CHA moving families while they renovate apartments

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – The Chattanooga housing authority is announcing plans to renovate 311 apartments starting in the spring.

The renovations will require some families to find temporary housing and CHA invited property owners to talk about that today.

News 12’s Ashley Henderson has more on that as we cover the community.

Two hundred apartments at Cromwell Hills and 111 more in Glenwood, Woodside and Missionary Heights will be affected by the work.

Builders and landlords heard about the renovations at a noon luncheon at CHA headquarters.

Most will become part of the voucher program at least temporarily.

EDDIE HOLMES, COMMISSIONER, CHATT. HOUSING AUTHORITY “The Housing Authority is going in a different direction, it’s almost like a new phase of what we’ve done in the past, but mainly expanding from low income public housing – the projects sites that you normally see, into section 8 vouchers, we’re making it more user friendly. Also providing some great opportunities for the city of Chattanooga.”

CHA seeks to provide temporary housing for about 100 low income Chattanoogans, elderly and disabled. It will utilize that voucher program. Some landlords are already renting to a large number of people.

SKIP POND, LANDLORD ACCEPTING VOUCHERS “We already have a high demand, uh, we get calls from folks all, all the time wanting section 8, and affordable housing and it seems like the demand’s getting ready to increase with the displacing the people out of public housing.”

Skip Pond is a builder and current landlord of 80 properties, and he’s building more.

POND: “Some folks we have, that pay, the voucher pays 100 percent of their rent, it’s all based on their income, so the more money they make the more they have to pay.”

HOLMES: “HUD allows us a certain amount of money, we anticipate and expect our residents to pay a certain amount of money also, to come in, so those are the main streams, the folks who live there pay their rent, that provides more funding for us to do the things that need to be done.”

Holmes says there are about thirty-six hundred vouchers but CHA is operating another twenty-six hundred units.

In Chattanooga, Ashley Henderson, News 12 Now.