Andre Bertrand, vice president for Campus Operations at Morehouse, is the architect of the College’s Community Revitalization Initiative. “We understand that community involvement is an organic process where the College doesn’t sit in an ivory tower and decide what the community needs. Our community development program is responsive to the preferred development scenario articulated by the residents. It is our attempt to bring the resources of the College to bear on their vision—and that vision is a shared vision.” MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE
30
S P R I N G / S U M M E R
2 0 0 8
built at a symbolic intersection, located both on the campus—across the street from Century Campus on Fair Street— and in the community, literally around the corner from row houses in various stages of disrepair and refurbishing. When Massey moved into the president’s home, he became the first Morehouse president in 30 years who actually walked the community as a fellow neighbor. There have been some remarkable improvements since Davidson House’s construction. Some of the crime-ridden public housing units near Morehouse and the Atlanta University Center have been demolished and replaced with safer, cleaner abodes. Morehouse began its revitalization efforts with a $250,000 seed grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation. The College then joined with Spelman and the Morehouse School of Medicine to create College Partners, Inc., a non-profit organization established to allow for land transfers between the schools and the Atlanta Housing Authority. The group initiated a plan to revitalize 11 acres formerly dedicated to public housing. The Atlanta Housing Authority and College Partners agreed to purchase real estate in other parts of Atlanta, paving the way for expansions on all three campuses. The partnership secured $35 million for a HOPE VI grant to revitalize an adjacent AHA community and its surroundings into a mixed-income, mixeduse development called College Town. Across the street from College Town, on the corner of Lowery Boulevard and West End Drive, will be the Morehouse College Performing Arts Center, joining the impressive Leadership Center facility, which opened in fall 2006, in the northward expansion of Morehouse. University Homes, a sprawling, public housing complex neighboring Morehouse and Spelman, has been fenced in and boarded up and soon will be replaced by student housing.