Changes coming to McDougald Terrace, but no moves this year, Durham Housing Authority says

This story was updated Feb. 24, 2022.

The Durham Housing Authority must decide a long term plan for its oldest public housing community, but residents will not have to move out this year, chief executive officer Anthony Scott said Thursday.

Some media outlets reported Wednesday that the McDougald Terrace housing complex on Lawson Street needs major renovations and could be shut down entirely, displacing hundreds of residents.

“The residents are in a panic right now at McDougald,” Ashley Canady, president of the McDougald Terrace Resident Association, told The News & Observer.

At 360 units, McDougald Terrace is the authority’s largest conventional housing complex. In 2020, hundreds of residents were evacuated for several months when aging gas stoves leaked carbon monoxide.

DHA spokesperson Aalayah Sanders told The N&O on Wednesday that reports about residents having to move this year were not true.

Scott repeated that Thursday.

In a news conference, he explained DHA has to address longstanding problems at McDougald Terrace in order to move out of “troubled status” with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds and oversees the authority.

DHA must also raise its overall occupancy to 95% and generally improve conditions across its housing stock, he said.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, housing assistance must be offered when residents are displaced.

“When public housing residents must be relocated because of rehabilitation or demolition of public housing units, or as part of a court order, HUD may allocate Section 8 assistance to allow those residents to move into privately owned housing and still pay affordable rent. This assistance makes possible the demolition of obsolete public housing projects,” according to its site.

DHA also recently announced plans to partner with developers to create 1,700 new housing units on three properties, including roughly 1,000 units on the long vacant Fayette Place south of downtown.

Hayti Reborn, an initiative to create a housing and social equity research park on the site led by N.C. Central University professor Henry McKoy, did not win approval for the Fayette Place property and has appealed the housing authority’s decision.

This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 8:06 AM.