1986
1986

War on drugs meets poverty

Description
  • In 1984 Congress passes the Sentencing Reform Act, putting mandatory minimum sentencing laws into practice, which disproportionately affect African-Americans.
  • In 1985, about 1,500 people live in the Garrett and Sixth Street Southeast neighborhood with a median income of $8,006, and a median home value of $25,500, according to the Daily Progress. The national median income for African-American families in 1985 is $14,820, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
  • At this time, a series of zero-tolerance anti-drug policies are being implemented in Charlottesville and around the country. These policies specifically target African-Americans, criminalizing drug addiction and targeting poorer neighborhoods.
  • The number of people incarcerated by the legal system for nonviolent drug offenses rises from 50,000 in 1980 to more than 400,000 by 1997.
Quote

The area was a slum area within our city that needed to be treated.

— Gene Arrington, director of CRHA

People

How many jobs did you have to work to make ends meet?

The Reimagining of Friendship Court

INTRO
By Jordy Yager

The redevelopment of Friendship Court is slated to be the largest new construction of low-income housing undertaken in Charlottesville in more than two decades. The plan alone is groundbreaking, having been directly created by current Section 8 residents in partnership with Piedmont Housing Alliance. City staff calls it the most nuanced and complex plan they’ve ever encountered. It ambitiously attempts to balance promises of zero resident displacement with the city’s broader affordable housing needs, while also calling for hundreds of new, likely higher-income, residents to move in, as residents hope to de-stigmatize the lasting effects of poverty born out of generations of racist government policy and neglect.

This year will be the make-or-break year for Friendship Court’s redevelopment efforts. Millions of dollars in city, federal, and private funding stand between the massive plan and the highly anticipated 2020 groundbreaking. And while the green lights have begun to align and most residents are excited, the plan has its critics — those who call for greater levels of resident autonomy, greater security measures to guard against social and cultural displacement, and greater reparations for past wrongs.

In crafting this project, we’ve tried to tackle all of this and more by separating the longer narratives into five major questions:

Part 1: What is the plan?
Part 2: How did we get here?
Part 3: Does mixed-income housing work?
Part 4: Who does Friendship Court belong to?
Part 5: What’s next?

But we also wanted to give you access to as much of our reporting as possible, so we’ve created a timeline that details the history of this area, dating back 150 years, through the use of more than 130 maps, documents, archived articles, and photographs. Similarly, we wanted you to actually hear each of the two dozen long-form interviews we conducted, and not merely the portions we’ve included in the individual stories. So we’ve included more than 300 audio clips throughout the story: in the articles, the timeline, and on each person’s profile page. Our hope is that with all this, more of the picture will begin to emerge, and that, as we stand ready to make powerful and significant changes in the city, we all can help craft the solutions.