SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Major changes are coming to a historic Sacramento district.
On Tuesday night, the Sacramento City Council approved a plan to revitalize parts of west Broadway, which includes renovating the city's oldest public housing complex, Alder Grove, commonly known as the New Helvetia neighborhood.
People living in the complex are worried this means their homes will be torn down.
"This whole idea of being displaced no matter where you go, it's still uncomfortable for me," Marcheri Smith, a resident at New Helvetia said.
Smith grew up here and now, it's where she's choosing to raise her two young boys as a single mom. But now that plans moved forward to revitalize west Broadway, she's worried about keeping a roof over their head, even though her unit has fallen into disrepair.
"I still need my oven fixed. I still need the mold out of my house gone. I still need my linings on my floor. I still need my flooring. I still need the ceilings redone," she said.
Despite community pushback, the council still unanimously approved the nearly 800-page plan that still has the word "demolition" written into it.
"This council, and I'm sure council's that follow us, will not allow demolition if there's a chance for rehabilitation," Larry Carr, a Sacramento City Councilman said.
After some hesitation, Carr, a product of public housing himself, voted in favor of this plan.
"Because I am a product of public housing, I know how bad public housing can be, and the fact that we can rehabilitate them as well as integrate them into a larger community, it's a plan worth doing, it's a vision worth pursuing," he said.
He says this is less of a plan and more of a vision, a vision to make west Broadway more modern, walkable, and connected, something that could even bring a new road right through the complex at Broadway and 4th Street.
For New Helvetia, the plan is to renovate what they can and demolish what they can't. But before that happens, Carr says more community outreach needs to happen.
"So let's take the additional time to say, 'Hey, here's what the deal is, you're not going to get kicked out of your house. If we rehabilitate it, you are going to have first priority of moving back and we will relocate you to a place of your liking,'" he said.
But this comes as little relief to Smith.
"Seeing the way that they handle us and the way that they talk about us and the way that they treat us, I don't trust a word that they say," she said.
The New Helvetia community is on the National Register of Historic Places and it's considered a key to black culture in Sacramento. The community was constructed almost 80 years ago back in 1941. The public housing was opened to everyone following a lawsuit in 1953 by civil rights attorney Nathaniel Colley, a leader in the fight against segregation.
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