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Notorious Flint housing complex going away thanks to federal grant

Flickr User Ken Lund
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https://flic.kr/p/yNMxk2

One of Flint's most notorious public housing complexes is going away - thanks to a $30 million federal grant.

Congressman Dan Kildee says Atherton East was part of a bad approach to public housing in the 1960s.

"Concentrating poverty in housing projects that are in the least desirable parts of a community, the cheapest land."

In this case, the housing was built on a floodplain and residents experienced chronic flooding. 

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"Well, there's a reason the land was so cheap, it was isolated from the rest of the community and in this case was in a floodplain."

They were also cut off from the rest of the city by I-475.

Current residents will be relocated closer to services, and the NEW complex will be outside the floodplain.

It'll be a mixed-income development, not just low-income.

The grant also includes literacy and job training for residents and better access to health care.