with the stipulation they must
be built outside the city of Akron.
In just three years, from 1978 to 1981, the Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority built 382 family units outside Akron: 125-unit
Honey Locust Gardens in Cuyahoga Falls, 72-unit Crimson Terrace
in Barberton, 60-unit Maplewood Gardens in Northhampton Town-
ship, and 125-unit Pinewood Gardens in Twinsburg. All built under
Levey, they carried his trademark, bearing names of trees. These de-
velopments moved AMHA family housing beyond Akron city limits,
dispersing “public housing throughout the county to avoid creating
socioeconomic pockets of lower-income people.”
Public housing in Twinsburg was considered one of AMHA’s
biggest victories. For years the agency had expressed an interest,
but the poverty-stricken area lacked the needed utilities to make

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 The House That Jack Built

public housing funding possible. In the early 1970s, political prob-

lems postponed the project further. In 1979, after nine years of
negotiations, Levey announced building plans. “When I first went
up there,” he said, “I couldn’t believe I was still in Summit County”—
a reaction to the poverty in an area where people still did not have
running water.
Pinewood Gardens, with 125 family units, opened on October
22, 1980. Sadly, less than two years later, on July 28, 1982, racial
tension flared in the development. Although historically it had been
a black community, AMHA integrated Pinewood Gardens. Officials
blamed the incident on a lack of recreational facilities, drugs, hot
summer days, and high unemployment.

Changing Tenants
If public housing financing had changed drastically since the early
“When I first went up 1960s, so too had the tenants public housing served. “Years ago
there [to Twinsburg], you could go down your applicant file and just about anybody you
picked would be ‘decent people,’ you know. Those who were re-
I couldn’t believe I was sponsible,” recalled one manager. Another reflected, “Back then we
still in Summit County.” had more double heads of households.” For the first decades of
—David Lev e y, r e a c t i n g t o t h e p o v e r t y public housing, the developments were places “where decent peo-
in an area w h e r e p e o p l e s t i l l d i d n o t ple could live decently.”
have runn i n g w a t e r Government regulations caused a change in tenants from a mix-
ture of middle- and lower-class constituencies to the very poor. Pub-
lic housing officials cite the Brooke Amendment as one of the most
devastating. Most of the tenants were now on welfare, often single
heads of household. Local housing authorities had little say in choos-
ing the tenants they accepted, and had to follow a complicated pro-
cedure to evict uncooperative tenants. According to Housing Ameri-
ca’s Poor, “The clear reasons for the decline of public housing are the
shift to a policy of income-based rent determinations and a series of
court decisions and federal regulations that altered the rules for ten-
ant selection and eviction.”12
In October 1978, the American Civil Liberties Union claimed
that the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority, along with the
city and the Ohio Real Estate Board, was responsible for the segre-
gated Akron Public Schools. According to the ACLU, the schools
would not be segregated if not for the actions taken by these three
groups. This suit was in conjunction with a desegregation plan pro-
posed earlier in the year by the Akron Public Schools. Most of the
attention focused on the west side where African-American fami-
lies had moved, especially after the urban renewal for Opportunity
Park and the innerbelt construction and where AMHA owned
much scattered-site housing.
When the case went to court, the housing authority’s lawyer,
Eugene Oestreicher, countered that most of the schools were segre-
gated before 1967 and AMHA’s scattered housing program. Long-
term AMHA employee and former Edgewood Homes manager
Audrey Dalrymple testified that HUD directed the housing author-
ity to desegregate in 1959 when the first African-American family

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 The House That Jack Built

moved to Edgewood Homes, also in the contested area. By 1968 it

was 95 percent black when the remaining white families moved out
after the riots. In April 1980 a judge struck down the Akron Public
Schools desegregation plan, but AMHA was found innocent of in-
tentional discrimination.
As a result of the lawsuit, HUD made the housing authority
change a policy it felt prompted segregation. Up to this time appli-
cants at the top of the waiting list were given three choices of units
and an opportunity to live in the neighborhood in which they felt
most comfortable. To combat this natural selection, and with the
threat of losing federal money, HUD required Levey in November
1978 to institute a policy of applicants accepting the first available
unit. This meant that if an applicant refused a unit, he or she would
go back to the bottom of a three- to five-year waiting list.
In 1978 the list contained 13,000 names. A year later there was
little improvement, with 100 people a week applying to live in
AMHA housing. By April 1982, HUD recognized that the policy was
unworkable and allowed AMHA to go back to three choices for
prospective residents.

Track Record of Success

Both Newman and Levey continued the efforts of Saferstein, and the
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority’s reputation remained
strong. In 1978 the HUD magazine Challenge wrote, “AMHA has
worked for and won the reputation in Akron as ‘the best landlord’
in town.” The Toledo Blade cited AMHA as a public housing author-
ity that worked, in contrast to the authority in Toledo. It quoted area
HUD director Paul Lydens: “AMHA is among the best because of
good management, creativeness and aggressive leadership.” The
Challenge agreed. “Perhaps nowhere in the nation is there a better
mix of the ingredients for successful housing programs than in
Akron. . . . The AMHA has combined innovation, leadership, and a
philosophy of dignity of the individual.” “AMHA has worked for
Federal HUD officials perceived AMHA as a leader with a high and won the reputation
profile, progressive attitude, good publicity, strong financing tools,
and respect from city government. While some local housing au- in Akron as ‘the best
thorities resented AMHA’s success and the unorthodox methods of landlord’ in town.”
its directors, others appreciated its pioneering efforts, especially in — C h a l l e n g e M a g a z ine
the area of funding methods.
Public housing took a beating in the 1970s with increased social
problems and, beginning with Nixon’s moratorium, decreased fund-
ing. The cavernous Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and Cabrini-Green in Chi-
cago became synonymous with the evils of public housing—with the
violence, vandalism, and vacancy that plagued the huge concrete
high-rises. In cities like Cleveland, the local housing authority be-
came a pawn in city politics. In Boston, tenants held a rent strike to
protest the lack of maintenance and the dangerous conditions. Even
smaller housing authorities like Toledo’s suffered public-image prob-
lems. Small wonder then that HUD secretary Carla Hills called
AMHA a gem of a housing authority.

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 The House That Jack Built

The Beginning of the End

“The House That Jack Built” collapsed in August 1982, when the
Akron Beacon Journal ran a week-long exposé accusing Newman and
Levey of wrongdoing. This visible flailing publicized the behind-the-
scenes turmoil that had been eating at AMHA for several months.
The primary issue focused on Herbert Newman’s dual role as
private developer and as the housing authority’s consultant. The
propriety of AMHA’s arrangement with Newman had been ques-
tioned occasionally but never seriously challenged. In early 1980,
Newman had been part of the Highland Square area redevelop-
ment, announcing he would build a senior citizen high-rise and
then contract with AMHA. A West Akron citizens group questioned
Newman’s ethics, concerned that it was “a moral rather than a
legal issue.” The group backed away from any charges and Belcher
claimed that AMHA needed Newman’s skill as he controlled the
legal affairs and development efforts.
While the paper investigated AMHA for its story over eight
months, political winds also were changing for the “golden agency”
that had never been overtly political. It began when Paul Belcher was
not reappointed to the board of directors by probate judge Willard
Spicer. Belcher, who had been appointed every five years since 1938
by Republicans and Democrats alike, remarked, “[Spicer] is a Re-
publican. I am a Democrat.” Republican Cuyahoga Falls attorney
Warren Gibson was appointed instead.
With the sudden death of William Fowler in July, a month before
the Beacon Journal story, the board’s old guard lost its majority. Let-
ters to the newspaper’s editor blamed the drive to remove Levey on
partisan political motivation.
Some claimed the politics came about because of disgruntled
local builders. A few big companies, two based in Cleveland, were
receiving a large percentage of the housing authority’s contracts.
“Large Akron construction firms say they will no longer bid on
AMHA contracts because they thought they had little chance to be
awarded it.”13 The Akron-Canton Subcontractors Association also
brought complaints. And there were a number of problems with the
Mayflower and West High because of lack of supervision and audits.
These and most of the other complaints were answered in the
AMHA Annual Report of 1982: “Contracts let out on bid basis, but
following HUD regulation, make only a few major sophisticated de-
velopers truly qualified to do major subsidized housing jobs, a situ-
ation which exists nationally.”
Newman resigned as consultant and Levey, faced with suspen-
sion without pay, followed suit. The board then hired a prosecutor
to investigate the agency’s former directors, and the county insti-
tuted a grand jury investigation. After 18 months of intensive in-
vestigation and hearings, neither Newman nor Levey was found
guilty of any wrongdoing. While a HUD official had admitted back
in 1977 that Newman had one main weakness—“He likes his
friends a little too much”—the federal agency never uncovered any
wrongdoing, either.
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 The House That Jack Built

“I have a good feeling about what I’ve accomplished for the com-
munity,” Newman said upon leaving. “We’ve not only created a lot
of jobs, built a lot of buildings, and planned good housing, but we’ve
improved the quality of life for our tenants.” Later he added, “We
really set AMHA apart as far as the people we served, and we also
made it a financial powerhouse.”
The impact of the political upheaval and newspaper story on the
remaining staff was devastating. “I think many of the staff never
quite understood what was happening, in terms of all these major
pieces of publicity that were going on and people being pressured to
leave office,” reflected one longtime employee. “It was kind of like
the beginning of the end. The agency has never really fully recovered
from that.”

Notes
1. “Gem of a Housing Authority,” Akron Beacon 8. Akron Beacon Journal, 16 August 1968.
Journal, 15 October 1976.
9. Letters to the Editor, Akron Beacon Journal, 17
2. Jack Bryan, “Akron, 3000 Units in Three Years,” October 1972.
Journal of Housing, No. 8, August/September
10. Interview with Dorothy Jackson, November
1971, p. 398.
1988.
3. “People and Homes, Special Report,” Akron Bea-
11. Interview with Herbert Newman, November
con Journal, 29 August 1971, p. 18.
1988.
4. Bryan, Journal of Housing, p. 399.
12. Peter D. Salins, ed., Housing America’s Poor
5. Akron Beacon Journal, 23 March 1967. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1987).
6. “People and Homes,” 29 August 1971, p. 35.
13. “Costs but Not Labor,” Akron Beacon Journal, 8
7. “This Is the Housing That Jack Built,” Business
March 1978.
Week, 13 September 1969.

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 A Different Direction
1 9 8 2 – 1 9 9 2

A
fter the resignations of Newman and Levey, financial adminis-
trator James E. Balbach was named interim director while the
search for a replacement began. The Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority received more than 200 applications for the
job. On October 18, 1982, the board announced the selection
of Janet B. Purnell—AMHA’s first woman director, and its first African-
American director. Purnell, an elementary school administrator, had
been in the field of education for 21 years. She received her master’s
degree from the University of Akron and served on its board of trustees.
Purnell also had another qualification for the AMHA director-
ship: She knew public housing firsthand, having grown up in the
agency’s oldest development, Elizabeth Park. It had been a positive
experience, and she remembered the sense of community during the
project’s early years. Board chairman Warren Gibson pointed to her
“empathy with the problems in the community.”1

A Change in Philosophy
After more than 15 years of the Saferstein management philosophy,
Purnell brought striking changes to the Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority. First, she reorganized the staff, citing a need to correct in-
ternal management problems. She transformed the rather loose ad-
ministrative management into a very centralized one, with all deci-
sions made by a core group. According to a senior staff member, Pur-
nell “tightened up operations with a much greater amount of account-
ability and far less amount of flexibility.” She instituted systems of
checks and balances.2
At the same time, Purnell encouraged greater communication
among divisions and among staff members at similar levels, primar-
ily through a series of staff meetings. She tried to break down com-
munication barriers. She saw a real need for additional staff training
and offered incentives for more education, hoping to foster greater
ambition and professionalism, especially among the managers. Com-
puterization of records, begun under Levey, also greatly expanded.
Because of skyrocketing insurance costs, Purnell helped establish a
self-funded insurance plan for the agency.

New Consideration of Building

Outside changes also affected AMHA. The conservative adminis-
tration of Ronald Reagan, which sought to severely curtail HUD
funding, caused a change in direction for many local housing au-
thorities. Rather than fund more public housing construction, the
Reagan administration promoted a system of housing vouchers
first proposed under Richard Nixon. Eligible low-income families
would receive a voucher for a housing allowance to present to a
landlord of their choice. The limited funds available to local hous-
ing authorities paid for remodeling and modernization.

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 A Diffe rent Direction

Alarmed by the severe federal budget cuts, local housing officials

sought to ensure continued support of their properties. While serving
on the board of directors of the Council of Large Public Housing Au-
thorities, Purnell testified in 1986 before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee
on Appropriations, lobbying for sustaining and expanding subsidized
housing nationally. At the same time, AMHA organized tenants in a
mass letter-writing campaign against federal budget cuts.
From 1982 until 1987, AMHA received $20 million toward ren-
ovating and modernizing, reflecting HUD’s focus on maintaining
local housing stock rather than expanding it. The housing authority
developed a five-year capital improvements project for upgrading its
operations. Buildings from the rapid development of the late 1960s
JANET PURNELL
DIRECTOR, 1982–198 8
and ’70s were aging, requiring major repairs. In the high-rises, falling
plaster necessitated replacement with drywall. Waterproofing of
basements at Joy Park Homes and window replacement at Lake- W hen the AMHA board hired Janet Purnell,
they set a number of firsts. She was the
first woman and the first African American to
shore became a priority as the “instant housing” of the 1970s proved
serve as director of AMHA, and the first director
not as durable as originally believed. The structural defects in the
who could claim firsthand knowledge of living in
aging Stirling Homex housing made the 900 units maintenance- AMHA housing.
intensive. In the older developments, health issues involving lead
paint and asbestos required attention. Purnell spent her childhood years at
Elizabeth Park, AMHA’s oldest development.
One of Purnell’s early duties was to dedicate the Dorothy Jackson
She attended North High School and went on to
Terrace, a 28-unit apartment complex designed for the handicapped
get a teaching certificate and a master’s degree
and their families that was proposed in 1979 under David Levey. It in administration from the University of Akron.
was the only new construction, begun in 1986 after an agreement She was a 21-year veteran of the Akron public
with the city of Akron, which agreed to let AMHA apply to the fed- school system, serving as principal at
eral government for 100 units in Cuyahoga Falls if the agency would several schools.
upgrade its existing housing in Akron. AMHA secured funding for A visible figure in the community, Purnell was
only 12 family units, which were built near Honey Locust Gardens. appointed to the University of Akron’s board of
Named Vincent Lobello Lane after board president Vincent Lobello, trustees and in August 1986 became board
the housing complex was dedicated in April 1988. chairman. Deeply involved in local politics,
The housing authority lost units in 1986 when the manage- she served on the executive committee of the
ment agreements with West High and Mayflower Manor were Summit County Republican Party.
severed due to financial infeasibility. With Reagan’s emphasis on
“housing attached to the back of the low-income tenant,” the Sec-
tion 8 program doubled during these years.3 AMHA administered
over 2,900 units of housing with more than 800 landlords, offer-
ing them special workshops and meetings to better facilitate the
qualification process.

Staff Changes
The most visible changes occurred at AMHA when Purnell began
firing senior staff members and replacing them with her own candi-
dates. Personnel director Leon Friedman and his assistant, Rick
Nixon, were the first to leave in November 1982. Purnell had worked
under Friedman when they were both at the Akron Public Schools.
She replaced Friedman with Frank Fela, a Republican. A month later
Summit County’s assistant prosecutor, Wayne Calabrese, another
Republican, was named legal counsel for the housing authority. A
number of other senior staff members also were fired, and almost all
were replaced with Republicans.

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 A Different Direction

Noting this personnel trend, the Beacon Journal warned Purnell

not to fall into a political trap. The paper voiced “a distrusting feel-
ing that politics plays too great a role at AMHA.”4 The frequent
Friday-afternoon firings affected staff morale, and it took several
years before the staff “suddenly realized that every Friday doesn’t
mean somebody is going to leave.”
In April 1984 three former staff members, James Balbach, Larry
Bramlett, and Leon Friedman, sued the housing authority, claiming
they had been fired for political reasons. In Friedman’s case, Purnell
claimed “philosophical differences” for the dismissal, while he
blamed “politics, power, and patronage.”5 After a number of years in
ED WARD DAVIS the court system, AMHA’s insurance company settled the suit out of
B OA R D MEMBER, 1985–1995
court for $800,000 on February 6, 1987, just days before the court

E dward Davis came to the AMHA board

after building an accomplished career as
a labor leader, civil rights activist, and elected
ruled in favor of the housing authority.
The board also changed frequently during this period. Warren
Gibson left in November 1983, serving only a year and a half. He
official. He served as board chairman from
had become chairman after the death of William Fowler, and his
1988 to 1990.
tenure saw some of the most radical personnel changes. Over a five-
Active in the Democratic party, Davis was the year period the board membership changed completely, a striking
first African American elected to Akron City contrast to the years when trustees served several terms. Additions to
Council, which he served as president. Upon
the board included Ed Davis, AMHA’s challenger from the early
retiring, he was appointed clerk of council.
1960s. The first woman came onto the board in 1986, when Jose-
Throughout his career and tenure on the AMHA phine Cross was appointed.
board, Davis remained loyal to and concerned
about grassroots issues. He always questioned On Strike
the potential impact of federal and local policy
In the early 1970s, AMHA maintenance employees joined the
decisions on residents and was a staunch
supporter of resident services—especially
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
those involving education, youth sports, and ­(AFSCME). “Joining the union was one of those things you did at
the elderly. He died in 1995. the time,” according to one member. “There was no specific reason
for unionizing.”
Reason or not, people did get fired over union organizing, but
management did not fight stridently against the union until the early
1980s. Soon after Purnell assumed her duties, AFSCME tried to union-
ize the “front office” clerical and secretarial staff. The union didn’t
succeed, but in July 1986 maintenance workers went out on strike,
picketing the main office on Cedar Street. They claimed that the hous-
ing authority wanted contract concessions, especially involving sick
leave. They also accused the authority of wanting to break the union.
The union was not broken, and the strike ended after 37 days when
the AMHA board approved a 3 percent salary increase.

Human Services
The many personnel changes in the 1980s also affected the Human
Services division when Dorothy Jackson left abruptly to accept a job
with Akron’s newly elected mayor, Tom Sawyer. In January 1984,
Terry Meese replaced Jackson, whom he had assisted for almost 10
years. Even before Jackson left, Human Services had been cut back
and forced to focus inward with less emphasis on community in-
volvement. “We tend to be changing our focus right now,” said
Meese, “from the recreational kinds of things that used to be done in

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 A Diffe rent Direction

The regulations of the Department of Housing

the past, which were good, to a focus more that says our folks really
need some help with basic life skills.”6 and Urban Development gradually changed

An ever-increasing percentage of AMHA tenants fought debilitat- public housing. In 1987 HUD mandated that AMHA

ing problems such as alcoholism, depression, and drug-related de- transfer families at Edgewood into units elsewhere.
pendency. The housing authority even saw their elderly high-rise ten- This ruling destroyed the sense of community in the
ants become increasingly needy. “As we have gotten larger, and be- development and led to an increase in crime and
cause we have more complex problems to deal with,” said Meese, drugs, according to director Paul Messenger.
“we can’t render the same level of service anymore.”
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
One of the more notable exceptions to declining social programs
was Project Self-Sufficiency, an attempt to deal with the complex
problem of helping single mothers escape welfare. In 1985 Purnell
worked with Summit County executive John Morgan to successfully
secure government funding for a program that combined child care,
personal and career counseling, transportation, education, and job
training and placement for single parents. A special component in-
cluded a mentoring program, matching 50 single mothers in the Sec-
tion 8 program with successful women in the community.
AMHA maintained the growing Summer Youth Employment
Program, hiring 279 teenagers in 1985. It also ran the Home Energy
Assistance Program (HEAP), which provided one-time payment to
prevent gas and electric shut-off or to restore service, but discontin-
ued the program in September 1984 for reasons Purnell blamed on
partisan politics under Democratic governor Richard Celeste.

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 A Different Direction

While the Reagan administration cut funding for public housing,

the waiting list for AMHA units only grew longer. Purnell closed the
application window in February 1985. When it was reopened for a
month after a year and a half, long lines of applicants waited for an
opportunity to live in public housing; 685 applications were submit-
ted for two-bedroom units. Yet as increased concern about the home-
less dominated newspaper headlines, AMHA was able to house more
than 20,000 low-income people.

Another Change
The court case over the fired senior staff members was not the only
PAUL MESSENGER politically tinged challenge that embroiled the Akron Metropolitan
D I R E C TO R , 1988–1992
Housing Authority under Janet Purnell. In 1986 an employee charged

A s the first AMHA director trained in public

housing, Paul Messenger brought with him
a wealth of experience. He began his career
that Purnell and personnel director Frank Fela coerced housing au-
thority employees into buying Republican party fundraiser tickets.
At the time, Purnell served as vice chairman of the executive commit-
with HUD, then moved to public housing
tee of the Summit County Republican Party.
administration, heading authorities in
Springfield, Ohio, and Little Rock, Arkansas.
The complaint went to the Merit Systems Protection Board in
Washington, D.C., which investigated the violation under the 1939
Messenger also brought a personal Hatch Act. While the investigation continued, Purnell remained as
understanding of public housing. For his first
director, but long before the charges had even been brought, Feta had
six years, like so many other children during
resigned his position to pursue private consulting. On October 29,
World War II, he lived in public housing (in
Hammond, Indiana) while his father was 1987, the judge in the case ruled that Purnell be fired. Amid the al-
in the service. legations, a January 1988 Beacon Journal editorial called Purnell an
“effective dedicated executive.”7
Along with his broad background and
Janet Purnell left the agency in April 1988, having served almost
experience, Messenger’s informal management
style stood in marked contrast to that of his
six years as executive director. After the case was appealed that sum-
predecessor. AMHA staff members agreed with mer, Purnell and Feta were found guilty of violating the Hatch Act
an assessment of Messenger made by one of and were barred from holding public office for 18 months.
his former Little Rock colleagues: “He works
well with all types of people; he has the knack The Seventh Director
of making everyone feel important.” Terry Meese, who had moved in to fill the personnel position after
Feta’s departure in 1984, became interim director. The board of trust-
ees faced the difficult challenge of naming a new director who could
restore confidence in AMHA and provide leadership to both the com-
munity and to the housing authority’s beleaguered employees. The
office received 275 applications, including several from high-profile
political figures in Akron. The board deliberated in private, refusing
to reveal the résumés to either staff or the Beacon Journal. To the sur-
prise of many, on June 2, 1988, AMHA hired Paul H. Messenger—its
first nonlocal, professionally trained housing director.
The appointment surprised Messenger, too. A veteran of public
housing since the 1960s, he was very aware of the role of local poli-
tics in agencies and the frequent practice of hiring a party candidate,
rather than an unconnected outsider. Messenger felt that “even with
all the politics, the AMHA board had not forgotten what it was re-
ally about: providing housing.”8
Unlike the preceding six directors, Messenger brought with him
the experience of a public housing professional. He began his career
with HUD in its heyday of the late 1960s and ’70s. He served as di-

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 A Diffe rent Direction

Beginning in 1985, AMHA closed the application

rector of two smaller authorities, in Springfield, Ohio, and Little
Rock, Arkansas. He brought a more informal style, decentralizing window because of the overwhelming numbers of

AMHA’s management. families on the waiting list for housing. When

When Messenger arrived in July 1988, he found an organization applications were periodically taken, lines formed
that wanted to do things well, but had lost sight of its goals. Unlike like this one in March 1989. People waited in
the previous administration, he did not fire staff members, although the early-morning cold for a chance to be placed
he did rearrange the organizational structure. His first priority was on a list that could mean up to a three-year
returning the agency to the basics of housing management, improved
wait before they could move into public housing.
maintenance, quick turnaround for unit occupancy, and prompt rent
(AKRON BEACON JOURNAL)
collection. Since public housing remained out of favor with the fed-
eral government, Messenger prompted the agency once again to ex-
plore creative ways to fund more housing programs.
While Messenger brought back some of the management philoso-
phies found at AMHA during the years of Saferstein, Newman, and
Levey, the idea of public housing creating great social change was
not one of them. After witnessing the tremendous changes in public
housing since the ambitious programs of the Johnson administra-
tion, Messenger held few illusions, feeling that “public housing is still
public housing.” Even so, he began considering ways for AMHA to
better serve other portions of the population such as lower-income
working families and the frail elderly. Plans also included a program
to assist tenants, especially female single heads of families, out of
public housing and into homeownership.
Other issues that concerned Messenger because of their impact
on public housing included the breakdown of families and the loss
of a sense of community. As a professional with 30 years’ experience,
he was well aware of the toll that social problems of this magnitude
can take on a public housing agency, its employees, and its reputa-
tion. In Akron, his frustration began to show.
“There is a myth that because something, anything, happens in
public housing it is necessarily the fault or the responsibility of the
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 A Different Direction

public housing authority,” Messenger wrote in a scathing 1989 edi-

torial response to a Beacon Journal story regarding crime in scat-
tered-site public and Section 8 housing. “If you strip away the embel-
lishments, our fundamental job is to provide a roof over peoples’
heads. We have no control over what people do under that roof, or
in the surrounding neighborhood. . . . The housing did not create the
family breakdown or the lack of any legitimate family formation to
begin with. Most people have never seen a public housing unit strewn
with garbage and human waste, with roaches crawling over a naked
infant, with the teen-age mother and her male ‘visitor’ on the couch
watching soap operas. . . .”9
Messenger lasted four years as AMHA’s head executive. When he
resigned in June 1992, with an ulcer and high blood pressure, the
waiting list stood at 5,000. Still, the agency’s seventh director made
his mark. Under Messenger, AMHA reduced its vacancy rate from 12
to 3 percent and cut a six-month turnaround on vacant units by half.
Messenger also helped iron out problems in the Section 8 program
and initiated a more thorough screening process for applicants to
help reduce crime. About 300 additional families were housed dur-
ing his term.10
“He was a very intelligent man,” said Louise Gissendaner, board
chairman at the time. “It wasn’t that he could not do the job. He had
family and personal issues and, frankly speaking, he wasn’t function-
ing to the board’s standards.”11 Messenger “knew everything there
was to know about public housing, but he would have been more
effective in a higher education setting,” said a former colleague. “His
talent was looking at a problem in the system and beginning the
changes to correct it. He wasn’t interested so much in the day-to-day
as in how the agency worked.”
Any post in subsidized housing requires acceptance that there are
problems even the most well-run agency can’t always solve, said Gis-
sendaner. “I think one of Paul’s problems was that he’d been in pub-
lic housing too long, and he just burned the heck out.”

Notes
1. Akron Beacon Journal, 22 September 1982. 6. Meese interview, November 1988.
2. Interview with Janet Purnell, December 1988. 7. Akron Beacon Journal, 14 January 1988.
3. Interview with Terry Meese, November 1988. 8. Interview with Paul Messenger, May 1990.
4. Several Beacon Journal editorials offered warn- 9. Paul Messenger, Editorial,
ings about politics at AMHA during the Purnell Akron Beacon Journal, 17 November 1989.
administration. The two quoted here appeared
10. Akron Beacon Journal, 19 November 1992.
on 2 March 1987 and 14 December 1983.
11. Interview with Louise Gissendaner,
5. Akron Beacon Journal, 31 April 1984.
August 1999.
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 During Paul Messenger’s tenure, AMHA earned national recognition for instituting a mobile
learning center. The “Computer Commuter” provides training to children and adults, visiting
housing developments throughout Summit County. The program continues today as part of
numerous educational services offered to public housing residents.

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 A Changing Time
1 9 9 2 – 2 0 0 0

O
nce again, Terry Meese found himself at the helm as interim
director, this time for an entire year. While the board of
trustees set about searching for the housing authority’s
eighth executive director, Meese strove to run AMHA effi-
ciently, concentrating on maintenance and other day-to-day
operations rather than starting new projects.
“In fairness to the new director, I didn’t want to get all these irons
in the fire and then find out he or she had different ideas,” said Meese,
adding that he did not feel particularly overburdened by the extra
work or constrained by the temporariness of his term. As deputy direc-
tor, he’d become used to filling in during Messenger’s absences, “so the
transition was far more smooth than you’d imagine.”1
But Meese, a staffer since 1975, noted that he did not put the
agency on autopilot. In fact, he remembered 1992 as “a time when
we went after and received a lot of grants.”
That November, AMHA announced it would get $9.7 million the
following year from a federal program for comprehensive rehabilita-
tion—renovations so extensive they require tenants to move. A new
formula used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development
had boosted the amount to three times the 1992 allocation, enough to
remodel Belcher North, Belcher South, and Saferstein Towers I, as well
as the Valley View and Summit Lake family developments.
The housing authority used a portion of the windfall to start a
home-buying program with Akron that would give families with
moderate incomes the chance to purchase homes owned by AMHA
and some Section 8 units in the Madison-Peckham area. Under the
plan, local banks provided financing while AMHA and the city made
grants available for down payments and refurbishing. The program
marked AMHA’s first foray into homeownership.2
That same year, the agency also received $751,349 from HUD to
expand its drug education and prevention programs, $123,102 for a
joint venture with Summit County Children’s Services to provide
housing certificates for split families who needed only homes to re-
unite, and $150,000 to check for lead paint and other potential haz-
ards. A separate $35,000 grant from the Ohio Education Depart-
ment went toward hiring an additional teacher for the “Computer
Commuter,” the agency’s 30-foot literacy-lab-on-wheels that made
regular rounds throughout the developments.
Meese noted that grants such as these painted a picture of public
housing’s latest epoch: renovation (or demolition) rather than build-
ing, scattered-site placement instead of clustering, and a push toward
homeownership, more social services, beautification, and education.
Development money for new construction—the massive high-rises
and mini-villages of public housing’s prime—no longer existed. And
there were those who didn’t want it to. Among many private home-
owners, the “not in my backyard” sentiment ruled.

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 A Changing Time

Still, Meese added, the last seven years had seen “a number of
initiatives, all of which have served to enhance the viability of the
housing stock, and the credibility of the agency.”

O’Leary Becomes Director

Ray Kapper arrived at AMHA toward the end of its search for a new
director, after the board—understandably wary of dazzlingly written
résumés—had winnowed the nearly 275 applicants for Messenger’s
post to an out-of-stater. One of Kapper’s first duties as a trustee was
to interview the candidate, whose attitude made him uncomfortable
from the start.
“He spelled team with an ‘i’—as in, ‘I’m going to do this’ and ‘I’m
going to do that,’” said Kapper. “Well, you’ve got to have one guy
who’s captain of the ship, but there is no ‘i’ in team.” He told his col-
leagues that he “couldn’t accept this person” and suggested they take
another look at the handful of finalists.3
The weary board was hardly happy with this development, then-
president Louise Gissendaner recalled. “We’d gone on a huge search.
We brought in people from all over the country. We even hired a
consultant,” she said. “Then, finally, we realized we had somebody
in our own backyard, somebody who knew the city, knew how to
maneuver here.”4
Kapper remembed reaching the same conclusion. “One day, I just
thought, gee, Tony O’Leary . . .”
Anthony W. O’Leary, Akron mayor Donald L. Plusquellic’s dep-
uty, reportedly was interested in heading AMHA when Janet Purnell
left in 1988 but did not apply for the job. He didn’t apply when Mes-
senger left, either, so board members moved to approach the quiet
but widely known city official.
“We tried to have a very fair and unbiased hiring process,” said
Gissendaner, who had known O’Leary for 25 years. “We had to
speculate whether it was even appropriate to ask Tony to apply. Then
there was the political angle. He was right under the mayor as head
of planning and urban development, and we didn’t want to hear, ‘Oh,
the mayor’s friend got the job.’”
There were other worrisome implications. “We were hours away
from hiring this fellow,” board member Kurt Laubinger said of the
candidate Kapper disliked.5 That O’Leary, who had never worked in
public housing, just seemed to surface without application or résumé
at the eleventh hour of a costly nine-month search flabbergasted
those outside the agency’s inner circle. Laubinger recalled that the
consultant was “furious” and warned other candidates might sue,
especially those who had put job possibilities on hold while awaiting
AMHA’s decision.
O’Leary was appointed AMHA’s eighth top executive—without
criticism from any corner of the city, Kapper noted—in June 1993.
“Now that I look back, [hiring O’Leary] was probably the best
move,” said Laubinger, who went on to become board chairman.
“But at the time, I didn’t agree with the way it was done.”

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 A Changing Time

New Directions
From the beginning, Tony O’Leary knew his two main charges: to
oversee the construction of AMHA’s new headquarters on Cedar
Street, and to ensure sound management of the team that would
operate within, and beyond, its walls. “We want an organization that
is accountable, that does what it’s supposed to do,” the self-described
hands-on director said he was told upon taking the post. It was an
era that saw presidential nominee Senator Robert Dole scorn public
housing as “one of the last bastions of socialism in the world.”
The mid-1990s was, O’Leary conceded, “a strange time” to un-
dertake directorship of a public housing authority. Nationally,
LOUISE GISSENDANER chronic mismanagement had compelled HUD to intervene in (or
B OA R D MEMBER, 1989–1993
take control of) housing authorities in several major cities. Both

L ouise J. Gissendaner was appointed to

AMHA’s board of trustees shortly after Paul
Messenger’s hiring in 1989 and was board
Democrats and Republicans bemoaned government waste while
trying not to relinquish the humanitarian sensibilities of the 1960s.
Programs for senior citizens and children were easy enough to push
president when Tony O’Leary took over the
through, O’Leary said, but response to other social service initia-
director’s post in 1993.
tives was mixed.6
Gissendaner joined Fifth Third Bank, Yet it was the more innovative programs that taught people to
Northeastern Ohio, in 1995 with more than live comfortably in—and eventually move out of—public housing,
17 years’ banking experience. As the bank’s
O’Leary and his AMHA colleagues believed.
vice-president and director of community
development, she worked with housing,
A number of the tenants had many children and no furniture,
community, and economic development including beds, straits that were unheard of in the Saferstein years.
organizations. They also had little experience with the myriad maintenance tasks
and simple repairs all households require. Despite this, the trend
She served on the boards of many organizations
among tenants was to want a single-family home whether it was
throughout Cuyahoga and Summit counties,
including the executive committee of government-owned or not. HUD, in fact, was pushing homeowner-
Neighborhood Housing Services and the ship with special loans and affordable housing, an idea O’Leary
Glenville Development Corporation. Other viewed as “not realistic.”
board commitments included the Summit The average resident in public housing earned less than $10,000
County Red Cross, Cleveland Action to Support per year, had two or more children, was unemployed or underem-
Housing, Westside Neighborhood Development ployed, and had a hard time making the monthly rent—30 percent
Corporation, Akron Community Service Center,
or less of gross income. About 90 percent of the units had female
and the Urban League.
heads of household, many of them overwhelmed by the new policy
A graduate of Kent State University, Gissendaner that limited their time on government aid.
was deeply involved with nonprofit and “Mainstreaming sounds like a good idea for people with means,”
fundraising activities. She served as chair of the
O’Leary said. “But it makes no sense for people with small welfare
first-ever “Women of Achievement” luncheon,
checks and three kids.”
which raised $43,000 for the YWCA of Summit
County program.
More Than Just Housing
The seven-member Resident Support Services department run by
Pamela Hawkins received its funding through HUD. Additional local
money was allocated by AMHA’s board, she said, “and that sets us
apart from other authorities.”7 Her position, director of Resident
Support Services, was also unique to AMHA. So was the way her
department’s work got done.
The key was a cooperative arrangement—including the housing
authority, other agencies, programs, schools, hospitals, and the court
system—that offered what Hawkins called “birth-to-death services
that would be really hard to provide without this kind of collabora-

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 A Changing Time

tion.” These services included prenatal care and immunizations

through the city health department, meals and activities for school-
age children during summer vacation, self-sufficiency classes (includ-
ing home maintenance), and youth recreation programs such as the
Boys and Girls Clubs.
While the agency had offered Head Start in its housing develop-
ments for years, two newer community rooms were built with the
program in mind, featuring toddler-sized toilets, infant accommoda-
tions, and other amenities such as playgrounds and computer stations.
The Computer Commuter mobile learning lab started rolling on
$150,000 in federal funds in 1992. Hawkins, the agency’s grant-
writer, conceived the idea. The specially outfitted former recreational
vehicle’s 10 computer stations included two touch-screens for resi-
dents who could not read or who studied English as a second lan-
guage. AMHA was one of the few housing authorities in the state to
receive an Ohio Department of Education grant to partially fund a
certified teacher for the free service.
The agency’s other program-on-wheels was a Mobile Health Unit
formerly operated by the Community Drug Board. In 1998 the
Akron Health Department asked to use the vehicle, which boasted
two exam rooms with modern medical equipment, a waiting room
with a TV and VCR, and a computer system that allowed doctors to
scan their notes and send patient files to the nearest emergency room.
One of the agency’s most innovative programs arose from one of
its most pressing dilemmas: housing younger people with disabilities
in buildings primarily occupied by senior citizens. It wasn’t simply a
matter of generational culture clash, although some elderly residents
did complain about unsupervised children and loud music. The older
people reported strangers loitering in the halls, break-ins, gun-sight-
ings, domestic disputes, theft, and criminal damage.
Although from a services and programming standpoint it was
probably better to house seniors separately, there was nothing
AMHA could do about it legally, according to Louise Gissendaner.
At the time, about 400 disabled residents, including a number with
mental disorders, lived among more than 1,000 elderly tenants. In
some buildings, both groups—ironically, the two populations to
whom public housing means independence, not dependence—lived
amicably. But in others, the residents felt terrorized. The delicate
predicament plagued housing authorities nationwide.
“We wanted to help all those who needed housing, and some of
these buildings had old studio apartments that the elderly didn’t
want, so we had to use them,” said Gissendaner. “The ones we
could move, we did. But the real problem was, how do you make
the seniors feel safe while accommodating other individuals who
also need housing?”
In 1997 AMHA received a $675,000 grant from HUD, part of
which was used to hire two full-time service coordinators to help
residents adjust and to act as management liaisons. The agency also
began working with the Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental
Health Services Board, which provided a team of professionals to

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 A Changing Time

handle crises after-hours. Hawkins met weekly with the doctor in

charge (client confidentiality was maintained) and called this solu-
tion “a godsend.”
The Resident Support Services department, whose slogan was
“We’re more than just housing,” also oversaw the Family Solutions
Start Program, a joint effort with local businesses to train residents
to get and keep jobs. It, too, went out to the developments.
So did O’Leary, the staff, and the board of trustees. Upon his ap-
pointment, AMHA’s director demanded the team take a personal
interest, attending functions, visiting sites, talking to residents. “You
can’t effectively run an agency this size,” said O’Leary, “until you get
KURT LAUBINGER into the details.”
B OA R D MEMBER, 1991–20 09
The details, unfortunately, included the seemingly intractable

A ppointed to the board of trustees in 1991,

Kurt Laubinger served as vice-chairman
beginning the following year and was elected
problem of drug dealing and use. “The devastating effect drugs have
had on society is magnified in public housing, and the consequences
are far more significant,” O’Leary observed. “In the suburbs, you
chairman in January 1998. A lifelong Summit
have drugs in homes. In public housing, they’re in the homes, in the
County resident, he owns Kurt O. Laubinger &
Sons, Inc., a family wholesale flower-growing
hallways, and on the playground.” Though Akron had seen its share
business in Macedonia. of drug-related violence in public housing before 1992, the commu-
nity was shocked and galvanized when three young mothers were
Laubinger attended Ohio State University and
gunned down at Edgewood Homes as their children slept.
Bliss Business College, where he majored in
AMHA avoided taking a big stick approach to lesser problems
floriculture and business administration. He
is active in state and national professional such as damage to apartments and late rental payments, but it fol-
organizations, served as a vice-chair of the lowed HUD’s zero-tolerance policy regarding drugs: eviction and, in
Summit County Republican Party, and in 1999 the worst cases, permanent banishment from public housing. “We’re
was named the Nordonia Hills Chamber of seeing a much younger and much more hard-core group of people
Commerce’s Citizen of the Year. His many civic now,” O’Leary said. “But there’s a danger in broad-brushing. I’ve
duties include service on Macedonia’s planning never talked to a young person who wants to be in public housing.
commission and zoning board of appeals.
At least, not in ‘the projects.’”
Laubinger’s business management skills and
knowledge of community affairs proved useful Curb Appeal
in major AMHA construction projects and in It is not the job of a housing authority to change society’s opinion
maintaining the agency’s fiscal integrity. Known
of its tenants, but AMHA’s new director did feel compelled to sway
for his attention to detail, he frequently visited
the attitude of some of his staff members. He was dismayed, for
public housing sites and was instrumental in
recommending ways to enhance curb appeal
instance, when requests to tidy-up development grounds drew re-
in the developments. sponses along the lines of “Why? They’re just going to throw the
trash back anyway.”
To some staffers, the notion of curb appeal seemed frivolous
against the backdrop of AMHA’s brick-and-mortar and social work,
and O’Leary’s plan to plant flowers also met with resistance. He
persevered, convinced the agency to beautify a few selected sites, and
encouraged competitions for best design.
Since 1994, building management teams and resident councils
have worked together on gardens that drew praise even from public
housing’s critics. “In one small way,” O’Leary said, “this has changed
the image of the agency.” That was the intention. According to the
director, of all the changes at AMHA since 1993, the most impressive
was the staff’s renewed devotion to its work.
“When you drive by our developments today, the grass is cut
and there’s no litter,” AMHA construction director Thomas E. Gil-

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 A Changing Time

bert, who worked for HUD before coming to Akron, said at the
time. “A few years ago, you wouldn’t have seen that. Curb appeal
is where it’s at now.”8
But neatness and gardens were only one signal of greater re-
sponsibility on the part of AMHA and the 20,000 occupants in its
development and homes. In the late 1990s, the agency began de-
molishing or reconfiguring complexes to lower density and create
more open areas.
The tradition of providing as many units as possible gave way to
providing breathing space for tenants. In the mid-1990s, HUD lifted
its one-for-one replacement rule and began letting housing authori-
ties demolish units without having to build or buy units to replace
them. AMHA took the change to heart. Terry Meese recalled the
remarks of one HUD official: “If we gave an award for demolition,
AMHA would get it.”
“People tend to gauge a housing authority by the number of
units,” Meese explained. “It’s not so much a matter of numbers now
as it is providing better existing housing stock and programs.” Thus,
AMHA combined efficiency units at Saferstein Towers, thereby cre-
ating more spacious one-bedroom apartments. It might have cost
AMHA $300,000 in federal funds, but in 1996 HUD granted a
waiver when AMHA petitioned to keep its full subsidy. “We’re trying
to run AMHA more and more like a private business, so manage-
ment has a stake in keeping the properties attractive and safe,” Meese
said at the time. “The only way to do that is to have some sense of
looking at these properties as your own.”
The philosophy extended to tenants. “One thing that sets us apart
is that we meet with residents before we start building,” Gilbert said
in 1999. “We show them tiles, cabinets, faucets, and pictures of what
the units will look like when they’re finished. Then, they come back
and tell us what to do, and we follow through.” The Comprehensive
Grant Program, more systematic than the old Comprehensive Im-
provement Assistance Program, made it easier for the agency to keep
its promises by eliminating unexpected drops in funding.
The destigmatization, and perhaps even the survival, of public
housing depends largely on luring tenants with enough income to
help pay the rents of those less fortunate. AMHA staffers felt nearer
this goal when motorists driving by the beautified Summit Lake and
other complexes stopped to ask about rentals without realizing they
were standing in the lobby of a “project.”
“Let’s face it,” said Gilbert. “No one from Hudson is going to
move to Elizabeth Park. But attracting working people is the key, and
changing the environment will help achieve that.”
Jeff Wilhite, AMHA’s newest board member at the time, put it this
way: “Making these homes assets, not eyesores, helps relations with
neighboring homeowners, and gives the residents a sense of pride and
the urge to keep their homes inviting. That’s why we need programs
to help tenants become self-sustaining. It’s not just about capital im-
provements. In order for the whole concept of social reform to work,
you have to give people the opportunity to earn their independence.”9

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 A Changing Time

A Period of Fine-Tuning
Like Paul Messenger, Tony O’Leary did not begin his term at AMHA
with an ax in one hand and a list of potential replacements in the
other. Both recognized the agency’s staff as a dedicated group of
people laboring in a configuration that rarely allowed talent or ex-
perience to prevail.
“Tony didn’t hire or fire,” recalled Leonard Foster, vice-chair of
the agency’s board. “He observed and rearranged. There were people
who weren’t being used to their full potential. He gave them the op-
portunity, especially the ones whose work he didn’t know.”10
O’Leary studied what Foster termed “layers upon layers” of
RAY KAPPER staff positions before coming up with a reorganization plan that
B OA R D MEMBER, 1993–1998
named department directors and the managers who would report

R ay Kapper served more than 30 years in city

government and on dozens of community
boards and committees before going into private
to them. He did not reshuffle departments, but split the more com-
plicated jobs within them. He devised a “cluster” concept that
grouped managers, maintenance workers, and support staff geo-
practice as head of Kapper & Associates, a
graphically into know-your-tenants teams, a move that also gave
consulting firm. Appointed to AMHA’s board of
occupants better access.
trustees in January 1993, he was elected
chairman in 1994; planning for the central Managers were assigned goals relating to occupancy rates, unit
administration building began during readying, rent collection, inspection, and customer service. In the late
his chairmanship. 1990s, a Columbus consulting firm was hired to teach staffers to
respond with courtesy and helpful answers when tenants phoned or
Kapper’s term was marked by his insistence
that trustees and staff members see for
visited any of the buildings’ lobbies.
themselves what needed to be done. He “Tony came in with a professional attitude,” Foster said. “That’s
organized bus tours of the agency’s properties not to say the staff wasn’t professional before, but he treated them
and encouraged employees to think of as professionals. He gave the staff more responsibility and the tenant
themselves as part of a team by requiring regular councils more responsibility, and the residents more responsibility.
reports and input. To boost morale, he began “It was a new day. I liked that.”
employee-of-the-month dinners to show
It was not as if O’Leary had boarded a sinking ship, however. As
AMHA’s appreciation for its staff.
Louise Gissendaner pointed out, “We had a great staff, some with
His many years as a civic leader helped foster years and years of service to the agency, and good solid management
trust between the agency, city government, and in spite of any personnel problems. Our finances were sound enough
community organizations. to allow us to do what we had to do. Everything was in place. All we
needed was someone to pull it together.”
Terry Meese described AMHA as simply more proficient since its
reorganization. “It’s like an orchestra used to practicing together,” he
said. “We went through a period of what I’d call real fine-tuning.”
Meese attributed the remarkable occupancy rate, up from 89 per-
cent in 1989 to 98 percent in 1998—the highest ever—to the staff
reorganization and the resulting enthusiasm. In the occupancy de-
partment itself, for example, staffers automated vacant-unit reports
and the then-laborious written application process, held group ori-
entations instead of individual pre-application sessions, and began
showing tenants not-quite-ready vacant units. The department also
changed from offering clients a choice of up to three units to institut-
ing a one-turndown rule.
Plaques bearing the agency’s new mission statement went up in
all AMHA meeting rooms and offices: “The Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority is committed to building stronger neighbor-
hoods by providing quality housing options and professional ser-

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 A Changing Time

vices for eligible residents of Summit County in partnership with

the greater community.”
A common thread in AMHA’s success story was its employees’
belief in the work they did. “Most of us philosophically align with the
residents,” Meese said. “A large majority of the families we help truly
appreciate it, and they really don’t want to be in public housing.”

Major Capital Investments

In the decade leading up to the year 2000, AMHA spent $71,923,530
to renovate its older housing stock. By contrast, only $12,335,671
went into new construction—mostly single-family homes, units
added to existing complexes, and relatively small structures such as
community centers and laundry buildings. More than half of the lat-
ter figure, in fact, represented the housing authority’s $7 million
headquarters, although capital funds were not used.
“We build very little new now,” construction director Thomas
Gilbert said at the time. “There’s no money to do that anymore.”
On the other hand, “renovation”—in the grand-scale terms of
public housing—meant far more than modernizing plumbing and
installing new kitchen cabinets. “These places not only needed
sprucing up, they needed major improvements,” O’Leary noted.
The bulk of the work, in full swing during the period of downtown
Akron’s own rebirth, helped play a significant part in revitalizing
the local economy.
The most involved project, and one of the most costly, was the
$10,581,000 comprehensive modernization of Joy Park Homes in
1999. AMHA worked with city officials to permanently close several
streets in the development. Eight buildings were demolished, parking
was reconfigured, porches added, and lighting upgraded to double
the city’s standards.
A $1 million addition to Joy Park’s community center had two
entrances. One led to the maintenance and administration area, the
other to a multiservice room for residents’ use. The separation of
officialdom and daily activities was intended to provide a sense of
ownership to tenants by removing constant reminders that they lived
in public housing.
The massive restructuring came after meetings with Joy Park
residents, who complained of cars speeding on the development’s
through-streets and crime in its hidden corners. A CPTED (Crime
Prevention Through Environmental Design) review helped plan the
open spaces and cleaner sightlines that made residents feel safe, vigi-
lant, and more apt to report suspicious activities. These changes dis-
couraged crime, speeding, and consequent move-outs.
“Our biggest emphasis is on bettering communities as a whole,
not just renovating buildings,” Gilbert said. Even so, much effort
was directed toward making the developments look like condo-
minium clusters.
The 1990s saw comprehensive modernization at Van Buren
Homes ($9,585,000), Summit Lake Apartments ($6,212,700), Safer-
stein Towers I ($4,600,000), Valley View Apartments ($2,760,000),

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 A Changing Time

Cotter House ($3,194,000), Mohawk Apartments ($2,865,000),

and Bon-Sue Apartments ($2,078,000). Norton Homes and Edge-
wood Homes underwent renovation at a cost of $4,975,000 and
$3,109,000, respectively. Another major project was the $11,700,000
modernization of Belcher Apartments in 1998. The 30-year-old de-
velopment’s namesake, civic leader and longtime AMHA chairman
Paul E. Belcher, had died the previous year at age 96.
Other developments received repairs and renovations to exteri-
ors, roofing, windows, balconies, baths, and kitchens. Surroundings
were redesigned to create more green space. At Van Buren Homes,
the housing authority spent $60,000 to replace a tiny playground
with four large play areas. And because space, green or otherwise,
cannot always be created by expanding outward or upward, a total
of 150 units had been demolished since 1990. An additional 166—
including 132 at the venerable
Elizabeth Park—were scheduled
to come down.
Existing housing acquired by
AMHA in the 1990s included
two developments totaling more
than 70 single-family homes, the
206-unit Rosemary Square
apartment complex, and Mid-
town, a 99-unit former motel,
under the Section 8 Moderate
Rehabilitation program.
In 1999 the agency built its
first new subdivision in 25
years, an allotment of 10 single-
family homes named Roulhac
The new central administration building at 100 West
Circle after Joseph Roulhac, Akron’s first African-American mu-
Cedar Street opened in January 1997 at a cost of $6.8
nicipal court judge. The houses, built for $1,035,000 to replace
million. The 48,000-square-foot building consists of
obsolete apartments at the site, joined the roster of 550 single-
three floors, one of which is leased to other government family dwellings available to responsible residents for rental and
agencies. Construction costs were funded entirely from eventual purchase.
local funds accumulated over many years from various The AMHA staff moved into its new central office building at
leases, interest earnings, and other fees. The Cedar and Locust in 1997. The modern three-story structure, a
administration building consolidated employees study in massive windows and gentle ridges, replaced the agency’s
previously located in four separate buildings. Key
much smaller, 30-year-old administration building nearby. All
housing services were located on the first floor, along with a large
features include a large surface parking lot for visitors,
waiting room, playroom, private interview areas, and a multipur-
a large open lobby with play areas for children,
pose room that seated 125 people. The second floor housed admin-
state-of-the-art computer equipment, satellite broadcast
istrative offices and the boardroom. The 16,000-square-foot top
facilities for staff training, and private interview story was rented to a county social service agency. Parking spaces
spaces for applicants. were doubled to 120 in convenient lots just outside the building’s
(BRUCE S. FORD) front and side entrances.
Because of staff size, the number of clients who could be seen si-
multaneously remained the same, but the new building brought ef-
ficiency to operations by consolidating employees and services previ-
ously located in four different sites. A new computer system and

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 A Changing Time

other high-tech equipment, including a satellite that allowed staffers

to train by teleconference, were also part of the time-saving central-
ization. O’Leary was rightfully pleased. “Virtually everything every
modern office has, we have.”
During Paul Messenger’s term as director, AMHA’s staff grew
from 232 to 247 full-time employees and from 58 to 99 part-time/
temporary workers. Under O’Leary, the full-time roster remained
steady (between 250 and 255 employees). The part-time/temporary
staff, however, jumped to 130 during his first year and by 1999
stood at 141.

Getting Out of the Boardroom

The most difficult part of working in public housing, according to
Tony O’Leary, “is never really getting done. No matter what the
project, no matter what the job is, by the time it’s done, it’s time to
start over.”
It did not help to work under the charge of an umbrella agency
whose problems were, as Terry Meese put it, “self-inflicted via myr-
iad regulations.” Local housing authorities had to constantly strive
to keep up with HUD’s rules and learn “how to get from A to Z
without circumventing them.”It did help, however, to have board
members who understood that all this—and meeting the needs of the
poor, besides—was too consuming a challenge to get lost in politics.
While the majority of AMHA’s trustees in the 1990s were Demo-
crats, Kurt Laubinger, who became board chairman in 1998, was
also vice-chair of the Summit County Republican Party’s Central
Committee. The mix was both a break in tradition and, according to
Laubinger, a sign that there was “no animosity between parties or
board members. Ray Kapper broke down that barrier.”
Traditionally, the AMHA board chairman’s political affiliation
matched the Akron mayor’s, while the vice-chairmanship went to
the other party. “It was sort of an unwritten rule,” said Laubinger,
who was surprised himself when Kapper, a Democrat, supported
his rise to board head during Donald Plusquellic’s administration.
Laubinger became the board’s first Republican chairman to serve
under a Democratic mayor. There may have been hurt feelings—
two Democrats were ahead of him in line for the chairmanship—
but no one complained.
“Even though we’re all political appointments, we do not let
party politics interfere with our ability to run the agency,” Leonard
Foster said. “The clients come first.”
A hallmark of AMHA’s board of trustees became getting out of the
boardroom. Along with monitoring HUD’s moves and minding the
money, trustees visited sites, met with tenants, kept up with the many
supportive agencies and organizations, and dealt with misunderstand-
ings in neighborhoods that continued to fear public housing.
“Our problems here, knock on wood, have not been graft or mis-
appropriation of funds,” said Dr. John A. Fink, appointed to the
board in 1996. “They’re true problems that stem from the program
itself. We are all very politically active. The key is, any philosophical

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 A Changing Time

arguments we have take place at a different level. We don’t set HUD

policy. We simply try to follow it.
“The agency is well run, we’ve had really very few complaints,
and politically, we get along,” he said. “I guess it is sort of unusual.”11
When Jeff Wilhite was appointed in 1999, he made a point of
touring the agency’s sites and departments. What struck him was a
bootstrap attitude of “‘Help yourself,’ as opposed to ‘Here, we’ll give
you everything.’
“The theme was responsibility,” Wilhite continued. “There was
lots of emphasis on assisting families with children, programs for
seniors so they didn’t become sedentary, programs to place clients in
ANTHONY O’LEARY productive careers. What I saw happening was an ongoing effort by
D I R E C TO R, 1993–PRESENT
the administration to focus on long-term self-sustainability.”

A fter a nine-month nationwide search failed

to produce an acceptable candidate, AMHA’s
board reopened the process and selected
Foster pointed out that “while you think of most boards having
members who are on there forever,” AMHA’s close-of-the-century
board had fewer than 15 years of combined service. It was the sense
Anthony O’Leary as the housing authority’s
of purpose, not the personalities, he believed, that provided continu-
eighth director.
ity, responsibility, and involvement.
At the time of his appointment, O’Leary was “There is no doubt that the board, along with solid staffers, is the
director of planning and urban development secret of this agency’s success,” Louise Gissendaner said at the time.
for the city of Akron and had previously served
“If AMHA could bottle its process and distribute it among other
as deputy mayor for the administrations of
agencies, we’d all really have something there. But you still have to
Akron mayors Don Plusquellic and Tom Sawyer.
Prior to his appointments in the city’s municipal get gratification out of what you do, even if you’re looking at a
government, he served as director of the building you’ve rehabbed—knowing that in 15 years you’ve got to
Akron-Summit-Medina Private Industry Council rehab it again.”
and was an administrator of special programs
for disadvantaged youth with the Summit County End of the Millennium
Board of Education. The final year of the 1990s began on a hopeful note. In February,
The Akron native (who had received an President Clinton’s proposed budget for 2000 included a $2.5 billion
undergraduate degree in secondary education increase in housing and job programs, the largest in more than 10
and a master’s degree in public administration years. Akron was slated to receive an estimated $25 million in HUD
from Kent State University) brought a broad funds, and Canton $9.4 million, from the 1999 federal budget—in-
knowledge of the community and proven
creases of $3 million and $1 million, respectively.
administrative skills to the position of executive
Then, in July, the House Appropriations Committee proposed
director. He directed the planning and
construction of the agency’s new central
$1.6 billion in cuts that HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo warned
administration building and the largest number would deprive hundreds of thousands of families and individuals of
of construction rehabilitation projects since jobs, affordable housing, and vital housing assistance. Public housing
public housing’s peak period in the early 1970s. authorities were used to these rollercoaster rides; nonetheless, the pos-
As a result of staff reorganization, improved
sibility of “Losing Ground,” as HUD’s report was titled, made for a
business methods, and a focus on resident disquieting summer. The deep cuts did not materialize, though, and by
services, AMHA achieved its highest level of the fall HUD had advised the AMHA board that it would get roughly
occupancy in 1998. O’Leary’s vision and 95 percent of the funds it had requested. “It’s a small cutback that
leadership positioned the agency for continued bears watching,” said Laubinger, “but it’s nothing to worry about.”
success and moved the organization into Since 1988, AMHA’s operating expenditures, based on the num-
the new century. ber of unit types, had risen steadily from $10.8 million to $19.5
million. Comprehensive Grant funding for capital projects was not
as consistent, nearly doubling from $4.5 million in 1991 to $9.7
million the following year when the funding system changed.
AMHA received nearly $12 million in Comprehensive Grant funds
in 1994 and only $9.6 million in 1998.

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 A Changing Time

At a January 2000 ceremony in Washington,

No one could predict the future of public housing, except to say
D.C., HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo (left)
that in some form or another, such assistance would always be neces-
sary. “The population is aging rapidly,” noted Wilhite. “One of the presented a plaque to director Anthony O’Leary

most important things, to me, is not to lose your independence. A in recognition of AMHA’s achievements.
host of benefits come with independent housing for seniors. We have
to start looking that way. It’s not a matter of choice. The next big
challenge for all housing authorities is an aging society.”
An equal challenge was the one already embarked upon by
AMHA: While public housing was never meant to be permanent, a
sense of ownership is imperative to both the agency and its clients.
AMHA and other public housing authorities faced increasing com-
petition from private subsidized housing. “If your residents could
leave tomorrow, would they?” asked Terry Meese. “If the answer is
yes, you’re doing something wrong.”
The Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority embarked on the
new millennium by making history. At the December 1999 board
meeting, AMHA trustees unanimously endorsed Tony O’Leary’s
proposal to lease the Highpoint property to the Akron Zoo for a
period of 99 years. The housing authority had purchased the land,
then known as the Auldfarm estate, in 1978. The scenic 16-acre hill-
top site is adjacent to the zoo and Saferstein Towers. Previous direc-

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 A Changing Time

tors David Levey and Herbert Newman had envisioned a combined

family and senior housing development built with nonfederal funds,
but neither the Highpoint project nor several other proposals were
approved because homeowners in the area, including AMHA trustee
Ed Davis, opposed development of the heavily wooded site.
Meanwhile, the Akron Zoo, under the direction of Pat Simmons,
was undergoing a renaissance and had begun a long-term expansion
plan. Simmons’ talks with AMHA began in 1994. The lease agree-
ment reached at the end of 1999 contained safeguards in the event
the zoo’s master plan was not pursued. AMHA viewed the historic
donation of Akron’s largest undeveloped tract, frequently sought by
private developers, as critical to advancing the zoo’s potential and,
more importantly, to preserving and improving one of the city’s old-
est neighborhoods.
The closing month of 1999 also brought AMHA recognition as a
“high performer,” HUD’s highest rating in the national public hous-
ing management assessment program. The evaluation process had
frustrated AMHA in previous years, because older housing stock in
many areas resulted in higher vacancy rates and excessive mainte-
nance work orders. O’Leary and the board saw the “high-performer”
distinction, which meant additional funding and relief from some
regulations, as proof that their focus on renovation and staff team-
work had finally paid off. On January 12, 2000, HUD secretary
Andrew Cuomo recognized AMHA and other housing authorities
for their achievements at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Notes
1. Interview with Terry Meese, September 1999. 7. Interview with Pamela Hawkins,
September 1999.
2. Akron Beacon Journal, 19 November 1992.
8. Interview with Thomas Gilbert,
3. Interview with Ray Kapper, September 1999.
September 1999.
4. Interview with Louise Gissendaner,
9. Interview with Jeff Wilhite, August 1999.
August 1999.
10. Interview with Leonard Foster, September 1999.
5. Interviews with Kurt Laubinger, August and
October 1999. 11. Interview with John Fink, August 1999.
6. Interviews with Anthony O’Leary, August
and September 1999.

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 THE N E W

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 CENTURY 2 0 0 1 – 2 0 1 3

T
he new century did not bring a windfall of money for pub-
lic housing. In fact, it reduced the funding, and stopped
most new construction. President George W. Bush did not
favor public housing, and from 2002 to 2008 Congress cut
the appropriations. He also placed the HOPE VI program
in danger of being phased out when he left office. In 2008
the collapse of the housing market and the subsequent recession ad-
versely affected all areas of housing and especially public housing.
Although more favorable toward public housing, President Barack
Obama was unable to sustain funding in the midst of a decline in
federal revenues. He also faced a strong Tea Party-led coalition in the
Congress that employed filibusters and a shutdown rather than com-
promise on the budget. The result of that standoff was sequestration,
an agreement to cut revenues across the board if no
compromise was reached.
Since their inception in the Depression years, fed-
eral housing programs have changed dramatically. In
the 1930s the thrust was to build large, densely popu-
lated housing with plenty of playgrounds and open
spaces. The housing usually was in rows and one or
two stories high. Problems with the acquisition of va-
cant land in the late 1940s and 1950s led to the con-
struction of high-rise apartments with no outlets for
children. By the late 1950s most new projects were
limited in space and location, and high-rise apart-
ments were built primarily for the elderly. The civil
rights movement of the 1960s made integration the
goal, and the subsidy program that would become
known as Section 8 was enacted under Lyndon John-
son. Section 8 marked a change in policy from isolat-
ing low-income families in developments to integrat-
The central office building at 100 W. Cedar Street ing them into standard neighborhoods. They received vouchers al-
(PHOTOS: BRU C E S . F O R D )
lowing them to live wherever affordable housing could be found.
This program grew dramatically under Richard Nixon, who favored
more market-oriented solutions.
When Tony O’Leary became AMHA director in the early 1990s,
public housing’s reputation was at a low point. High-rise public
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 THE NEW CENTURY

housing, such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and Cabrini-Green in Chi-

cago, had become notorious for crime, violence, and vandalism.
Drug use throughout low-rise properties, which often served as
drug-distribution centers, added to the poor reputation. Although
Akron’s public housing generally was not seen in this unfavorable
light, Tony O’Leary’s vision and leadership, coupled with a support-
ive board of trustees, enabled AMHA to adjust and excel during
these difficult times.
Inspired by a father who provided legal services to the poor and
discouraged prejudice, O’Leary has committed himself to finding
housing opportunities and supportive services for low-income fami-
lies. His master’s degree in public administration and his experience
JOHN FICKES
BOARD MEMBER, 19 9 8 – P R E S E N T
in local government shaped his desire to improve the reputation of
public housing, and to find alternative housing for those who are
eligible. O’Leary believes in the power of entrepreneurship, particu- A MHA board chairman John C. Fickes is
an attorney. His work primarily concerns
litigation, ranging from client-counseling to
larly when it results in bold and innovative risk-taking that produces
trial and appeal of lawsuits. He has handled
a worthwhile product. He points to the American auto industry and
cases in most of the area’s state and federal
the Hoover Dam as the best examples of that quality. Rather than courts and on behalf of a diverse array of
adhering to a strict definition of his job, he looks to provide more individuals, businesses, and organizations.
and better housing by responding to present political and social con-
Fickes spent several years in the late 1970s and
ditions creatively, working with partners locally, and seeking innova-
early 1980s in formation with the Society of Jesus
tive opportunities.1 (Jesuits), Detroit Province. He was a history
O’Leary also believes in strong staffing with managers who are instructor at St. John’s High School, Toledo,
multiskilled and multitalented. One such example is his chief admin- from 1980 to 1982.
istrative officer (CAO), Sherri Scheetz. Before signing on as director
In 1985 Fickes received his juris doctorate from
of the AMHA Section 8 program in 2002, Scheetz had worked for the Case Western Reserve University School
30 years in the affordable housing industry, including a successful of Law. He holds a master’s degree from the
stint as executive director of the Medina Metropolitan Housing Au- University of Detroit and a bachelor’s degree from
thority, which HUD designated as a “high performer.” Under her John Carroll University. He is a graduate of St.
leadership, the AMHA Section 8 department, now known as the Vincent–St. Mary High School in Akron and was
Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP), moved quickly to a rat- raised in the city’s Firestone Park neighborhood.
ing of “standard” and then to “high performer” from 2004 to the Since entering the practice of law, Fickes has
present. Through progressive assignments of additional responsibil- worked with many civic, charitable, and religious
ity, she continued to lead staff in the measurement and improvement organizations. In 1998 he joined AMHA’s board of
of performance throughout AMHA operations.2 trustees, becoming chairman in 2003.
The AMHA board of trustees, whose members have professional
or managerial background, is an important support for the adminis-
tration. Despite political differences, they are all committed to a
well-managed program of public housing opportunities. John Fickes,
the present board chair, feels that each member “leaves politics at the
door, and emphasizes running an agency that does the job for the
community.” The latest appointed member, Elisabeth Akers, finds the
collegiality of the board “comforting to a newcomer.” Thomas Harn-
den points to O’Leary’s “outstanding leadership” as a critical com-
ponent in gathering board support. Given the current funding, each
board member is concerned about AMHA’s future.3

HOPE VI
The HOPE VI program began at the same time as O’Leary’s appoint-
ment to the directorship. The program’s effort to respond to the

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 THE NEW CENTURY

negativity surrounding public housing paralleled O’Leary’s vision.

As part of the new urbanism movement, HOPE VI’s purpose was not
only to renovate the oldest developments, but also to diminish the
stigma attached to such projects by building housing that fit into
surrounding neighborhoods. Some of the new housing was intended
for higher income and unsubsidized residents.
AMHA attempted to obtain HOPE VI grants, but initially HUD
funded only much larger cities with more serious problems. How-
ever, a change in rules by 2001 opened the door for AMHA, which
had been working with an architectural firm and a developer to cre-
ate a master plan for the replacement of Elizabeth Park, the oldest
public housing in Summit County. In 2003 HUD awarded AMHA
$19.5 million for the project. Located under the All-America Bridge,
all-brick Elizabeth Park was still in good shape externally, but lacked
the internal facilities for disabled and senior residents and included
an aging steam plant that required replacement. Construction took
place between 2005 and 2007. When the developer, The Community
Builders, became the new manager of these properties, its director
exclaimed that “the site is ideal, the setting is beautiful. I think this
can become one of the premier rehabilitation projects in the coun-
try.” AMHA renamed the new development Cascade Village.4
The HOPE VI grants also emphasized support for educational and
cultural activities reflective of the neighborhood’s interests, so AMHA
joined with Akron artist Miller Horns in the creation of a permanent
monument dedicated to the jazz artists who had played in the Cascade
Village area. From 1930 to 1960 North Howard Street served as a
center of jazz music with its nearly 100 bars and clubs. Ella Fitzgerald,
Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway
appeared in these Akron venues, often staying at the Hotel Matthews,
the only Akron hotel to accommodate black clientele. Horns wanted
to commemorate these artists, and the many minority-owned busi-
nesses along North Howard Street. Concluding that the Hotel Mat-
thews entrance was the most fitting memorial, Horns “took the es-
sence of the entrance and . . . created this interpretive piece made out
Artist Miller Horns’ depiction of the Hotel Matthews of bricks.” Visitors can press a doorbell to hear about the history of
commemorates Akron’s proud jazz heritage. Howard Street. AMHA contributed $5,000 from nonfederal funds
toward the cost of materials as well as many hours of technical assis-
tance from the construction department. Other Akron businesses
joined in raising the $125,000 needed.5
The Cascade Village project so impressed HUD that two years
later AMHA received a second HOPE VI grant of $20 million to
replace Edgewood Homes, Akron’s second-oldest housing develop-
ment on the near west side. Located between the Akron Zoo and the
newly built Urban League headquarters, the project benefited from
the proximity of Lane Field and the Helen Arnold Community
Learning Center, then under construction. Edgewood Village was
completed in 2012.6
During its transformation, Edgewood Village recognized the ac-
complishments of two Akron women by naming streets after them.
Rita Dove, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. poet lau-

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 THE NEW CENTURY

reate who lived in the Edgewood neighborhood as a child, liked the

naming of Rita Dove Lane for her: “The term lane is filled with
dreams, as opposed to street, avenue or road.” Mary Peavy Eagle was
the first black woman to run for Akron City Council in the 1940s
and a noted community leader and activist. Her daughter, Grace
Richardson, was very proud to have Mary Peavy Eagle Court named
after her mother, who died in 2005. These Akron streets were among
the first to be named in honor of women.7
The Department of Housing and Urban Development eased the
federal policy that any public housing had to be replaced on a one-
for-one basis during their redevelopment. This new rule had the ef-
fect of reducing the number of housing units overall by 500. O’Leary
endorsed this policy, however, because it al-
lowed the demolition of units that were ar-
chitecturally unsafe for residents. For in-
stance, three-story walk-ups with common
hallways in the Edgewood development
protected drug dealers and sexual assail-
ants. According to Craig Gilbride, formerly
of the Akron Police Department, taking
down those units helped to dramatically
lower drug problems. The police depart-
ment cited data showing that crime rates at
Edgewood Village and Cascade Village
were lower than those in surrounding
neighborhoods.8
To O’Leary, both HOPE VI projects
successfully transformed the image of pub-
lic housing. He reported that people have
asked incredulously, “That is public hous-
ing?” Paul Testa, who constructed the lux-
Edgewood Village dedication of Rita Dove Lane
ury Northside Lofts near Cascade Village, contended that he would
and Mary Peavy Eagle Court, 2001. From left:
not have participated in the project if Cascade Village had not been
built in what was a still struggling neighborhood.9 Councilman Marco Sommerville, AMHA executive

Mayor Don Plusquellic gave his full support to both HOPE VI director Anthony O’Leary, Grace Richardson

projects because he hoped to stem the tide of middle-class people (daughter of Mary Peavy Eagle), AMHA board
fleeing to the suburbs. Plusquellic was “thrilled and happy, not just chair John Fickes, and Rita Dove
for AMHA, but for the impact it will have on the city, too.” He also
has encouraged private builders to construct middle-class housing
comparable to that in the suburbs on land acquired from the city
through urban renewal. Testa Enterprises followed his lead by build-
ing homes for middle-class families in South Akron, as well as the
more upscale Northside Lofts.10

Innovation
O’Leary identifies with Plusquellic’s effort to revitalize Akron
through partnership with other public agencies and private busi-
nesses. Hence, he re-examined properties in the cities that AMHA
served with an eye toward achieving revitalization rather than sim-
ply providing housing. Realizing that Norton Homes in Barberton,

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 THE NEW CENTURY

their third-oldest property, was no longer viable, AMHA sold

the property to the Barberton City School District, which
built a new middle school there. AMHA board member
Thomas Harnden was instrumental in facilitating discussion
that resulted in this agreement. AMHA also leased over 10
acres of land near Edgewood Homes to the Akron Zoo for
its expansion in 2001.11
In collaboration with Barberton’s city government and
the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA), AMHA reno-
vated Washington Square, a 24-unit apartment complex in
risk of foreclosure. It was located in a low-income South Bar-
Barberton Middle School, completed in 2011 on
berton neighborhood so threatened by foreclosures that the price of
the site of the former Norton Homes surrounding properties had plummeted in 2009 to a lowly $10,000.
In 1994 the nonprofit Neighborhood Conservation Services had
used the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, ad-
ministered by OHFA to encourage construction of low-income hous-
ing by providing federal tax credits to investors, to build Washington
Square. The property failed to maintain occupancy. Fifteen years
later it faced the possibility of foreclosure, which occurred simulta-
neously with the foreclosure crisis brought on by predatory mort-
gage loans generated by banks and mortgage investors. These fore-
closures peaked in Barberton in 2008 and 2009.
Concerned by the effect that a Washington Square foreclosure
would have on the immediate area, especially if purchased by an
investor who would do little to improve the property, the City of
Barberton used a funding vehicle known as the Neighborhood Sta-
bilization Program (NSP) to acquire the deed to Washington Square.
The city in turn sold the property to NDS, a nonprofit developer, for
renovation with the intent of later transferring the property to
AMHA. OHFA provided an interest-free 20-year loan of more than
$1.8 million, and the County of Summit provided $500,000 through
NSP. This property is not public housing, but it is designated for low-
income households that earn no more than 50 percent of the Area
Median Income.
To prepare for the renovation, AMHA evaluated the marketing
Washington Square apartment complex in Barberton
challenges that had contributed to the property’s failure. Too many
small three-bedroom apartments
were one conclusion, so units were
reconfigured to more spacious
two-bedroom apartments. Privacy
fences around the backyards and
the addition of playgrounds boost-
ed the ambiance.12
Thus, six different partners—
HUD, NDS, the City of Barberton,
the County of Summit, OHFA, and
AMHA—cooperated in making
the “new” Washington Square a re-
ality. “Everyone involved in this
project has had a phenomenal at-

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 THE NEW CENTURY

titude, always keeping the project a high priority,” said Ryan Landi,
then director of development for NDS. “Every partner has stepped
up when they were needed and that has made all the difference in
keeping this project moving.”13
In the nearby city of Green, AMHA benefited from the LIHTC
program. Green’s mayor wanted senior housing because, he said,
“many are living in mobile homes, many are low income and el-
derly women.” A local developer joined with the city government
and AMHA in the construction of a four-story, low-income, senior
citizen apartment complex. AMHA lent $300,000 to the Green Re-
tirement Partnership with the promise that AMHA would have 15
of the 58 housing units set aside for Section 8 voucher holders.
Rent for the other 43 apartments was set below market value.
Upon expiration of the LIHTC compliance period, AMHA plans to
acquire the property and sustain it as affordable housing.14

More Like a Business

The financial stringencies since 2000 required AMHA to place par-
ticular emphasis on saving money and finding more efficient ways to
operate. In response, Tony O’Leary turned to the Japanese model of
kaizen, a philosophy of continuous process improvement involving
staff at all levels. He hired Parkland Group, a consulting firm that
emphasized a team approach through which staff met across depart-
ment lines to analyze common problems and recommend solutions.
One example of this method involved AMHA’s application pro-
cess, which initially took an average of 67 days to complete. Poten-
tial renters and voucher clients filed pre-applications, prior to an
appointment to complete the full application. After applicants fin-
ished the full application, AMHA placed them on another waiting
list. Meanwhile, some had already moved, and others were reluctant
to come to the appointment. At a kaizen event, staff discussed ways
to improve. They adopted a new process for “walk-ins” that allowed
potential applicants to come to the office to apply, eliminating the
pre-applications. Six months later, the rate of occupancy had risen
from 96 to 99 percent.
Another example was inventory management. AMHA’s central
warehouse stored items that might be needed in the future, but also
Fred W. Nimmer Place with rooftop solar panels for
included obsolete stock. Storing, managing, and tracking these items
electric energy, 2011
were more expensive than ordering from companies that could de-
liver in a few days. Thus, AMHA moved from a central warehouse
approach to a Just-In-Time (JIT) supply system, which saved more
than $400,000. It also enabled AMHA to move two of the three
warehouse employees to other work. “Lean thinking helped us
achieve results that we would never have reached on our own,”
O’Leary says. “It has truly saved us time and money.”15
Of course, the key technological development has been comput-
erization. Once HUD’s reporting became automated, it took time to
train personnel who had not grown up with computers. “Now,”
O’Leary asserts, “virtually every employee uses a computer in one
way or another.” Computers enabled employees to expose fraud, as

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 THE NEW CENTURY

well as track and analyze data. Housing managers could announce a

vacancy even before it was ready, and thereby allow applicants to
have quicker access. In the first year of online applications, the num-
bers increased by 48 percent. AMHA also computerized most of its
forms, thus ensuring consistency. Online banking saved time and
money by allowing owners and agents who participated
in the voucher program to use direct deposit accounts.
Computerization also fostered site-based budgeting that
allowed property managers in 35 locations to manage
and monitor their own budgets. Finally, it allowed
AMHA to improve the consistency of contracts and
products used at each development, such as locks, light
bulbs, plumbing fixtures, and other materials.16
The construction department also changed dramati-
cally, according to Laura Williams, a 30-year supervi-
sor. Given the lack of funding for major projects, the
department’s emphasis turned toward preventive main-
tenance, energy conservation, and major mechanical
systems. Employees and contractors have renewed ele-
vator cars, upgraded electrical supply at all high-rise
buildings, and begun replacing diesel-powered genera-
tors with cleaner, more efficient natural gas models.
Kitchen in one of the senior high-rise apartments
AMHA also used a new financing authority granted by HUD
called energy performance contracts to make more than $12 million
in capital improvements paid for by savings in energy costs over a
12-year period. Improvements included new LED lighting, exterior
security lighting, boilers, hot water tanks, high-efficiency furnaces,
programmable thermostats, and low-flow water-saving devices.
Between 2009 and 2014 AMHA will have spent an additional
$40 million for capital improvements. At all 11 of the high-rise
apartment buildings, the construction department has reconfigured
and renovated the first-floor offices and common areas. All of the
apartments in four of these high-rises—Lauer, Saferstein I, Alpeter,
and Dickson—have been fully renovated. To improve security
throughout, 468 security cameras and more than 800 electronic ac-
cess security locks were installed.
Williams worries about the continuing loss of funding, but she is
proud of the department’s recent work. The rehabilitation and rede-
sign of many homes have improved the look of public housing, and,
she believes, reduced the crime rate. Drug use has also dropped, and
she asserts it is no more common than that in the suburbs. For Wil-
liams, the reward is helping people who otherwise might be living on
the streets.17
Another major development was HUD’s emphasis on asset man-
agement. When HUD required local housing authorities to convert
to asset management principles, it changed its funding formula to
encourage housing authorities to transition to the new system ear-
lier than required. O’Leary knew early on of the proposed changes
as a result of his board membership and participation with national
housing groups. Thus, AMHA had already made some changes

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 THE NEW CENTURY

such as elimination of the central warehouse and implementation

of JIT purchasing.18
The asset management model imposed complex changes that also
shifted added responsibility to property managers. Despite the exten-
sive training required, no additional staff or resources were funded
by the federal government. Nonetheless, AMHA decided to bring in
a human resources consultant to meet privately with managers in
order to facilitate often difficult changes. AMHA also provided
training through the Institute of Real Estate Management so that
property managers could increase knowledge and sharpen skills. Ac-
cording to O’Leary, “We did a lot of coaching to build managers’
supervisory skills, enhance communication, and establish clear goals
and accountability.”
Although HUD already recognized AMHA as a high-performing
agency, O’Leary saw advantages and disadvantages to the highly
prescriptive asset management model and overall thought it was
based upon unrealistic expectations for property managers. AMHA
already placed high value on the full occupancy and curb appeal of
its properties, but now put greater emphasis upon helping field staff
understand the cost of building operations and the value of consis- A property management work session. From left:
tency in following management practices and meeting performance Stephanie Sims, Debbie Bromley, Jackie Apati,
goals. According to O’Leary, overall performance at the property Vanessa Brown, and Erika Saulsberry
level has improved in some ways.
However, the pace of change and
ever-increasing complexity of
federal regulations still require
active administration from exec-
utive-level staff with appropriate
board consultation.19

Supportive Services
Pamela Hawkins, the deputy di-
rector of Resident Services and
Community Development, be-
lieves that “AMHA is more than
just housing.” Her goal is for the
housing authority to provide
services that help residents to be successful and make them feel like
part of a supportive community. Part of those services work to assure
that residents follow lease regulations, and that they know about
housekeeping and general maintenance. But they also emphasize
teaching people how to be more self-reliant and ultimately less de-
pendent on public housing.
Nonetheless, as Hawkins points out, not everyone in public hous-
ing will achieve independence. Congress changed the law to allow
applicants with disabilities regardless of age to qualify for senior
housing. That change altered the demographics of public housing.
The numbers increased so dramatically that those with disabilities
now constitute 55 percent of the senior high-rise population, com-
pared to 20 percent in the mid-1980s.20

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 THE NEW CENTURY

HOPE VI was an earlier example of the emphasis on service. Its

“We did a lot of Community Supportive Services Program provided funding that al-
coaching to build lowed social service providers and even businesses to offer assis-
managers’ supervisory tance to residents. They aided residents with transportation needs,
provided referrals for child care, gave instructions in computer
skills, enhance usage, and offered opportunities for education and job training. In
communication, and turn, residents were expected to obtain a job, or take advantage of
establish clear goals education and training opportunities. Meanwhile, youth and their
parents worked with the Community Support Services staff,
and a ccountability.” AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, and Akron Public School teachers,
—Tony O ' L e a r y who provided homework assistance and computer skill training.
The University of Akron measured the outcomes, which showed
better scholastic grades and increased school attendance.21
Outside funding has recently helped enhance these services. The
Knight Foundation invests in communities where the Knight broth-
ers owned newspapers, such as the Akron Beacon Journal. In 2011 the
foundation awarded a three-year grant to Cascade Village and its
managing company, The Community Builders, totaling $1.7 million.
According to spokesperson Paula Ellis, the foundation is committed
“to help unlock all of the power that people have and involve them
in creating their own solutions.” Hence, residents will play a part in
the creation of workshops on career and financial planning, and in
the establishment of school and youth programs. The Knight grant
allowed Cascade Village to hire a youth and education counselor, as
well as finance, job, and career coaches. Ellis emphasized that this
approach was not charity, but an attempt to help people prosper
through empowerment to create their own solutions. Resident Jean-
nie Wilson found this approach exciting. “I couldn’t help but think
that my neighborhood would be like the one I grew up in—where
everybody knew each other, and looked out for each other. You
didn’t have to go outside for help.”22
In 2005–06 Hawkins and the Resident Services department ap-
plied for and received a grant to purchase 10 wireless laptop com-
puters and a minivan, and to fund the hiring of an instructor. The
grant allowed the department to replace a decade-old mobile ve-
hicle that was obsolete and energy inefficient. AMHA’s other ser-
Summit Lake Family Opportunity Center vice on wheels, a mobile health unit, was leased to the Akron Health
will open in 2014. Department for community health service.23
Another more recent example of service to residents
is the Summit Lake Family Opportunity Center that
will open in 2014, next to the housing authority’s 241-
unit Summit Lake Apartments. AMHA was one of only
10 housing authorities in the nation to obtain a HUD
grant in 2011 to construct early-childhood, adult-learn-
ing, and job-training centers. The center will prepare
area children for kindergarten, and help area adults ob-
tain their GEDs and learn important job skills, such as
use of computers. Former ward representative and
council president Marco Sommerville praised the pro-
gram for helping area children start kindergarten at the

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 THE NEW CENTURY

same level as children from wealthier families. “This is going to put

them on footing where they can catch up and even do more than
what they’re expected to do,” he noted. Partnership again plays a
major role. The City of Akron is providing the land, Akron Public
Schools will run two kindergarten classes, and Akron Summit Com-
munity Action is providing two Early Head Start and two Head Start
classes for preschool children. Further assis-
tance comes from the Akron-Summit County
Public Library, Goodwill Industries, the
Summit County Department of Job and
Family Services, and Boys & Girls Clubs.24
The emphasis on early childhood educa-
tion as one of the strategies to address pov-
erty was further enhanced by county execu-
tive Russell Pry when he announced that he
was making early childhood a priority of his
administration in 2009. He appointed com-
munity leaders to form Summit County’s
First Things First (FTF), a comprehensive
“system plan” for early childhood develop-
ment and learning which includes areas of
early childcare and education, health, behav-
ioral health, family support, and special
needs and early intervention. The plan strives
to address gaps in the various systems and
identify improvements that ensure the great-
est opportunity for children. It also seeks to
AMHA’s nationally acclaimed early childhood initia-
broaden existing efforts by expanding their scope or extending their
tive promotes kindergarten readiness.
focus. More than 50 people helped draft the plan which includes 14
desired outcomes.25
Pamela Hawkins is very enthusiastic about focusing on early
childhood as a means to help low-income children receive services
that will promote kindergarten readiness. AMHA’s Early Childhood
Initiative teaches parents to be their child’s first and most important
teacher while promoting physical and behavioral health and provid-
ing supportive services to families. The initiative served 419 children
and 398 parents in the fiscal year 2013. The State of Ohio’s Kinder-
garten Readiness Assessment for Literacy will be used to evaluate the
program’s effectiveness, but because the participants are just now
reaching kindergarten age, more time is needed to obtain verifiable
long-term results. The nearby Woodridge Local School District oper-
ates state-supported public preschools at Honey Locust and Maple-
wood Gardens.26
Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become a focus
of the need for housing assistance over the past decade. Adjustment
to life beyond the military has been problematic for many genera-
tions of veterans. Some develop issues related to physical and mental
health, including addictions. Thus, veterans become homeless at a
higher rate than non-veterans. In 2008 HUD secretary Shaun Dono-
van announced that homeless veterans in contact with a Veterans

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 THE NEW CENTURY

Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) could receive rental assistance

vouchers from the local housing authority. In 2010 Akron was one
of five Ohio cities that each received 25 Veterans Affairs Supportive
Housing (VASH) vouchers. Veterans must follow the rules of the
voucher program, and contribute 30 percent of their income to the
rent. Veterans Affairs caseworkers assist VASH voucher holders in
finding and maintaining housing, and the local VAMC provides
medical care. AMHA has acquired 60 of these vouchers, but due to
underfunding of administrative fees for the Housing Choice Voucher
Program, the agency cannot afford to expand the VASH program.27
One VASH participant, an Air Force veteran nearing age 50 who
became homeless in 2000 and lived in a tent for the next 10 years,
came to the attention of street outreach workers. This veteran was
eligible for an AMHA voucher, which he used to move into an apart-
ment in southwest Akron. “I feel like a human being again,” he said,
and since enrolling in the program in 2009, he has maintained the
apartment with ongoing support from HUD-VASH case managers.28
Presently under development is a 60-unit property, The Com-
mons at Madaline Park. Developed and owned by Testa Enterprises
and Community Support Services, it will serve not only veterans, but
also the chronically homeless and those with chronic mental illness.
The property, designed as permanent supportive housing, will in-
clude a range of services to foster housing stability.

Goal of Self-Sufficiency
AMHA has long emphasized the goals of self-sufficiency and eco-
nomic improvement. Although single women with two or more chil-
dren constitute the bulk of AMHA residents, they are required by the
Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 to secure a
job or take part in an education or training program. To aid them in
this effort, AMHA relies on Project Learn, funded through HUD and
by the state, among other community partners. Staff help residents
acquire GEDs and develop computer literacy.29
As Presidents Clinton and Bush touted the idea that more
An Air Force veteran Americans should own homes, thereby enhancing neighborhood
was eligible for an stability and resident responsibility, AMHA, with HUD encourage-
AMHA voucher, which ment, developed its own Home For Me plan that resulted in an
agreement whereby AMHA could deposit a portion of the voucher
he used to move into holder’s monthly federal assistance as a mortgage payment. The
an apartment in voucher holder was required to complete training in homeowner-
southwest Akron. ship and work to repair credit where necessary. AMHA officially
adopted the program in 2007 and has since helped 37 families to
“I feel like a human move to homeownership.
being again,” he said. O’Leary is not optimistic about the number of AMHA residents
who eventually will own their own homes. Given an economy with
many jobs paying poverty-level wages, most residents could not af-
ford the mortgage payments and ongoing maintenance costs. Instead
he believes that the goal of self-sufficiency will have a more positive
effect on most residents. Thus, AMHA uses federal funds through
the Family Self-Sufficiency program to work with individuals and

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 THE NEW CENTURY

families. Case managers carefully supervise their movement toward

self-sufficiency, as participants set and work toward goals such as
furthering education or training. Insufficient progress may lead to
loss of funds accumulated by a participant in this program.

Dese gregation
One of the major problems housing authorities have faced over the
decades is racial segregation. Many whites chose to move to the sub-
urbs as the African-American population began to rise. Racial cov-
enants in many suburban communities restricted blacks’ access to “Once we’ve made all
better housing, and thus many African Americans remained in cities these changes, once
like Akron. The first housing projects, such as Elizabeth Park, were
rarely mixed. we’ve done everything
After World War II the civil rights movement successfully chal- possible to make it more
lenged restrictive covenants in the courts and sought corrective con- efficient, we’re still left
gressional legislation regarding jobs and housing. The movement
accused public housing officials of failing to integrate housing devel- with the question of how
opments because they shared society’s biases against minorities. to keep going .”
Although racial steering did occur in the early years of public — To n y O ' L e a r y
housing, especially on the federal level, by the late 1950s HUD
required housing authorities to develop new policies that would
foster greater integration of the public housing properties. But
they were stymied by the fact that bias was not the only cause af-
fecting the racial distribution. It was quickly apparent that a
housing authority could not achieve integration by controlling
where people live. It had no power to force anyone to accept a
lease since people were free to choose their place of residence.
Given a choice, some African-American families did not view in-
tegration into white society as a priority when confronted by is-
sues like the lack of transportation or the availability of a job.
Some wanted the security of their own community and access to
their own religious and social institutions.
And, of course, whites could also make choices to avoid forced
integration. In 1959 HUD had ordered AMHA to integrate the all-
white Edgewood Homes. As soon as blacks moved in, whites began
to move out. Within nine years Edgewood had become 85 percent
black. Thereafter, HUD decided to emphasize the fairness of the
procedure rather than a statistically desirable mixture. In 1978
HUD required that each applicant come to the central office, fill
out a form, proceed through an evaluation of eligibility for federal
housing aid, and then be apprised of three possible openings on a
first-come, first-served basis. Each of the three would be based on
its availability rather than its location. This system also failed to
promote integration because applicants could refuse any assign-
ment. AMHA thus decided to provide only one opportunity per
person: if the applicants refused an offer, they would be placed at
the bottom of the list, which would keep them out of public hous-
ing for five or six years. That system has not worked either, but it
is not possible to force integration constitutionally.30
Vouchers, which have grown from 3,600 in the early 1990s to

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 THE NEW CENTURY

more than 5,000 today, have encouraged more integration, particu-

larly in the suburbs. However, most of the voucher residents still live
in the city of Akron. HUD continues to encourage housing authori-
ties to seek to move low-income clients to higher-income neighbor-
hoods, but provides no funding to offset the additional costs.31

Success
Throughout this difficult period AMHA has performed well. HUD
has rated it as one of the nation’s most effective authorities. Over the
past decade AMHA has maintained “high performer” status—the
top federal ranking—for its management of the public housing and
voucher programs. During that time the occupancy rate rose from 97
to 99 percent and voucher use increased from 96 to 100 percent. In
2001 the housing authority’s Housing Choice Voucher Program had
ranked as “troubled,” but staff led by Sherri Scheetz helped it to
achieve a “high performer” designation by 2004. Presentations at
national housing meetings often focused on the quality of AMHA
programs and services. In addition, AMHA was the nation’s first
large housing authority to pass review for conversion to HUD’s new
Ken Merrifield (left) and Bill Lewellyn of asset management requirements in 2007.
the Housing Authority Insurance Group And there are other indicators of quality. The National Associa-
presented executive director Anthony O’Leary tion of Housing and Redevelopment Officials presented a national
with a national award for excellence. merit award to AMHA for its collaborative approach to homeless
outreach. The two HOPE VI projects received
architectural awards that were featured in na-
tional publications. AMHA’s establishment of a
disaster recovery site so impressed the Housing
Authority Insurance Group that it bestowed a
best practices award. Joy Park Homes, Van
Buren Homes, and Edgewood Village received
Gold Key Awards from the Northeast Ohio
Apartment Association for physical appearance
of the property, services and amenities, staff
knowledge, and general business performance.
Finally, AMHA has consistently passed federal
and state audits, an indication of its sound and
stable condition.
Also of note are AMHA contributions to the
local economy. Each year the housing authority
invests more than $80 million in Greater Akron.
The HOPE VI programs have pumped an addi-
tional $90 million into their neighborhoods.32

The Future
But Sherri Scheetz and her boss, Tony O’Leary, share grave concerns
because AMHA’s federal support dropped from $17,694,995 in
2012 to $15,209,761 in 2013, a 14 percent cut. “We’re operating
this agency as close to a business model as possible,” O’Leary says.
But that efficiency is not being rewarded, as funding has either di-
minished or been held up because of congressional failure to settle

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 THE NEW CENTURY

budget disputes. “Once we’ve made all these changes, once we’ve
done everything possible to make it more efficient, we’re still left
with the question of how to keep going.”
Board members are concerned about the impact on staffing,
whether by cutting or by retirement. John Fickes worries that staff
cuts will lead to diminished ability to do the paperwork required by
HUD, which would lead to further budget cuts. Elisabeth Akers fears
a diminished ability to meet the high standards of operation she has
observed at AMHA. And then there are the potential retirements of
the management staff, including that of Tony O’Leary.
Like a number of the AMHA staff, Leonard Foster, a trustee since
1993, lived in public housing as a child—in the city’s first site, Eliza-
beth Park. “When I was coming up, we called it the Brick City, but it
was home, it really was,” he said. “Everyone I knew lived in the proj-
ects, so we had a common bond. There will always be housing for
low-income people. Public housing may not be public in the way we
think of it today, but AMHA will still be able to provide housing to
folks who need it. My take is, if our funding dried up tomorrow, we
might suffer, but we would survive.”
For the present, the mission of providing housing for the low-
income family remains O’Leary’s major focus, but he finds very little
mention of public housing by political candidates during elections.
“Will there be enough resources to continue public housing?” he
asks. “We’re on the precipice of having our entire [housing stock]
inventory becoming obsolete without major reinvestment. Will the
need for major building projects be recognized? Is there really a com-
mitment to housing the poor in this country?”
Despite these conditions, O’Leary remains an optimistic person.
Within the many constraints affecting housing authorities, he has
built a well-oiled and successful operation. The staff is strong, and
agrees with the O’Leary philosophy of doing the best that you can
with the resources available. “We want to help whoever comes after
us to continue the success we’ve had,” he concludes. “How we ad-
dress the need for affordable housing will continue to be a compel-
ling issue on the public agenda for years to come.”

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 THE NEW CENTURY

Notes
1. Interview with Tony O’Leary, September 2013. 17. Interview with Laura Williams,
September 2013.
2. Interviews with Sherri Scheetz, August 2005
and September 2013. 18. Interview with O’Leary; HUD Asset
Management E-Newsletter, no. 26,
3. Interviews with John Fickes, Elisabeth Akers,
November 2009, pp. 1–3.
and Thomas Harnden, September 2013.
19. Ibid.
4. Akron Beacon Journal, 3 November 2002,
6 March 2003; editorial, Akron Beacon Journal, 20. Interviews with Pamela Hawkins,
11 November 2002. September 1999 and September 2013.
5. Akron Beacon Journal, 9 January 2012, 21. Interview with Michael Blakemore,
16 February 2012, 25 October 2012. September 2005; interview with Hawkins,
September 2013.
6. Akron Beacon Journal, 30 November 2006,
13 September 2008, 21 September 2010; 22. Akron Beacon Journal, 5 May 2011,
Cityscape, Winter 2007. 6 May 2013.
7. Akron Beacon Journal, 16 October 2010; 23. Interview with Hawkins.
West Side News & Notes, 14 October 2010.
24. Akron Beacon Journal, 27 May 2011.
8. Interview with O’Leary; Akron Beacon Journal,
25. Information from Christine Yuhasz,
3 November 2002.
Community Relations Director, AMHA.
9. Interview with O’Leary; Akron Beacon Journal,
26. Interviews with Hawkins; Akron Beacon
30 November 2006.
Journal, 8 July 2008; Cuyahoga Falls News-Press,
10. Akron Beacon Journal, 6 March 2003, 27 July 2008.
30 November 2006.
27. Akron Beacon Journal, 29 January 2010.
11. AMHA Board Resolutions 4361, 4363, and
28. Akron Beacon Journal, 22 December 2010.
4561; Barberton Herald, 2 January 2009; Akron
Beacon Journal, 28 February 2008, 31 May 29. Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act
2009. (QHWRA) and the Capital Fund Guidebook,
Department of Housing and Urban
12. “Implementing the Neighborhood Stabilization
Development, Washington, D.C., updated
Program (NSP): Community Stabilization in the
2 October 2008.
Neighborworks Network,” Neighborworks
America, Washington, D.C., 2010, pp. 16–23. 30. Interview with O’Leary; see also pp. 71–72
in this book.
13. Ibid.
31. Interview with O’Leary.
14. Akron Beacon Journal, 7 April 2003; AMHA
Board Resolutions 4013, 4068, 4314, and 4315. 32. Interview with Scheetz.
15. “Case Study: The Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority,” Journal of Housing and Community
Development, November/December 2005,
pp. 8–12.
16. Interviews with O’Leary and Scheetz.

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 Past Trustees and Executive Directors
Since its founding 75 years ago, the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority has been fortunate to
have a dedicated and accomplished board of volunteer trustees. Past trustees and executive directors
are listed here.

Board Chair men Board of Trustees

Paul Belcher, 1938–1982 James Alkire
William Fowler, February 1982–July 1982 Rev. Robert Allen, Sr.
Warren Gibson, July 1982–October 1983 James Alpeter
John Blickle, October 1983–December 1985 Mark Apte
Vincent Lobello, December 1985–January 1988 J. R. Barr
Edward Davis, January 1988–January 1990 Richard Collinson
David Lieberth, January 1990–May 1990 Josephine Cross
Kim Hoover, May 1990–July 1990 A. W. Dickson
Louise Gissendaner, July 1990–June 1993 John Fink
Ray Kapper, January 1994–January 1998 A. J. Frecka
Kurt Laubinger, January 1998–January 2003 Walter Goudy
Ray Heslop
Hazel Morton
Executive Directors Forrest Myers
Martin Lauer, 1938–1961 Fred Nimmer
Allen Dickson, 1961–1967 Cindy Peters
Jack Saferstein, 1967–1973 Jack Saferstein
Herbert Newman, 1973–1978 John Seiberling, Jr.
David Levey, 1978–1982 Marvin Shapiro
Janet Purnell, 1982–1988 Walter Simms

Paul Messenger, 1988–1992 L. L. Smith

Ray Sutliff
Leo Walter
Jeff Wilhite

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 2013 Executive Director
and Board of Trustees

ANTHONY O'LEARY JOHN FICKES LEONARD FOSTER

E X E C U T I V E DIRECTOR, 1993–PRESENT BOARD MEMBER, 1998–20 02 BOARD MEMBER, 19 9 3 – P R E S E N T
BOARD CHAIRMAN, 20 03–PRESENT BOARD VICE-CHA I R M A N ,
1998–20 02, 20 09– P R E S E N T

THOMAS HARNDEN ELISABETH AKERS

BOARD MEMBER, 20 05–PRESENT BOARD MEMBER, 2012–PRESENT

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 Bibliography
Interviews
Elisabeth Akers, September 2013 ———-. “Yearly Report to the Akron Metropolitan
Paul Belcher, November 1988 Housing Authority Board of Directors,” 1941.

Michael Blakemore, September 2005 ———-. “Yearly Report to the Akron Metropolitan
Housing Authority Board of Directors,” 1944.
John Fickes, September 2013
———-. “Yearly Report to the Akron Metropolitan
John Fink, August 1999 Housing Authority Board of Directors,” 1945.
Leonard Foster, September 1999 National Association of Housing Officials Yearbook,
Thomas Gilbert, September 1999 1937.

Louise Gissendaner, August 1999 National Association of Housing Officials Yearbook,

1938.
Thomas Harnden, September 2013
Pamela Hawkins, September 1999, September 2013 Books
Dorothy Jackson, November 1988
Freedman, Leonard. Public Housing: The Politics of
Ray Kapper, September 1999 Poverty. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson,
Kurt Laubinger, August and October 1999 1969.
Miriam Spiggle Lauer, November 1988 Grismer, Karl H. Akron and Summit County. Akron:
Summit County Historical Society, 1952.
David Levey, November 1988
Salins, Peter D., ed. Housing America’s Poor. Chapel
Terry Meese, November 1988, September 1999 Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
Paul Messenger, May 1990 Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream: A Social
Herbert Newman, November 1988 History of Housing in America. Boston: MIT Press,
1983.
Anthony O’Leary, August and September 1999,
September 2013
Janet Purnell, December 1988
Articles
Sherri Scheetz, August 2005, September 2013 Akron Beacon Journal, 1938: 28 January, 9 March, 23
March, 11 April, 3 August, 4 August, 9 August,
Robert Turpin, January 1989 17 August, 2 October, 10 October, 11 October.
Jeff Wilhite, August 1999 Akron Beacon Journal, 1940: 30 July, 8 August.
Laura Williams, September 2013 Akron Beacon Journal, 1941: 19 February, 17 March.
Akron Beacon Journal, 1943: 18 March, 11 July.
AMHA Documents Akron Beacon Journal, 19 August 1945.
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority. Board Akron Beacon Journal, 31 March 1949.
Resolutions 4013, 4068, 4314, 4315, 4361, 4363,
and 4561. Akron Beacon Journal, 15 August 1951.
———-. Minutes of board meeting, 16 March 1938. Akron Beacon Journal, 1953: 22 January, 8 May,
6 August.
Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HUD Asset Management E-Newsletter, no. 26, Akron Beacon Journal, 12 October 1954.
November 2009. Akron Beacon Journal, 9 April 1955.
———-. Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act Akron Beacon Journal, 22 March 1956.
(QHWRA) and the Capital Fund Guidebook, HUD,
Washington, D.C., updated 2 October 2008. Akron Beacon Journal, 12 July 1961.
Akron Beacon Journal, 1967: 23 March, 12 October.
Lauer, M. R. “A Brief History of Public Housing in
Akron” (typescript), January 1950. Akron Beacon Journal, 22 September 1982.
Akron Beacon Journal, 14 December 1983.

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 Akron Beacon Journal, 31 April 1984.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2 March 1987.
Akron Beacon Journal, 14 January 1988.
Akron Beacon Journal, 19 November 1992.
Akron Beacon Journal, 24 October 1996.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2002: 3 November,
11 November.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2003: 6 March, 7 April.
Akron Beacon Journal, 30 November 2006.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2008: 28 February, 8 July,
13 September.
Akron Beacon Journal, 31 May 2009.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2010: 29 January,
21 September, 16 October, 22 December.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2011: 5 May, 27 May.
Akron Beacon Journal, 2012: 9 January, 16 February,
25 October.
Akron Beacon Journal, 6 May 2013.
Barberton Herald, 2 January 2009.
Bryan, Jack. “Akron, 3000 Units in Three Years.”
Journal of Housing, No. 8, August/September
1971.
“Case Study: The Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority,” Journal of Housing and Community
Development, November/December 2005.
Cityscape, Winter 2007.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6 October 1939.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 27 August 1940.
Cuyahoga Falls News-Press, 27 July 2008.
“Implementing the Neighborhood Stabilization
Program (NSP): Community Stabilization in
the Neighborworks Network,” Neighborworks
America, Washington, D.C., 2010.
Ohio Informer, June 1955.
“People and Homes, Special Report,” Akron Beacon
Journal, 29 August 1971.
“This Is the Housing That Jack Built,” Business Week,
13 September 1969.
West Akron News, 26 October 1939.
West Side News & Notes, 14 October 2010.

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 INDEX
Page numbers in italics reference an illustration or caption.

A B
AFL-CIO, 42 Babcock & Wilcox Company, 25
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), 41 Bacon, M. Carl, 48, 49
Akers, Elisabeth, 98, 110, 113 Balbach, James, 75, 77
Akron Beacon Journal, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17-18, 19, 21, 23, 24, Ballard, John, 49, 52, 54
28, 31, 35, 38-39, 42, 47, 48, 51, 58, 59, 64, 65, 73, 77, Barberton City Council, 18-19, 56
79, 81, 105 Barberton City School District, 101
Akron Board of Building, 57 Barberton Middle School, 101
Akron-Canton Subcontractors Association, 73 Barr, J. R., 12, 112
Akron City Council, 12-15, 17, 19, 19, 22, 42, 44, 46, 54, Bauer, Catherine, 10
56, 59, 77, 100
Belcher, Paul, 6, 9-10, 10, 11, 12, 15-16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24,
Akron Community Service Center, 28, 85 27, 28, 29, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48-49, 51, 52, 58,
Akron Health Department, 28, 45, 62, 86, 105 63, 64, 73, 91, 112
Akron Host Lions Club, 15 Belcher Apartments. See Paul E. Belcher Apartments
Akron Interracial Clinic, 27 Berg, Leo, 42
Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority (AMHA): 1937-40 B. F. Goodrich Company, 24, 54
era, 9-19; 1940-45 era, 21-29; 1945-54 era, 31-39; 1954- Biruta Street project, 50, 58-59. See also Bon-Sue
67 era, 41-49; 1967-82 era, 51-74; 1982-92 era, 75-81; Apartments
1992-2000 era, 83-94; 2001-13 era, 97-110;
administration buildings, 4, 53, 91, 97; board chairmen Blickle, John, 112
and trustees, 112, 113; executive directors, 112, 113 B’nai B’rith, 63
Akron Ministerial Association, 27, 28 Bohm, Gustav, 11
Akron NAACP. See NAACP Bohn, Ernest, 9, 10, 13, 41
Akron Public Schools, 71-72, 76, 105, 106 Bolton, Frances Payne, 37
Akron Real Estate Board, 15, 21, 23, 33, 38 Bon-Sue Apartments, 50, 59, 59, 91
Akron School District, 69 Boys and Girls Clubs, 28, 86, 106
Akron Summit Community Action, 2, 106 Bramlett, Larry, 77
Akron-Summit County Public Library, 106 Brittain Place, 55
Akron Tower Motor Inn, 69 Brittain Towers, 55
Akron Urban League, 99 Bromley, Debbie, 104
Akron Zoo, 94-95, 99, 101 Brooke Amendment, 60, 71
“Akron’s Little Harlem,” 16 Brown, Vanessa, 104
Akron-Summit-Medina Private Industry Council, 93 Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education, 45
Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services Buchtel-Cotter Apartments, 55, 63
Board, 86-87 Builders Exchange, 11, 12, 47
Alkire, James, 59, 112 Bush, George W., 97, 107
Allen, Robert, 112 Business Week, 51
Allen W. Dickson Apartments, 55, 103
Alpeter, James, 112 C
American Association of University Women (AAUW), 42 Cabrini-Green, 72, 98
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 71 Calabrese, Wayne, 76
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Cascade Village, 2, 6, 7, 99, 100, 105
Employees (AFSCME), 77 Cedar Hill Apartments, 44
American Red Cross, 62 Cedar Metropolitan Housing Authority, 65
Americans for Democratic Action, 36 Celeste, Richard, 78
AmeriCorps, 105 Challenge (magazine), 72
Apati, Jackie, 104 Christian Science Monitor, 51, 57
Apte, Mark, 112 Citizens Against Socialized Housing (CASH), 38
Ardella Homes, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 46, 56, 57, 58, 60 Cleveland Council Housing Committee, 13
Ardella Housewives League, 34 Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA), 9
Ardella Park, 58 Cleveland Plain Dealer, 59
Arlington Gardens, 44, 44 Clinton, Bill, 93, 107
Arnold, Kurt, 14 Cole Avenue Homes, 23, 24, 28, 33, 35, 36, 38
Association of Colored Community Workers, 17 Collinson, Richard, 112

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 Colored Community Center, 18 Ellis, Paula, 105
Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, 46 Etheredge, Virginia, 14
Commons at Madaline Park, The, 107
Community Action Council, 44, 59 F
Community Builders, The, 99, 105 Family Self-Sufficiency Program, 107-8
Community Drug Board, 86 Family Solutions Start Program, 87
Community Support Services Program, 105, 107 Federal Housing Act, 65. See also United States Housing Act
Comprehensive Grant Program, 88, 93 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 11, 13, 46, 68
Comprehensive Improvement Assistance Program, 88 Federal Works Administration, 22
Computer Commuter, 82, 83, 86 Federated Women’s Club of Summit County, 42
Congressional Record, 63 Feta, Frank, 76, 79
Construction Department, 87-88, 99, 103 Fickes, John, 98, 98, 100, 110, 113
Cook, Mary, 28 Fink, John, 92-93, 112
Cotter House, 91 Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, 23-24
Council of Churches, 42 First Central Bank, 23
Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, 76 First Things First, 106
Council of Social Agencies, 18 Fletcher, Gus, 17
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), Foster, Leonard, 89, 92, 93, 110, 113
90 Fowler, William, 27, 48, 59, 73, 77, 112
Crimson Terrace, 70 Frecka, A. J., 12, 112
Cross, Josephine, 77, 112 Fred W. Nimmer Place, 55, 102
Cuomo, Andrew, 93, 94, 95 Freedman, Leonard, 41
Friedman, Leon, 67, 76, 77
D
Dalrymple, Audrey, 71 G
Dalrymple, Nettie, 45 GI Bill, 31
Davis, Edward J., 46, 77, 77, 95, 112 Gibson, Warren, 73, 75, 77, 112
Defense Coordination Committee, 23 Gilbert, Thomas, 87-88, 90
Defense Housing Committee, 21 Gilbride, Craig, 100
Demonstrative Cities and Metropolitan Development Act, 52 Gissendaner, Louise, 81, 84, 85, 85, 86, 89, 93, 112
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 49, Glendale Cemetery, 29, 68, 69
51, 54, 55-56, 60, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71-72, 73, 75-76, Goodwill Industries, 17, 60, 106
78, 79, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 92, 93, 94, 94, 98, 99, 100, 101,
102, 103-4, 105, 106, 108-9, 110 Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, 23
Depression. See Great Depression Goodyear Heights, 58, 65
Dickson, A. W., 12, 47, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 112 Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 62
Dillon, Thomas J., 55 Goudy, Walter, 112
Dillon Company. See Thomas J. Dillon & Company Great Depression, 6, 10-11, 17, 22, 41, 48, 97
Dole, Robert, 85 Green Retirement Partnership, 102
Donovan, Shaun, 106 Grismer, Karl, 24
Dorothy Jackson Terrace, 70, 76
Dove, Rita, 99-100, 100 H
Harnden, Thomas, 98, 101, 113
E Harter, Dow, 11, 14
Eagle, Mary Peavy, 100, 100 Hatch Act, 79
Earhart, John, 61 Hawkins, Pamela, 85, 86, 87, 104, 105, 106
Early Childhood Initiative, 6, 106, 106 Head Start, 63, 86, 106
East Akron Board of Trade, 14 Helen Arnold Community Learning Center, 99
East Akron News, 23 Herbert Newman Senior Resource Center, 69
East Barberton Homes, 20, 25, 45, 56 Heslop, Ray, 31, 112
Edgewood Community Center, 61 Heslop Building & Realty Company, 31
Edgewood Home Bulletin, 28 Highland Square, 73
Edgewood Homes, 15, 18-19, 19, 21, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, Highpoint, 69-70, 94-95
35, 37, 45, 46, 47, 56, 70, 71-72, 78, 87, 91, 99, 101, 107 Hills, Carla, 51, 64, 72
Edgewood Village, 6, 99-100, 100, 109 Hillwood Homes, 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36, 45, 56, 61, 63, 68
Eisenhower, Dwight, 37, 38, 41 Home Builders Association of Greater Akron, 65
Elizabeth Park Homes, 2, 7, 8, 14, 16-18, 16-19, 19, 21, Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), 78
26-27, 28, 37, 42, 43, 43, 45, 46, 48, 56, 63, 68, 75, 76, Home For Me, 107
88, 91, 99, 108, 110
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 Home Service Program, 61 M
Honey Locust Gardens, 70, 76, 106 Madaline Park. See Commons at Madaline Park
Hoover, Herbert, 10 Maplewood Gardens, 70, 106
Hoover, Kim, 112 Margaret Park, 34, 43
HOPE VI program, 2, 97, 98-100, 105, 109 Marian T. Hall Senior Building, 7
Horns, Miller, 99, 99 Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, 61
Hotel Matthews, 99, 99 Martin P. Lauer Apartments, 55, 103
Housing Act. See United States Housing Act May, Dean, 12
Housing America’s Poor, 71 Mayflower Manor, 68-69, 73, 76
Housing and Urban Development Act, 52 Medina Metropolitan Housing Authority, 98
Housing Authority Insurance Group, 109, 109 Meese, Terry, 61, 77-78, 79, 83-84, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94
Housing Choice Voucher Program, 98, 107, 109 Merit Systems Protection Board, 79
Howell, C. C., 21, 22 Merrifield, Ken, 109
HUD. See Department of Housing and Urban Development Messenger, Paul, 78, 79, 79-81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 92, 112
Human Services Department, 60-63, 77-79. See also Metropolitan Development Act, 52
Resident Services and Community Development Midtown Apartments, 7, 91
Department; Social and Tenant Services Department Miller, James, 18, 45
Mohawk Apartments, 91
I Morgan, John, 78
Institute of Real Estate Management, 104 Morton, Hazel, 2, 2, 112
Myers, Forrest, 12, 14, 112
J
Jackson, Dorothy, 60-63, 70, 77 N
James E. Alpeter Senior Apartments, 103 NAACP, 42, 46, 61
Jewish War Veterans, 42 National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), 52
John G. Ruhlin Construction Company, 54 National Association of Housing Officials (NAHO), 9-10, 37
Johnson, Lyndon, 52, 54, 65, 80, 97 National Association of Housing and Redevelopment
Journal of Housing, 51 Officials (NAHRO), 109
Joy Park Homes, 6, 57, 58, 76, 90, 109 National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), 15,
21, 38, 42, 52
K Nealy, Perine, 61
Kapper, Ray, 84, 89, 89, 92, 112 Neighborhood Conservation Services, 101
Kasch, Gus, 14 Neighborhood Development Services (NDS), 101, 102
Kennedy, John, 41, 47 Neiman, Patrick, 69
Kent State University, 62 Newman, Herbert, 51, 52, 53, 64, 64-67, 68, 69, 70, 72-74,
Knight Foundation, 105 75, 80, 95, 112
Koplin, Nathan, 17 Nimmer, Fred, 112
Korean War, 35, 37 Nixon, Richard, 64, 66, 72, 75, 97
Nixon, Rick, 76
L North Akron Recreation Association, 15
Lakemore, 12 Northeast Ohio Apartment Association, 109
Landi, Ryan, 102 Northside Lofts, 100
Lane Field, 34, 43, 99 Norton Homes, 6, 18-19, 21, 23, 26, 28, 34, 37, 45, 56, 59,
Lanham Act, 22, 27, 35, 36 91, 100-101, 101
Laubinger, Kurt, 84, 87, 87, 92, 93, 112 Nurse, Mr. and Mrs. Charles, 43
Lauer, Martin (M. P.), 6, 9-10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18-19,
21-22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 35, 38, 42, 43-44, 46, 47, 53, O
55, 103, 112 Obama, Barack, 97
Lauer, Miriam Spiggle. See Spiggle, Miriam Oestreicher, Eugene, 71
Levey, David, 51, 53, 62, 64, 66-67, 68, 69, 69-73, 75, 76, Ohio Education Department, 83, 86
80, 95, 112 Ohio Housing Board, 12
Lewellyn, Bill, 109 Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA), 101
Lieberth, David, 112 Ohio Informer, 46
Lions Club. See Akron Host Lions Club Ohio Real Estate Board, 71
Lobello, Vincent, 76, 112 Ohio State Agriculture Extension Office, 62
Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, 101, 102 O’Leary, Anthony, 84-85, 87, 89, 90, 92-94, 93, 94, 97-99,
Lydens, Paul, 66, 72 100, 100, 102, 103, 104, 107-8, 109, 109, 110, 113
Operation Breakthrough, 56-58, 66

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 Opportunity Park, 48, 54, 71 Scoop, 61
Orchard Park, 65 Secrest, Burt, 13, 14
Section 8 program, 55, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 76, 77, 81, 83, 91,
P 97, 98, 102
Palace Coach Company, 25 Section 23 program, 55
Palmer, Charles, 23 Seiberling, C. W., 18
Parade of Urban Affordable Homes, 65, 70 Seiberling, John, 63, 68, 112
Park, Luther, 14, 22 Senior Citizens, Inc., 45
Parkland Group, 102 Shapiro, Marvin, 112
Park Lane Manor, 35 Sharp’s Market, 70
Paul E. Belcher Apartments, 47, 53-54, 54, 63, 70, 83, 91 Simmons, Pat, 95
Peters, Cindy, 112 Simms, Walter, 112
Pinecrest, 45 Sims, Stephanie, 104
Pinewood Gardens, 70, 71 Slusser, Charles, 38-39, 41, 42, 54
Plusquellic, Donald, 2, 84, 92, 93, 100 Smith, Earl, 23, 37
Pomeroy, Hugh, 11 Smith, L. L., 112
Post, Langdon, 22 Snyder, Steve, 61
Project Learn, 107 Social and Tenant Services Department, 60-61. See also
Project Self-Sufficiency, 78 Human Services Department; Resident Services and
Community Development Department
Property Owners Association of Summit County, 38
Sommerville, Marco, 100, 105-6
Pruitt-Igoe, 41, 67, 72, 98
South Barberton Homes, 43, 59
Public Housing Authority, 15, 28, 35, 38, 41, 42, 45. See
also United States Housing Authority South Dakota Club, 26
Public Works Act, 10 South East Homes, 25, 36
Purnell, Janet, 75-77, 76, 78-79, 84, 112 Sparkle Markets, 48, 70
Spicer, Willard, 73
Q Spiggle, Miriam (Mrs. M. P. Lauer), 28, 34, 45, 45
Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, 107 Stephanie S. Keys Towers, 7
Stirling, David, 57
R Stirling Homex Company, 56, 57, 57-58, 76
Reagan, Ronald, 65, 75, 76, 79 Straus, Nathan, 14
Reconstruction Finance Act, 10 Summer Experience Center, 61
Resident Services and Community Development Summer Youth Employment Program, 61, 78
Department, 85, 87, 104-7. See also Human Services Summit County Child Care Association, 28
Department; Social and Tenant Services Department Summit County Children’s Services, 83
Retirement Residence of Green, 7 Summit County Department of Job and Public Services, 106
Richardson, Grace, 100, 100 Summit County Federation of Democratic Women, 15
Ringling Brothers–Barnum & Bailey Circus, 34 Summit County Republican Party, 76, 79, 87, 92
Ritzman, Albert, 21 Summit Lake Apartments, 34, 57-58, 83, 88, 90, 105
Romney, George, 56-57 Summit Lake Family Opportunity Center, 105, 105
Roosevelt, Franklin, 10, 23, 64 Summit Metropolitan Housing Authority, 65
Rosemary Square, 91 Sumner Home for the Aged, 13, 14
Rothmann, Sue, 61 Sumner Park, 13-14
Roulhac, Joseph, 91 Sumner Park Protective Association, 14
Roulhac Circle, 91 Sutliff, Ray, 112
Rowe, Edmond, 13, 14 Sutliff Apartments, 55

S T
Saferstein, Jack, 48, 48-49, 51-60, 63-64, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, Taft, Robert, 37, 39
75, 80, 85, 112 Testa, Paul, 100
Saferstein Towers, 55, 63, 69, 83, 88, 90, 94, 103 Testa Enterprises, 100, 107
Sanderson, Robert M., 14 Thomas J. Dillon & Company, 55, 57
Saulsberry, Erika, 104 Thompson, George, 17
Sauvageot, Paul, 62 Thompson, Jeanie Luella, 45
Sawyer, Tom, 77, 93 Today Show, 51, 57
Sawyerwood, 12 Toledo Blade, 72
Scheetz, Sherri, 98, 109 Transcon Builders, 69
Schroy, Lee, 12 Tri-County Building Trades Council, 12

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 Tri-County Building Trades Welfare Fund, 47
Truman, Harry, 35, 37
Turkeyfoot Lake, 31
Turpin, Robert, 33, 53
Twenty-five Year Club of Summit County, 15

U
United Rubber Workers (URW), 23, 42
United States Housing Act, 9, 10-11, 21-22, 37-38, 41, 65
United States Housing Authority, 10, 14, 16, 22, 28, 35, 38,
41, 42, 45
University of Akron, 62, 64, 75, 105

V
Valley View Apartments, 83, 90
Van Buren Homes, 90, 91, 109
Van Buren Trailer Park, 20, 20, 25, 26, 32, 35, 45
Veterans Affairs, 107
Veterans Information Center, 31, 33

W
Wagner, Robert, 10, 37
Wagner-Steagall Act, 9, 10, 11, 15
Walter, Leo, 112
War Emergency Act, 36
War Housing Center, 33
War Manpower Commission, 26
Washington Square, 101, 101-2
Well Baby Clinic, 45, 61
West Akron News, 15, 22
West High Apartments, 68, 69, 73, 76
Western Reserve Girl Scout Council, 62
Weyrick, Mrs., 42
Wigley, Thomas, 13
Wilbeth-Arlington, 24-25, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 43-44, 45,
45, 63, 67, 67-68, 70
Wilhite, Jeff, 88, 93, 94, 112
Williams, Laura, 103
Wilson, Jeannie, 105
Winston, Wilhelmina, 42, 45
Woodridge Local School District, 106
Wooster, Hawkins, East Neighbors (WHEN), 59
Works Progress Administration, 27
World War II, 20, 23-24, 27, 29, 30, 37, 45, 51, 57, 67, 70,
79, 109

Y
YMCA, 28, 34
YWCA, 85

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