Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/105484
Sarasota News Leader January 25, 2013 Page 22 tended, representing U.S. Rep. Vern Buchan- through the stimulus law (a measure opposed an, R-Sarasota. by Buchanan). That money went to demolish the old Janie Poe complex and to build the Authority Executive Director Bill Russell first two phases of Janie's Garden. It also went used the occasion to marvel at how far the toward the new Robert L. Taylor Community organization has come since the federal govComplex. Overall, the agency demolished 66 ernment placed it in receivership seven years units, built 94 and rehabilitated another 68. ago, when the Authority was a source of "embarrassment" for the community. But the actual housing is only part of the picture, Hadsell said. He made a lot of promises "The Housing Authority was financially trouto the federal government, but one major one bled; our properties were physically troubled; to the Newtown community: He pledged to the staff was untrained and disorganized," hire local workers. Russell said, calling Sarasota housing conditions at that time "deplorable." Today, res- "We kept that promise," he said. "Local hiring idents see a "starkly different picture," he add- was prominent on all of the major large projed. The Authority now serves 2,100 families, ects. We established goals for local hiring and 650 more than it did seven years ago. we met and exceeded those goals on each of those projects." Don Hadsell, the director of the Office of Housing and Community Development, re- Russell also cited the importance of neighborcounted three years of intense action spurred hood workers. More than 75 percent of the by a $23 million federal grant made available subcontractors hired by Tandem Construc- The new King Stone Townhome development is on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in north Sarasota. Photo by Norman Schimmel