The Barbara Jordan II development complex has been vacant since
HUD sold the 26 brightly painted homes to Rhode Island Housing. On
Monday, the revitalization of the area begins.

PROVIDENCE — Developer Sharon Morris grew up in South Providence and lived there
for more than four decades. She still returns to the area often, to reconnect with old
neighbors. She drives along her old stomping ground during the day, asking younger kids
why they aren’t in school, telling them to have their moms call her — because she most
likely knows them.

And then she’ll pull up along the Barbara Jordan II development complex, near where
she use to live and was once nicknamed “Clown Town” by outsiders because of the
brightly painted exteriors. The buildings are run down now, but she remembers when the
area was in its heyday

Finally, she said, the complex is about to get a new life.
On Monday, Rhode Island Housing, Omni Development, and Wingate Capital Associates
will begin to redevelop the abandoned, fenced off complex into 79 affordable housing
units with four townhouses for sale.

Construction will take 18 to 24 months, but once its complete there will be on-site
property management, resident services, a computer lab, on-site laundry facilities and
parking, and each unit will be energy efficient, said Morris, who is now the executive
director of Omni. She’s also exploring free Wi-Fi for each unit.

Families with incomes ranging from 30 percent to 80 percent of the area median income
will be able to afford to live in 54 of the units at 16 Somerset St. and 25 of the units at 15
Somerset St. That means only 30 percent of their income will go toward rent.

For a four person household, the maximum annual income would be $69,600, according to the US
Office of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD.

For the last couple of weeks, many of the 26 buildings in the complex have been
demolished in order to prepare for construction. For Morris, each building represents
generations of families that once lived there.
“This was a lively spot,” said Morris. “There were a few problems. It could get crazy —
like with drugs and violence — but there were a lot of families that grew up there back in
the day that are doing really well now. For them, for me, it started there [in South
Providence].”
For Morris, and many others in the South Providence neighborhood, the revitalization of
this fenced off, now blighted section of the neighborhood has been a long time coming

Back in the late 1980s, Lloyd Griffin, the first black councilman from South Providence,
had an eccentric idea to take abandoned homes that were slated for demolition across the
city and move them to a bundle of littered lots that lined Somerset, Portland, and Pearl
Streets between Pine and Hayward Streets in South Providence.
The idea was to build low-income housing like they did with the Barbara Jordan I
apartments, a $9 million, 193-unit project comprised of 87 two- and three-family homes,
built in the mid-1980s and named for the former Texas Congresswoman and Black civil
rights activist.
Griffin, who understood then that many people could not afford their own homes,
wanted to launch a second round of development. “You see how well this is kept? [They]
live like normal Americans,” he told the Providence Journal in 1989. “Poor people can
live together like everyone else.

He led the build out of Barbara Jordan II, a housing redevelopment project made up of
26 two- and three-story apartment buildings — 74 apartments on 2.75 acres.
But when Griffin died suddenly at age 59 in 1999, so did much of the oversight of the
neighborhood. At one point, many of the homes were painted mint green, peony, and
light turquoise — bright colors that led out-of-towners to nickname the neighborhood
“clown town.”
After years of mismanagement, HUD acquired the properties from the Phoenix-Griffin
Group in 2012. The federal agency started foreclosure proceedings in 2017 after the units
were deemed “uninhabitable”.

all low-income families — were able to receive housing vouchers and find new, affordable
apartments.
They boarded up the properties, fenced off each building, and then began trying to figure
out how to develop the complex. Many of the buildings were without heat. Unpaid utility
bills had piled up from former tenants, and videos of some of the empty properties
showed mold, leaks, and infrastructure issues.
“This [complex] had been there for decades. And the community deserved a voice in what
it would become,” said Ventura.
After a multi-month community engagement process, the agency built an RFP that
included homeownership opportunities for first-time home buyers, sidewalks, lighting,
green space, and making the units permanently affordable. Omni and Wingate were
ultimately chosen in June 2020 by the agency’s board. Both companies have experience
creating and managing affordable housing.
Critics complained about how long it took to develop the complex. “I hear them,” said
Ventura of the critics. “The length of time is really based on assembling of finances,
architectural design, and permitting. Even with a cooperative city, there’s a process and
it’s not fast — by any means.”
Morris rattled off the hurdles they faced over the last few years: Modifying how the
properties were zoned, checking boundary lines, environmental testing, new appraisals
for each building, applying for a long-term housing tax credit, and complete market
studies. Since they are building affordable housing, HUD has also had to approve the
plans.
“That all costs a lot of money. We signed a lot of checks before we could even start
demolition,” she said

Monday’s ground-breaking will soon be followed by construction. The complex will be
renamed the Joseph Caffey Apartments and Jordan Caffey Townhouses, in honor of the
executive director of Omni who dedicated his professional life to revitalizing
communities through the development and preservation of affordable housing, according
to Morris.
This project, Morris said, is personal.
“I was part of that community for so long. I grew up there. I have memories there. I still
know the people there, and have family and friends in that neighborhood to this day,”
said Morris. “I know what it is like to be out-bid, priced out. So I knew this was the
project I needed to focus on.”

neighborhood near the Barbara Jordan II complex. ALEXA GAGOSZ / GLOBE STAFF
“These homes are going to make a big difference for a lot of families,” she said. “And
we’re going to get this right.”