SPARTANBURG, SC - The new Spartanburg Housing Authority director was instrumental in planning and implementing four federal HOPE VI grant projects, including one that transformed blighted housing units in Charlotte, N.C., into an attractive, $93 million development. Harry Byrd Jr. has been on the job for just four weeks, but he has met with staffers and key players in other partnering agencies, including the city of Spartanburg and Spartanburg County, to determine the agency's strengths and weaknesses.
The Housing Authority board of directors voted unanimously to hire Byrd after a nearly year-long search when former director Roy Johnson resigned to accept a similar position in Vancouver, Wash. Byrd will oversee a $13.4 million budget, 941 public housing units and a staff of about 100. The housing authority also issues about 2,000 housing vouchers annually.
Byrd was the owner of The Harkin Group LLC of Huntersville, N.C., where he spent 10 years consulting housing authorities in the Southeast, primarily on how to submit and implement successful HOPE VI federal grants. He was the senior vice president and chief operating officer for the Charlotte Housing Authority from 1991 to 1998, when four successful HOPE VI grants were planned and executed.
Byrd does not take credit for the HOPE VI awards, instead applauding the teams that worked on the applications and afterward, the documentation process. "We're at a point now when HUD (U.S. Housing and Urban Development) is changing their requirements and asking more in terms of entrepreneurship," Byrd said. "They expect you to work with private investors to leverage those resources, as well." Byrd already has begun preparing a HOPE VI grant application for the 2009 cycle.
Wes Corrothers, the city's housing services manager, said Byrd's experience in financial management and his consulting work with other housing authorities will serve the agency well. The goal of HOPE VI, Corrothers said, is to produce mixed-income projects. Corrothers said Byrd's effort in helping secure Charlotte's four grants is evidence of his ability.
A $41.7 million HOPE VI grant the Charlotte Housing Authority was awarded in 1993 redeveloped a 410-unit Earle Village public housing project into First Ward Place, a mixed-income, multi-family development of rental and home ownership units with a community center in the heart of the Queen City. First Ward Place offers homes, condominiums and apartments with various architectural styles and pedestrian-friendly streets convenient to Charlotte's Uptown. "What has been done there is absolutely phenomenal, and in many ways those are the types of projects we're trying to bring to Spartanburg," Corrothers said. "The groundwork is there, and I believe Harry Byrd is the ideal person to help spring our momentum forward."
State Rep. Harold Mitchell, who also works closely with the housing authority, echoed Corrother's sentiments. "Mr. Byrd was a major part of helping change the face of Charlotte's downtown," Mitchell said. "His background in finance and his ability to assemble the right team and planners can help engineer investment."
Byrd also plans to help continue changing public perception surrounding housing authorities. "We compete like any other real estate firm," he said. "We want a portfolio of rental and market-rate, affordable and low-income housing." Byrd said the center of his business model is simple: it's all about people. Byrd plans to be accessible and will reach out to every public housing community. He wants to involve housing authority clients from the initial planning stages of future projects.
"Harry Byrd is a well-versed, experienced person who's been involved in a number of communities and roles and has both the expertise, vision and energy to build on where we are," Mayor Bill Barnet said. "We've made progress, but we have a long way to go." Barnet said the housing authority and its partners, including the city, have only scratched the surface on the potential impacts that are available to all citizens.
Source: GoUpState.com