Public Housing Residents Dissapointed with Rep. John Lewis

(APN) ATLANTA – Public housing resident leaders and advocates are disappointed with US Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) after a recent meeting in his Atlanta office, where they said he repeated Atlanta Housing Authority slogans and failed to question the agency’s planned mass displacement of thousands of Atlanta families.

The meeting held March 25, 2008, included US Rep. Lewis and his staff; Diane Wright, President of the Resident Advisory Board and Hollywood Courts; Shirley Hightower, President of Bowen Homes; Anita Beaty, Executive Director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless; Lindsay Jones, private attorney for the RAB Board and Hollywood Courts; Carl Hartrampf of the Task Force; Renee Glover, Executive Director of Atlanta Housing Authority; Barney Simms, Vice President for External Affairs for AHA; and Jeffrey Walker, President of Bankhead Court who was brought by AHA.

"He declares it an arbitration," Jones recalled of US Rep. Lewis. "He leans to their [AHA’s] side and starts taking their arguments: Aren’t these high crime areas and don’t people want to get out of them? He sat on the other side of the room with them."

"They [Lewis and AHA] came in together. John Lewis was falling asleep," Wright told Atlanta Progressive News after the meeting, adding that his behavior appeared erratic, and that he kept waking up in outbursts.

"John Lewis was sitting there like he was tired to death. That man didn’t want to hear what Lindsay [Jones] had to say," Wright said.

"His aide always talk for him," Wright added. "It’s like that’s the Congressman and John Lewis just a shell." [MORE]