Black Women Coping with HOPE VI in Spartanburg, South Carolina

Poor, black, single women heads of household account for the majority of those the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) initiative impacts. The stated goal of the HOPE VI program is to “revitalize” central cities, which involves demolishing “distressed” public housing complexes and replacing them with “sustainable communities.” The purpose of this article is to present findings of my fall 2006 fieldwork in Spartanburg, SC, and a critical analysis of these findings. I visited and interviewed a sample of 25 black women heads of household, relocated from the Phyllis Goins public housing project. My study provided these women the opportunity to reflect on their relocation experiences in order to assess the impact of the relocation. The detected trends revealed relocation largely imposes hardships on families. My sociological analysis examines the relationship between historically established structures and the women’s personal biographies. The feminist analytical frames I apply aim to explain the tensions exposed between the women in my sample and the Spartanburg Housing Authority that may be indicative of nationwide trends.