Interview with Robert Dull, Part Two, February 15, 2017

RBRL418GAA-009_Dull

__:Okay.

JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Today is February 15th, 2017. This is African American Oral History Project. We are interviewing today for part two. Bob Dull is CEO of the Griffin Housing Authority. I am Jewel Walker-Harps with the Griffin branch NAACP. Other interviewers are --

BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM:I am Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager with the University of Georgia, Griffin campus.

JOHN CRUICKSHANK:I'm John Cruickshank, librarian at Griffin campus.

WALKER-HARPS:And now, Bob.

ROBERT DULL:And I'm --

WALKER-HARPS:In continuation of your first interview, I'd like for you to connect us with your relationship with the area we call Fairmont. How did you come into possession of ownership or permission to use or whatever (inaudible)

DULL:Well, coming to Griffin through the Griffin Housing Authority, there were a total of three communities. One was Meriwether Homes and then the other one was Fairmont Homes. Meriwether Homes was in the south side and Fairmont Homes was in the north side. And then, there was Nine Oaks, which was the senior community off 8th Street, near the hospital, which was the senior-only. But the two-family sites were Meriwether and Fairmont. Fairmont Homes, which was situated a little north of the old Fairmont High School campus was built in 1950, was an 80-unit family site, was part of a -- what, at that time, was built as segregated housing. Old Meriwether Homes was built as a white only community but Fairmont Homes was built as black only, which was a common occurrence in the South at that time. It was based on a predominance of the demographics of the area, since the Fairmont community was predominantly African American at that time. So, they built it to accommodate the population. At that time, also, since Fairmont High School and the vocational school that was originally built in, I believe, 1919 by Julius Rosenwald, it kind of ended up being the core of the community that grew up around it. And so, Fairmont Home was chosen as the location for the public housing as a result of that. So, my 00:01:00interaction with the community was, when I came into the housing authority, my original desire was to do a redevelopment of Fairmont. But because of the deterioration of the neighborhood -- was so far -- in other words, you had some of the surrounding neighborhood at such a point of distress and blight that it would not qualify under Department of Community Affairs scoring process. It would not have been able to score, what they call scoring, to qualify for any form of redevelopment funding. Meriwether Homes was the choice made, actually, before I got here. So, I just continue with that redevelopment and 00:02:00then looked at the Fairmont community as the long-term strategy to try and address the blight and look at other opportunities in that neighborhood to help build that scoring potential back up. And that's how I ended up working with that community.

WALKER-HARPS:Was there a different in the structure of the two communities other than being segregated?

DULL:Well, no, they were both built like bunkers. When they built back in the '50s, understand that was postwar and at that time they built -- they had a building standard that was, like I said, postwar. It was built with a barracks type construction standard. In other words, it was built with concrete, cinderblock. And it would -- it was built to last, so it's lasted 00:03:00over 60-plus years. And so, the problem, though, it was built with the design standard that was typical of public housing across the United States. It was a temporary housing. So, the units themselves were built assuming a family would be in there for a short period of time. So, your bedrooms were built with a twin bed and a nightstand. They were not built with closets. They were not built with adequate parking because the assumption was if you needed subsidized housing, you didn't have a car. And if you needed subsidized housing, you didn't need furniture. So, many of the units, if you look at the square footage and the way the units are designed, they weren't designed to have a lot of furniture. So, when you go upstairs and look at the units themselves, they're very 00:04:00small and functionally obsolete as it relates to the size of typical market units today. So, one of the challenges you have when you look at public housing -- and this is not unique to Griffin, this is across the United States -- many public housing communities have been torn down just because it just does not accommodate the modern family. It just does not accommodate the reality of today. Today, you know, even if you are on government assistance, you cannot compete or even have a job unless you have transportation or a car. I know of a community where I used to work in Chattanooga, 600-unit apartment community, they only had 100 parking places. That just kind of shows you the 00:05:00stigma that was associated with public housing when they were built. The assumption was you were only there for a short time, that you're only there to get back on your feet, and you shouldn't have a car, you shouldn't have enough furniture to live a normal life. And the assumption was you were going to be in and out real quick. Well, the -- also, the flaw with that assumption is that if it was that transient, why would you build a 600-unit community in a 50,000 population city? So, you know, it was -- there was a lot of contradictions in the whole process. So, it was, in my opinion, just a way of keeping an economic lid on a certain class.

WALKER-HARPS:So, you cannot tear down Fairmont Homes.

DULL:Well, because -- and you got to kind of blame this on overzealous demolition in -- during the Bush/Clinton era, there was a lot of 00:06:00demolition of public housing across the United States, just looking at Atlanta as a good example. Atlanta has torn down all of its major public housing sites. The -- and they've touted that they've replaced them with something better. The problem is the retainage for the people returning to public housing is less than 30 percent. So, the question that has not been answered is where -- what happened to the other 70 percent? The assumption is they gave them relocation vouchers and they were assimilated out into the market. Well, they have not been able to quantify whether that really happened because they have 00:07:00certain conditions to qualify for vouchers and then it's at the discretion of the private market whether they'll continue to have those vouchers. A lot of stigma goes -- that's the other thing. There's a lot of stigma that goes with Section 8 vouchers 'cause the assumption is that Section 8 vouchers contribute to neighborhood decline. But the problem is it's a convenient excuse for poor housing or poor management by private landlords. But it isn't always the case that the program is the result of poor neighborhood. It's just that landlords are just taking advantage of a program and then throwing people out and the problem is there was no safety net for many of those people that -- who are removed from public housing back in those days. So, now, there are 00:08:00conditions. Now they're saying if it was a community like Fairmont, which was built as segregated housing, is an example of a segregated housing community, the state historic preservation office basically told us when we tore down Meriwether Homes, yeah, that was white only. This is one of the few surviving black only. They're not going to let us -- just give us carte blanche to tear it down because we decide to tear it down. It's -- and the fact that we have a Rosenwald school within walking distance -- in many ways, the Fairmont community is a preserved, historic example of segregated housing and education. And if it's promoted as that, then it's a real opportunity for Griffin to really say this is a venue of what segregated housing and education was in the 00:09:00South. So, that's why SHPA won't let us do it. And they told us -- they haven't done it officially but they have told us don't try.

WALKER-HARPS:But you do have a plan for Fairmont Homes that's going to change it?

DULL:We are going to change the units to where they're more functional for family. There's three bedrooms or two bedrooms, because that's the way the modern family is based on demographics. But the buildings are going to be the exact same footprint. Their connectivity to the Rosenwald is going to remain the same. We're not tearing down anything. I don't think it benefits the community to look like brick barracks. Unless we put a fence around the whole thing and say look at this museum to the past, I don't think that benefits anybody. I think since it's going to be housing to serve that community, I think it should be the best housing in that community and that's what we intend to do. I think right now, good, bad, or indifferent, Fairmont Homes 00:10:00represents the best neighborhood in that neighborhood and if you drive by it on any day, it's the cleanest, best maintained of any housing in that neighborhood. And it's -- that's a sad statement because if a community's viability is based on public housing, which is typically thought of as housing of last resort, then something's wrong. That means there's something wrong with the neighborhood and we've got to focus on building that neighborhood back up. And part of the reason I am so committed to Fairmont is because I've done a lot of research into what Fairmont was. And when you look at a community that, at one time, had 00:11:00such a deep cultural passion for the way they thought of each other -- and the way I say that is Fairmont High School was viable. They'd have rallies. The band would march all the way from Fairmont High School all the way over, under the railroad tracks to the stadium down the street from downtown and people would come out of their house and follow that band all the way there. That just, to me, was something that I wish I could've seen once in my life. But the people that we've talked to, when we were talking about revitalizing the old Fairmont High School, when you look in their eyes and you see that -- I guess they witnessed that in their life. You can see that that's something that, 00:12:00if you didn't see it, was something that they still feel very passionately about it, that that's -- that community deserves to get some of that back. And just because some of the folks that live there passed on and their children didn't feel that passion, they moved out, and so they didn't care enough to stay in Griffin, it doesn't mean -- shame on Griffin, because we didn't have enough left in the community to keep the kids here. We got to work on getting that back, that's all. And that's why I made my commitment to Fairmont Homes and the Fairmont High School. And that's why we tried to get the grant. We didn't get the grant but we put the garden in because we want to prove that the community cares enough about it.

WALKER-HARPS:You had a special, (clears throat) excuse me, a special relationship with Louis Greene.

DULL:Yes.

WALKER-HARPS:Could you tell us a little bit about it?

DULL:Well, we had originally applied for -- it's funny how life turns out. (laughter) But we had looked at the North Hill School for capital fund community center grant. It was -- I was a little nave because I thought it was a nationwide grant but it was -- later on, we've kind of figured out what it was. But it was a grant that HUD was putting out to housing authorities to build community center supported service centers. And it was up to three million dollars. And so, we were -- we wanted to apply for it 'cause we felt Griffin needed a one stop shop for all of the programs. And so, I looked at 00:14:00North Hill, I talked to those folks, and they said they'd sell it to us for a million dollars and I said, no, it ain't worth that. And so, I was driving around and I drove past the old Fairmont High and it looked pretty rough. And then, I called Louis Greene and he said, "Have I got a plan for you." And then, he (laughter) -- and that's why I say it's not my idea. But then, Louis said, "Let me meet you down there" and he rolled out his vision. And then, that weekend, Georgia Public Broadcasting did the Rosenwald documentary. And from that moment forward, I was hooked because that's when I learned about the band, that's when I learned about -- and then, that, I was -- and they had Manley Spangler or Spangler Manley had done all these conceptual drawings, 00:15:00done budgets, they had done everything. That was half my grant application. So, I took that and submitted it to HUD. So, I figure, hey, God's in charge, you know? And how can this happen in, you know, literally two days? And Louis's passion got -- became my passion. It was unbelievable. We submitted the grant application and I forget the score. This is not a good day to remember but I remember the first round, we missed it by a point. I think it was, like, we got a -- 87, something like that, and they funded everything 88 and above. So, we asked for an exit interview and they said, "Well, you know, it was good but you need to show proof of the community" -- huh?

WALKER-HARPS:Education programs?

DULL:Yeah, there needed -- to show something. They just didn't think the community was willing to participate in a community resource center. Okay, so they gave it to -- that year, they gave it to Boston, they gave it to Seattle, they gave it to these -- Chicago. They gave it to these strong Democratic cities. So, you know, I say, oh, you know, it's not politically motivated. So, we did it again the next year. The next year, we were in the mid 90s. They funded everything in the high 80s to mid 90s the next year. We missed it by a point. This time, they said, "Yeah, you proved" -- and we had 00:17:00Spalding Collaborative, we had Partners for a Prosperous Griffin, we had a commitment for the community garden, but we didn't have a strong enough Hispanic outreach listed. So, we missed it by one point. And I was so heartbroken. So, Rome got it, Rome, Georgia, and that's when I found out Renee Glover from Atlanta had gone to Rome (laughs) to work with them through Promised Neighborhoods, which was a -- initiative that was working with Atlanta and some of the other -- that's when I knew it was all political. So, (laughter) they -- so, we didn't get that. But this is what happened: that whole process was not in vain because I'm a firm believer there's no grant application 00:18:00effort that goes wasted because the process of going through that grant application allowed us to form EPI. It allowed us to form our relationship with UGA and fund our participation in Kids University, our mentoring program, our community garden, all of our different programs. It took a couple years but then we got the National Award of Excellence. That's the National Award of Excellence. That's not just the Award of Merit. That was the National Award of Excellence. That to me is validation that regardless of who judges and who has a preconceived and -- I'm sorry, HUD, that's just the way I feel about it. But it's just -- this community is capable of some pretty amazing stuff. 00:19:00You can't underestimate what this community's capable of is my bottom line. And so, now, since that all happened, the cafeteria was torn down, we have about a quarter acre of plowed land plus garden boxes plus the city's -- the county has started gutting out the Rosenwald, gutting out the auditorium. They got SPLOST money dedicated. It's not enough but, you know, Rosenwald and the Fairmont High School is not going to be demolished, bottom line. And if anything, we're going to find the money to get it done. And so, to me, if we didn't do this effort, that building would've already been gone, in my opinion.

WALKER-HARPS:Now, that area belonged to the Griffin Spalding school 00:20:00system originally.

DULL:Now, it belonged to the county.

WALKER-HARPS:It belongs -- it does now. Did it originally belong to the county?

DULL:Yes, they, the county -- the city or the school district had already, well, transferred it --

WALKER-HARPS:Okay.

DULL:-- to the county.

WALKER-HARPS:The school system transferred it to the county.

DULL:Yes.

WALKER-HARPS:Okay.

DULL:And then, we entered into agreement with the county for one dollar.

WALKER-HARPS:Okay.

DULL:And then -- if we got the grant. But he county still controls it. And if we can get a grant -- I mean, we still fund the garden. The county is -- I don't -- maybe this is the wrong word, kind of shamed into doing certain things, like the demolition, the water, things like that.

WALKER-HARPS:And I understand that there was --

DULL:And they're going to build a pavilion up there, I understand, and bathroom and --

CUNNINGHAM:Sink?

DULL:-- a sink.

CUNNINGHAM: for watering the vegetables?

WALKER-HARPS:Of course.

DULL:And so, you know, if we didn't start the process of the grant -- 00:21:00and Ellen will agree with me -- if we didn't do that, we would've never been where we are today. And so -- and now, we're going to read the -- plus, they're doing new trails and new sidewalks, new everything. The whole area is being transformed into a park system that all you need is the next step that -- I'm telling you, the Fairmont Historic District to me has the potential to become as -- a venue to -- now, you may argue whether this is a positive term or a negative term but a -- example of segregated housing and segregated education. I'm now -- when I was first thinking to tear down the front part where the old Mainstay Academy was, to me the Rosenwald and the front section to 00:22:00the auditorium, example of progression of segregated housing. I'm glad they didn't tear that down, 'cause they were going to. When you have the original -- what was it? Negro vocational, then you have separate but equal.

WALKER-HARPS:Yes, hmm.

DULL:And so, you see the progression of segregated education right there on that campus. I don't know of any example of that in the entire state that has the progression on one campus. And to me, that is worth saving and somebody somewhere has got to recognize that that is a positive thing, especially when they're connected the way they are, especially when you have such a beautiful building like the Rosenwald School, you know? To me, I think that is a venue that is worthy of being a destination venue. And then, when you can 00:23:00stand on that school and look and see an example of segregated public housing still existing -- is a plus. So, you ask me why I care about Fairmont, that's why.

WALKER-HARPS:Well, I understand that prior to the county receiving the -- not the title but permission to use it, the school system had offered -- had recognized the request from community persons, persons who perhaps were products --

DULL:Fairmont alumni.

WALKER-HARPS:Yes, and offer them the deal for a dollar, that they like the potential to move it or to do anything with it. And, as a result, after nothing was done with it, they kind of saw fit to offer it to you, you and to the parks and rec, I suppose.

DULL:Well, it -- I don't know about the dynamic of that but I can say 00:24:00that I don't look at one single group being -- there's -- because there's still some of that dynamic going on over there. But I look at the whole -- unless -- Fairmont is a unique community. There's a lot of absentee owners, you know, a lot of owners that have left but still claim that that's their community. It's unique.

WALKER-HARPS:However, with that being true, without the collaboration and your ability to collaborate with Louis Greene, who was -- the late Louis Greene, rather, who was director of parks and rec for Spalding County, as well as the city of Griffin and the county and the University of Georgia and (inaudible), none of what we're saying now perhaps would have happened. You were 00:25:00able to galvanize, you might say, the resources that were out there and energize community members and other participants to get onboard. So, can we perhaps -- in my mind, we can give you credit for -- along with Louis Greene as being the catalyst for --

DULL:Well, it's --

WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible)

DULL:-- you know I'm not taking that. (laughter)

WALKER-HARPS:No, but we do. We claim it wholeheartedly because that is a part of history.

CUNNINGHAM:Exactly.

WALKER-HARPS:And when my children go and read, they will know, they will recognize the contributions that were made by the housing authority because housing authority, under Bob Dull, was a whole different -- that attitude toward public housing was something that we had not seen before in Griffin.

DULL:Well, I would -- you choke me up when you do that. But (laughter) my opinion, a housing authority is not about managing the projects. A 00:26:00housing authority, if you look at the public housing law, we were mandated to care about the people that nobody cared about. Our original mission was to go into communities and represent those that were not being represented, to provide safe, decent, and affordable housing. So, when the public housing law went into effect, it wasn't brought into effect for existing buildings. It was brought into effect to eliminate substandard shantytown -- shanty villages that were being exploited by local municipalities as a means of congregating cheap labor and exploiting that cheap labor for the benefit of -- group of people 00:27:00for economic gain. So, when public housing authorities were established by law in the late 1930s, it wasn't that we had all these public housing units sitting out there somewhere, waiting to be managed by this new law. They didn't exist. But they were designed to go into municipalities and say, "No more! (laughs) You're not going to get it anymore." So, you know, when I look at our mission, our mission was more of -- to be a moral conscience for our community. And so, you know, at the end of the day, and I've told this to the city council, and that's why, you know, I got to say something. When you say, "Can a community change?" -- Griffin changes because I've told them they have to. It's not that Bob Dull did. I showed them the law that says they have to change. 00:28:00They have to accept moral responsibility for conditions that they allowed to continue. At the end of the day, if you allow substandard blight or housing conditions to continue, then they're as guilty as the bad landlords that allow it to go. It's called implied consent. And that's the whole reason why they have fair housing. If you're treating me different, then you're treating some -- I'm not asking for you to give them something more than anybody else but you can't treat neighborhoods any different than you treat this neighborhood. And Griffin, because of its size, unfortunately has clear cut lines where that's the case. And it's not the fault of the people that are currently here. And Fairmont is a good example. Griffin has been exploited, not by the people who are 00:29:00here now but over the generations by an industry that washed its hands of this community in a matter of a year or two. And people were loyal to that industry undyingly. They gave their all, generationally, to an industry that didn't care about them when they left 'cause they cashed out and said, "I'll see you later" and left nothing but people waiting for them to -- it's almost like you'd leave a -- but it's probably a bad analogy, so you can scratch this from the transcript, but it's like you leave a pet on the side of the road. And the pet sits on the side of the road, waiting for the owner to come back and pick it up. And that's the way I look at some folks here in Griffin. It's -- it was wrong. They invested nothing back for the profits they took. Nothing back. 00:30:00And so, now you got communities, they're trying to figure out what the hell happened. And so, I went to Fairmont and I've said, "I'm not going to -- I came to this town, this is my hometown now." And I'll treat it like a hometown till they run me out. Till they run me out.

WALKER-HARPS:And that attitude helped to produce EPI.

DULL:Yeah.

WALKER-HARPS:The Educational Prosperity Initiative.

DULL:And it's selfish on my part because, at the end of the day, I could spend the same amount of money I'm spending on EPI on marketing. (laughs) I can run ads to live in public housing. I could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next 10 years. But I'd rather spend it on education to keep the kids from growing up needing public housing and then spending it on figuring out how I'm going to market to them in 10 years. So, when you talk about the 00:31:00term educational prosperity, a mill can't take away educational prosperity. A mill will not take away choices. And that's why I think if we can focus what resources I can until they take those resources away on programs like UGA and like our garden and like all of those different programs to make that next generation think of alternative choices, then that's money well spent. They can come back later and judge that that's not money I should've spent on that. I beg to differ because, to me, there are public housing authorities that all they want to do is just manage the people coming in and coming out. That -- well, they can do that at a mini-warehouse but that's not the way we're going to do it in Griffin. And you know what? I've got more money in this community 00:32:00than any housing authority our size in the entire state of Georgia in three years. Any housing authority. So, something works. Or God's in control.

WALKER-HARPS:Yeah, right.

DULL:I prefer to say God.

WALKER-HARPS:(laughter) prior to us beginning, you were telling us about some of the grants, some of the monies that you were -- you know, been able to get and what you've been able to do as a result. And all we need do is look at the plan or look at the plans for what is about to happen with Nine Oaks, Meriwether Homes, and all -- eventually Fairmont. Would you briefly tell us a little bit about those projects, please?

DULL:Well, last week or two weeks ago, we had the retreat with the city and the county at Blackshear. They had their --

WALKER-HARPS:Yeah, Archway.

DULL:-- retreat. Archway. And since 2016, when we finished 00:33:00Meriwether, phase one. That was $16 million. Prior to that, we did spend 600,000 for the demolition. But we also issued vouchers to the folks that were there. Y'all assisted us with that. Of the voucher folks, we haven't gotten any feedback on anybody being displaced unless they chose to leave the program, which, I've got to say, we can at least tell you where they are. Atlanta can't say that. So, that's a plus right there. So, get that bad press behind. We haven't gotten any complaints on the people we put out on Section 8, too, I want you to know that. Nobody's complained. Nobody in this town has said we have destroyed a neighborhood because of our voucher program. So, that's another positive. The phase one of 16 million. Phase two is under construction right now, The Iris, that's 15 million. We got funding. Phase three, which 00:34:00will be on the golf course, that's another 14 million. We already got approved and funded for that. We'll start construction this -- that'll be for senior units. So, we got two senior buildings that are going up, starting construction, and/or completed this year. We just got approval two weeks ago to get -- we received the 2.5 million commitment from Kresge Foundation and DCA to proceed with getting the tax credits for Fairmont and Nine Oaks. That's now $17 million to do both those properties. That brings the total for transformation of public housing in Griffin to 62, $63 million. That does not count the money the city is putting in or the additional grants because we got $1.5 million from 00:35:00Federal Home Loan Bank. So, yeah, that on top. That's grant. That's money that was just added because we applied for it and the -- based on the merits of the deal. Last night, the city council also just approved us to provide bonds and money for building a new senior services resident building on the corner of Highway 92 and Callan Road, which is a progressive senior nursing facility. Goes from limited assisted care all the way to Alzheimer's. That'll be $62 million. So, in -- from 2016 to 2018, the housing authority, my board, will have brought $128 million into the little town of Griffin. That is more than Columbus, that is more than Atlanta got, that is more than Marietta got. That's 00:36:00more than Rick Parker up in Athens has gotten recently. I'm proud of this town. Now, the only reason that happened is because of this town. And it's not Bob Dull or the Griffin Housing Authority. It's because you build momentum based on energy. To me, you know, you could almost build a case for the book, The Secret. You build attraction based on positive things. And, you know, I think when you say can we transform what Art's saying, you just got to do it. And when you were saying why did we do what we did --

WALKER-HARPS:Yeah.

DULL:-- we just got -- we can plan -- it's, like, when we went to Archway, we had a 40-foot wall full of tear sheets with plans to do this, this, 00:37:00and this. That, to me -- thank God I didn't stay there for that. I just did my presentation and left 'cause I'm not -- I mean, you can sit and plan until the cows come home. (laughter) But unless you got some -- but unless you're going to do it, it's all a waste of time. And, you know, it was, like, that was old Griffin. I told them we're bringing $128 million. You guys talk about it. And that's been -- how much time talking about it after I left? Because, I mean, you can't -- you got to transform talk into action. And --

WALKER-HARPS:Now, there are --

DULL:-- does that answer your question?

WALKER-HARPS:Yes, it does. There are a couple of surveys currently or in the near future going on in Griffin. One has to do with the substandard housing --

DULL:Housing conditions.

WALKER-HARPS:-- yes, and the other is the one that we were discussing at a collaborative meeting. And, well, we're going to get a picture of 00:38:00what ctually exists. Would you tell us a little bit about the survey that has to do with --

DULL:The housing authority and -- well, part of it has to do -- further affirming fair housing. By November of this year, any jurisdictional authority in the nation that receives any sort of form of HUD or transportation funding has to complete a further affirming fair housing action plan. In essence, you've got to say have you identified the conditions and needs of your community to qualify for future federal funding. And what that means is communities that have to recognize their faults. The problem that I have with it -- I'm a 00:39:00believer of it but then I also think it's a catch-22 because they're not going to tell you whether you're in compliance or not. They're just going to say, "We'll put this on a shelf." So, in other words, depending on legal systems, they can come back later and say, "Oh, you got a problem here." So, it's a big spider web.

CUNNINGHAM:And you documented it for 'em, too, yes.

DULL:And you've done all of the legal --

CUNNINGHAM:Yes, yeah.

DULL:-- research for 'em.

CUNNINGHAM:Yeah, yeah.

DULL:So -- but we're in that catch-22. So, what we're figuring is we partnered with the county, the city, and us because the leader on it is the housing authority. And in every -- even the cities now have to embrace housing authorities, whereas before, they always kept 'em -- you manage the projects. We're ahead of the curve in this town. This is where I think Griffin is way ahead of the curve because our relationship with the city and now, 00:40:00quickly, the county is that we are doing an assessment of every dwelling structure in this city from substandard to good. They're doing -- they are going to be doing a survey over the next month, month-and-a-half assessing over 6,000 structures and ranking it. And it will be on a database that will give us an accurate assessment of how many substandard houses, how many marginal houses, how many are on the bubble, how many are good? And it will separate it by neighborhoods. Now, this is the catch-22: be careful what you ask for because at the end of the day -- well, they did a study in 2008 where they 00:41:00identified there were 1,400 substandard, dilapidated houses. We have torn down, housing authority included, which -- we had never torn down anything before I got here or ever were part of it. Now I've torn down about 140 structures that were absolutely substandard, particularly the ones up on Lincoln Road, which were outside Atkinson Elementary. Horrible. I got the last ones torn down. But there were 1,400 so if -- let's say we tore down 400, that means there were thousands substandard, still. But the bad news was, in that same survey in 2008, there were 1,800 that were considered almost substandard. So, we know we tore down 400. There 1,000 and there well over 1,000 more that were on the 00:42:00bubble and we've driven around town and we haven't seen anybody doing a lot of work on houses. This survey is going to blow the lid off where the conditions of housing are in town. And the city and the county have started to -- that's why you see a lot of issues in the paper about stepping up the code, code enforcement, because what's going to come out of this is we're going to identify that we got real issue with the substandard that's beyond just the 1,400. It's probably going to be well over 2,500 substandard housing and the city's policy, which has been tested in court, which is legal is they cannot condemn a house that's occupied, even though it should be condemned. Now, we can argue the moral issue of that but it's still uninhabitable. That is going to be 00:43:00challenged with the new further affirming fair housing, you see what I mean? So, my role as a housing authority is I'm going to have to put an action plan on the city and the county to say, "How are you going to address this?" And now, you see the housing authority shifting into an enforcement role.

CUNNINGHAM:Which will change the perception completely of the housing authority.

DULL:We will --

CUNNINGHAM:Yeah.

DULL:What people don't know but the city knows now, housing authority can subpoena, hold hearings, fine, prosecute anybody. We're the only entity in the state that can inspect City Hall. Not that I'd want to do that or you won't see Bob Dull around here anymore. (laughter) I'd like to keep my job. (laughter)

WALKER-HARPS:And that's a part of the new fair housing --

DULL:Further affirming fair housing. And it's coming. Now, they're 00:44:00going to go after the big cities. They're going after cities like Atlanta.

CUNNINGHAM:Right.

DULL:They're going to go after the huge cities. It'll be many years before they go down to the small towns unless somebody complains. But trust me, that's the next big civil rights movement is going to be fair housing because there's just too many examples of disparate treatment based on neighborhood demographics. And that's going to point it out -- when you see these little green dots show up on a map, you're going to see dividing lines. And the dividing lines are going to clearly delineate Fairmont, Meriwether, Milltowne, and Maple. And it's going to be clear, so -- but I've already said this and they know it. So, I 00:45:00may be here, maybe not. Now is -- do I expect to change --

WALKER-HARPS:Yes.

DULL:-- from the fair housing rules --

WALKER-HARPS:Right, as a result, yes.

DULL:-- oh, there's no choice. There will have to be an action plan written and followed. And just like the comprehensive plans that the city and the county has to prepare and that -- the five-year plans that I have to submit, it's just -- it's written in the law. So, we will have to prepare it, submit it, and follow it. So, yeah, there will be changes. Now, the degree in which the plan, the intensity of the plan, since there will be no review and approval, that may be just a matter of saying, yeah, we will do outreach, yeah, we will 00:46:00talk. But the details of the plan could be subjective, whether it's, you know, simple or detailed. Now, what I believe Griffin has stepped forward with is their housing improvement plan, better code enforcement, a targeted code enforcement and tax enforcement and demolition -- is more than a lot of towns. In fact, many communities are coming to Griffin to look at that program and emulate it. But is it going to be sufficient to take care of the degree of substandard that we have? You know, it took 20, 30 years to get to this point, you know? It's not going to be fixed in five years. But what I see 00:47:00that could be of benefit is there was a -- attempt in the past by Georgia legislators to put more regulations on landlords, slumlords, who were taking advantage of the -- those type of housing conditions and they tried to go through a permitting process, which was a method of targeting substandard housing and was shot down by the legislature. It was not approved and it's because the landlord lobby's pretty extensive. And I see that when there are federal violations associated with substandard, I see that coming back up on the table. So, I think, with community activism and other advocacy groups 00:48:00forcing that issue, I would say that that's probably going to come back on the agenda and would probably be a good call to action to start holding landlords who have substandard housing to be held more accountable than they have in the past, you know? I know of a community where they don't even put front doors until you rent the apartment. And if you pay your rent on time, they may put carpet in for you, you know? Those are housing conditions that exist to this day. When I first came to Griffin, there were housing units that I bought and demolished that didn't even have bathtub-- sorry, that didn't' even have bathrooms. And they were taking chamber pots out to the railroad tracks and dumping -- in Griffin. In the city limits. Those units are gone but that existed in Griffin six years ago.

WALKER-HARPS:Six years ago?

DULL:Six years ago. So, just know that, you know, we may be in the 20th century but there were still landlords in this community four months ago -- they've since left. We have people that are buying houses in Griffin. We have people selling houses to people in Griffin. A couple moved from Texas to a house that had no toilets, no hot water tank, and they went and the people sold them a house for cash and went down to the city to get power on and they hotwired the hot water tank but they didn't have power. And they were -- and they had a hole in the floor and they were going right into the sub-- the basement so that -- and these are responsible people selling these houses. So, if you 00:50:00don't think that there aren't conditions that should be addressed in this town, there are serious conditions. There was a -- elderly couple with a daughter that was 56 years old with Down syndrome that didn't have toilets. So, I moved them to one of our public housing sites. And they were paying 400. They paid first month's rent, a security deposit of $400, and the landlord wouldn't even return it and said that, "I will get a toilet in for 'em if they'd just be patient." I relocated 'em to public housing and tried to get something to be done but nothing could be done because our enforcement rules don't allow them to go inside and cite that landlord because it's occupied. There are some changes that need to be made.

WALKER-HARPS:Now, you're saying --

CUNNINGHAM:So, what will it take to drop this?

WALKER-HARPS:-- that that's challenged, that law is being challenged now?

DULL:Yes. I'm challenging it.

WALKER-HARPS:Okay. That's important. That's --

DULL:Yeah.

WALKER-HARPS:-- very, very, very important.

DULL:And that's just in the last 90 days. The ones that bought the house from out of town, they were so afraid -- the landlord had them so afraid they left town because they though they did something wrong. The landlord got them so afraid and paranoid they left town. And the problem is a new group that's being exploited is Hispanics. So, that's why I'm rushing to get this inventory done, 'cause soon as we identify these substandard houses, they're red-tagging 'em. That means if somebody ever moves out, they're never getting power back on in those houses again. So, we'll know.

WALKER-HARPS:Well, I'd like for you to walk with us, the NAACP. I know privacy laws affect what you can expose or what you cannot but --

DULL:Yeah, just because -- and people are -- this is one thing, people are hiding behind HIPAA.

WALKER-HARPS:Yes.

DULL:And HIPAA is good but HIPAA can also be a screen of cover that allows exploitation. And, you know, it's -- and I'm telling you, it's very frustrating for me because I want to house 'em. And that's part of the reason why I'm building more senior housing now than family units. My next two buildings are senior because the ones that are being exploited the most are seniors. And I've got to -- I told the city if I build senior housing, I want them to condemn houses and tear 'em down, I don't care what the landlord says, and I'll get 'em relocated into senior housing. So, I'm setting aside 20 percent of my new housing for the city to tear down houses and get the seniors out of those housing --

CUNNINGHAM:Beatrice.

DULL:You're mad.

CUNNINGHAM:What will you -- yes, I'm a little (laughter) taken by 00:53:00this but what do you think it would take to get this enforced? (laughter) I mean, do you need more people assisting you or --

DULL:What do you mean, assisting me? I will tell you this: there are people in this city that are 100 percent behind what I'm saying. But those people that are behind me would be retaliated against.

WALKER-HARPS:I'm already being retaliated, so I'm not behind you.

DULL:You know what I'm talking about then.

WALKER-HARPS:Yes. But I'm willing --

DULL:Because there is a method of retaliation that is not direct. It's indirect. And, you know, I'm building up my office to be more of a warrior office. I'm in the process, so -- but it's just me. And, you know, I sound like I'm showboating here but that's not what I'm doing. I'm telling you facts.

CUNNINGHAM:Right.

DULL:And I'm telling you and I've made this clear to attorneys and everything -- is people say why am I tearing down the houses that people -- because the way to get out of paying back taxes and stuff like that is they can just donate the house to me rather than the city goes after 'em. So, they'll donate to me and I'll tear it down. And then, people are saying, "Why don't you just rent it?" I'm not going to be a slumlord.

CUNNINGHAM:Right.

DULL:And people are saying, wow, I've torn down -- so, there are streets where it's empty because I'm not going to participate in this cycle of slum conditions where I've got people living like -- you know, you do -- take a photograph of some of our streets in black and white and it's like you're looking at a 1930s photo in Appalachia, you know? It's this -- there are some streets in this town that we should be ashamed of. But here's the scary part: every town 00:55:00in Georgia has a street like that. That's the really -- you know, I can't just pick on Griffin. I was driving around towns on my way down to Cordele. There are still bad -- it's just, like, this state is just -- that's shocking.

CRUICKSHANK:Looking back over the long term or many decades, I was wondering how desegregation has impacted housing? How has it affected African Americans and the kind -- and the housing situation? (laughs)

DULL:Well, in many ways, it has not benefited them in the sense that, you know, if you -- it's concentrated poverty. It has concentrated race. 'Cause 00:56:00in many ways, desegregation has resulted in what started out as segregated housing where you had white only and black only communities. The whites got the advantage of vouchers and vouchered out and were assimilated into the surrounding communities where public housing ended up being high concentrations of poverty in one neighborhood. Now, one of the problems I've had with the whole public and Indian housing program is that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. If you look at the HUD side, it says public and Indian housing. The policies of public housing is about concentration. The policy of public housing is under the same policy program as Indian housing, which is reservation, tribal housing. So, when we look at the concept of public housing, it's 00:57:00about taking a group of people, in this particular case race, and concentrating them in a controlled environment. The same thing as tribals. So, when we look at the policy, the 24 CFR federal regulation, it's about how do you control and manage a concentration of people based on the boundaries that they're concentrated in? The same rules apply to tribal and Indian lands. How do you manage a group or the boundaries of people where they're concentrated? That's where public housing has failed. The issue was not about how they were going to leave because even in the Indian and tribal lands, the plan wasn't that they were leaving. It was how you managed to keep them there and under control. So, when you look at public housing, I think the failure was it wasn't 00:58:00about how they were going to leave. It's how you managed them in that boundary. So, deconcentration or desegregation did not benefit the African American race. It doesn't benefit the Hispanic race. It doesn't benefit any group of people that it concentrated in such a small, limited area such as public housing. And I think as a program, it should be eliminated. It's obsolete. It was based on 1890s, 1900 policies as a way of the federal government to manage a group of people that it didn't know how to deal with. And so, to me, I think it's a failure of policy, it's a failure of a system that was not designed under the public housing law. It was just a convenient way of concentrating a group of people that they didn't know how to deal with otherwise. If you look 00:59:00at the public housing law that was written in the '30s, it talks about how to deal with substandard blight. And in the law, it said, "And could manage properties." It didn't say I was going to manage high concentrations of the poor in urban areas or in other areas. It just seemed to be a policy that was already established through the tribal lands. Let's use that same policy in urban areas and everything like that. So, it evolved to be something -- I don't know if it was the original intent but it's failed. And there are glowing examples of examples of that, like the stigma stereotypes like Cabrini-Green in Chicago, Techwood in Atlanta, Carver Homes. Down in Miami, there is -- when you concentrate a group of people, they come up with their own methods of 01:00:00dealing with their circumstances, yeah.

CRUICKSHANK:So, looking forward, what's the solution?

DULL:The solution is a diverse housing program, giving people choice, and to start deconcentrating poverty. The mixed income method is the only way you're going to break the cycle. If you don't say because you're poor, you only live here, because that's where all poor people live, if you don't start assimilating people into an environment where they feel like their neighbor could be somebody that they can emulate or the neighbor can feel comfortable helping -- everybody is so concentrated on surviving that we've lost the ability to empathize with our neighbors. And so, now everybody's just concentrating on 01:01:00survival. And that's where desegregation has failed not only the African American race, the Hispanic race and, and believe it or not, there is a high number and a high percentage of public housing that's low income poor white in many states across the United States. It's not -- public housing is not about low income black families. It's also white families. The issue is you cannot concentrate poor in a boundary community and assume that they're going to be accepted by the community or feel good about their circumstances, that they're going to want to move on. You know, hope deferred makes the spirit grow weary. And they just perpetuate that life cycle to their children, to their children's children, and we sit back and wonder -- those people have done it to themselves. No, we did it to them. That's what I feel. That answer your question?

CRUICKSHANK:Yeah.

CUNNINGHAM:You know, one of the things that makes this an oral history rather than just an interview is the fact that it's going to be indexed so it will be searchable. And Harrison Laird is a graduate student who's taken over that part of the project. Very early on, he noticed that there were classes of terms. He had terms that were geographical locations, where people grew up, where they -- and he had a lot of educational terms, where they went to school, when they went to school, what universities they went through. Then, he had what he called the civil rights terms. But he quickly realized that he had to weave in there labor rights terms, as well, because they seemed to go hand in hand. The civil rights cannot progress without the labor rights. What you're talking about seems to suggest that the civil rights and labor rights cannot progress without the housing rights, as well.

DULL:Agreed.

CUNNINGHAM:What would be suitable terms for him to index? And can -- what can we say about the Griffin or about the Fairmont community in terms of housing rights?

DULL:Well, I think the --

CUNNINGHAM:See, the terms are tricky there.

DULL:Well, it's still an issue of fair housing. It's still an issue of desegregation and segregation because when you look at the housing conditions in Fairmont, it used to be predominantly home ownership. And as the home ownership percentages -- and this is the issue Griffin has -- is there's been such a decline in home ownership. And the reason that decline happened is because the children in Griffin, as they grew up, saw no hope in Griffin. And so, 01:04:00they left Griffin. And then, as the folks aged in place, when Mom and Dad passed on, the kids didn't come back and reclaim the house. So the house may have been divided up into five or six different heirs. And and then they just gave up, so the house could find maybe one of the heirs continued to rent, so the issue of housing rights ends up getting muddled and heir properties and conditions and --

CUNNINGHAM: Employment opportunities

DULL: Employment opportunities. So, to say there is no connection between labor and housing; Fairmount is the example of the connection between labor and housing because neighborhood decline is directly relator to labor. So, if you look at three quarters of griffin. . It's funny, I even heard this at Archwood, did you hear the defending for rental percent was? They tell us about fifty-six, sixty-one percent.

HARPER: Yes.

Dull: -- and I'm sitting here saying, look at them trying to meld, because you got Maplequarter with about a twenty-two to twenty-one percent home ownership, but then you got three quarters of the city seventy to eighty percent rental, which is a unhealthy rental percentage number. But they kept saying, oh it's not that bat. But you got one-quarter of the city skewing the percentage of home ownership saying, we're --

CUNNINGHAM: You look at the total homes, we're bad.

DULL: Yeah, we're extremely bad. But it you divide three quarters and meld in a twenty-one percent average, it'll take you down into the sixties.

CUNNINGHAM: And then twenty-one percent is the rental average, Maple --

DULL: Maple.

CUNNUNGHAM: yeah.

DULL: And so, you know, I'm sitting here saying, you know, You're not going to get anywhere if you start, you remember

HARPER: Yes, if you can't tell the truth.

DULL: -- And that was a city manager making that statement. And I was just sitting there saying, okay, we've got work to do here. You know, I thought I got them convinced that, but you know, at the end of the day, there's part of us that don't want to admit the realty. This next setting is going to scare the poo-poo out of a lot of people. Hashtag poo-poo.

CUNNINGHAM: (laughs)

DULL: You can cut that out later if you want.

CUNNINGHAM: It's probably okay.

DULL: But you know, the reality is that the economic impact has killed three neighborhoods and its measurable, and its got boundaries, and you can define it. You can put a nice suit on it, but it's still there. And we got to realize that, so if you're talking about fair housing, despair impact's based on labor, employment, and just the fact that there's no hope. So there is a connection... And that's all I have to say

HARPER: So that's all that you want -- (yawns), excuse me, tell us. That whether then what (inaudible).

DULL: Well, I wanted to say that I love Griffin. Griffin's my hometown. I've never had a hometown. When I came to Griffin, this is my hometown. And so, you know, I wouldn't say these passionate words if I didn't care.

CUNNINGHAM: Amen.

DULL: I care about every neighborhood. Even the ones that I can get shot at in nine o' clock at night, I still drive through them, though. So that's why this is my hometown.

Harper: Well, thank you Bob Dull, CEO of the Griffin Housing Authority. We certainly appreciate your time and your informative interview. Ladies, Gentlemen.

CUNNINGHAM: Thank you.

CRUICKSHANK: Thank you.

DULL: I knew you were going to (inaudible).

HAPER: Thank you.

END OF AUDIO FILE