Thursday, July 26, 1973
Tenants
run own
building
BOSTON (- Crime and gar-
bage heaps that made the Brom-
ley-Heath public housing project
barely fit to live in have been
cleaned up by the project's new
managers: the t e na n t s them-
selves.
For the first time, according
to federal officials, low-income
tenauts are running the housing
project w h e r e they live. And
residents say it is cleaner and
safer.
B E F 0 R E TENANTS, organ-
ized as the Tenants Manage-
ment Corp. (TMC), were given
control of the project six months
ago Bromley-Heath was among
the. worst places in the city to
live.
Trash, junked cars and broken
bottles littered the asphalt that
separated its stark brick apart-
ment houses. Old people feared F
to venture from their rooms be- C
cause crime was everywhere.-
The complex stands in a de-
teriorated neighborhood on Bos-
ton's southwest side, a slum
within a slum-4,540 people, 90
per cent of them black, living
in 1,230 apartments in 38 run-
down buildings.
ON JAN. 1, the Boston Hous-
ing Authority (BHA) turned over
Bromley-Heath to the tenant
group, authorized under an Office
of EOonomic Opportunity experi-
mental program.
Since then, the new managers
have hauled away tons of gar-
bage from the halls, yards and
basements, improved o u t s i d e
lighting, set up a security force
to patrol the project and estab-
lished a closed-circuit radio sta-
tion to broadcast local news.
"The thinking was that these
are the tenants, and they have
a feeling for the development,"
said Leo Donovan, a BHA official
who is overseeing the project's
transfer.
THE TENANTS get $1.5 million
a year to run the project, the
same as the BHA had. But the
tenants say they are able to get
more for their money because
they know where to spend it.
"After living with these prob-
lems for 18 years, I had a pretty
good idea what needed to be
done," said Mildred Haley, di-
rector of the tenant group.
"We're professional tenants."
That has meant replacing most
of the BHA maintenance workers
with people from the project and
making sure that they're on the
job fulltime.
LELA WILLIAMS, 40, tends
the newly installed flower bed
in front of her building. She
thinks that's one of the greatest
improvements t h e organization
has made. She also says service
is better.
"We know it's going to take
some time, because the place
was so run down when TMC got
it," she said. "But when you call
now with a maintenance prob-
lem, you get it fixed promptly.
Now you call the exterminator,
and he comes when he says he
will. Before, he might not come
at all."
For James Hall, 84, the tenants'
organization meant a new re-
frigerator.
"THEY'VE MADE it better
here," he said. "I was waiting
for a new refrigerator for over a
year before the tenants' corpora-
tion. After they took over, I got
it in a couple of months. Lots of
othej people got refrigerators,
too."
Another popular innovation has
been a security force, 10 un-
armed men, dressed in police-
like uniforms, who walk through
the project's buildings and patrol
its streets in a truck.
Tenant officials say crime in
the project in the first three
months this year dropped 77 per
cent from the same period last
year.
THE SUMMER
Shook by explosion
Firemen examine damage from a blast that rocked the 15th floor of the Martin Luther King Labor Center in New York. A pro-Castro
uban exposition was being planned at the time.