The Logan Fontenelle Housing Project was a historic public housing site located from 20th to 24th Streets, and from Paul to Seward Streets in the historic Near North Side neighborhood of

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

, Nebraska, United States. It was built in 1938 by the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

for housing working-class families. With the loss of thousands of industrial jobs in the 1950s and 1960s, the project became filled with families on welfare. As problems increased in the 1970s and 1980s, Logan Fontenelle was referred to as "Little Vietnam" because of

drug dealing The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...

and

gang violence A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...

. After Logan Fontenelle residents won a 1991 civil rights lawsuit brought against the Omaha Housing Authority and the

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the Secretary of Housing and Urb ...

, HUD tore down the projects in 1995 to replace them with new, lower density housing.

History

Pwa-public-works-administration-housing-projects-for-negroes-omaha-nebraska

The housing projects were named in honor of

Logan Fontenelle Logan Fontenelle (May 6, 1825 – July 16, 1855), also known as ''Shon-ga-ska'' (White Horse), was a trader of Omaha and French ancestry, who served for years as an interpreter to the US Indian agent at the Bellevue Agency in Nebraska. He was e ...

, an

chief. Built by the

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, Logan Fontenelle was originally built as no-cost or low-cost housing for working-class families, chiefly of European descent, including Germans, Italians and Czechs, many of them 20th century immigrants. Many young people in Logan Fontenelle during this period regarded the projects as a haven as they were a considerable improvement over previous housing they had. After supporting limited public housing in Omaha in 1936, the city's business community became adamantly opposed to Logan Fontenelle by the time it was completed in 1938. In 1947, the maximum income allowed for a family of four at Logan Fontenelle was $2,200 per year, and they would pay a maximum rent $34.50 per month. The family was asked to find other housing if they exceeded those limits. The projects were segregated through the 1950s, with restrictions against

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

living there. Later, when the projects were opened to African Americans, the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects were used together with race-

restrictive covenant A covenant, in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a se ...

s and

redlining In the United States, redlining is a discriminatory practice in which services (financial and otherwise) are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment; these neighborhoods have signif ...

to keep

living in North Omaha. Community programs at Logan Fontenelle included the Kellom Girls Club, which moved there in 1973 after operating at Omaha's Hilltop-Pleasantview Public Homes since 1966. Although the projects had originally been built as transition housing for working-class people, a steep decline in jobs in Omaha during the 1950s and 1960s meant that many residents had to go on welfare. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost as railroads and the meatpacking industry restructured. The projects became a concentration of poor families with few immediate options. The rate of crime and violence began to increase in the area.

Riot

In the 1960s there were riots in the Near North Side, related to problems of poverty and unemployment since the decline of the railroads, restructuring of the meatpacking industry, and

deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interpre ...

in Omaha. Loss of tens of thousands of jobs since the 1950s had decreased investment in housing in Omaha, and services declined for a while, resulting in deteriorating conditions in structures already old. African Americans left in the community felt trapped. Riots in 1966 were associated with civil rights protests, and riots in April 1968 were associated with the

assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7 ...

in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1969 riots erupted after an Omaha police officer fatally shot teenager Vivian Strong near the Logan Fontenelle Project. Riots began immediately following the shooting and lasted three days resulting in nearly $750,000 in damage.

Lawsuit

In 1990 a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the African-American residents of Logan Fontenelle alleged that Omaha's public housing discriminated against racial minorities. A class action suit was brought against the

Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the Secretary of Housing and Urb ...

(HUD). In ''Hawkins v. Cisneros'', the US Supreme Court determined that the Omaha Housing Authority and the City of Omaha had violated the U.S. Housing Act and Title VI of the

Civil Rights Act of 1968 The Civil Rights Act of 1968 () is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applie ...

as related to the development and administration of Omaha’s public housing, and violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and other federal statutes, regulations and guidelines. A 1994 settlement required that former residents displaced by HUD's planned closing of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project would receive counseling and rent assistance, relocation assistance payments, an opportunity for additional assistance through Section 8 vouchers and certificates, and assistance to find housing in areas of Omaha with minority populations of less than 30 percent.

Demolition and redevelopment

The Omaha Housing Authority began demolishing Logan Fontenelle in 1991 and 1992. The demolition was completed in 1995. Omaha's Family Housing Advisory Services was involved in helping 785 of the Logan Fontenelle residents find other homes across the city. Today, the North Omaha Business Park, "a joint effort of the Omaha Chamber and the City of Omaha... sa development" on the Logan Fontenelle site. In addition, the site has an assisted-living facility, a park, single-family houses similar to those found in suburbs, and an organized neighborhood association, Concord Square. Altogether the area's housing will attract a mix of incomes.

Notable residents

Seminal rock and roll pioneer

Wynonie Harris Wynonie Harris (August 24, 1915 – June 14, 1969) was an American blues shouter and rhythm-and-blues singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. He had fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952. Harris is attributed by ma ...

lived in Logan Fontenelle for a short period in the 1940s. Cathy Hughes, the founder and president of Radio One, grew up in Logan Fontenelle while her father was attending Creighton University. He became the first African American to earn an accounting degree at Creighton."Owning the airwaves - Cathy Hughes buys radio stations for African-American programming." ''Essence.'' Jones, C. October 1998. Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson lived in Logan Fontenelle around 1942 according to his autobiography, “Stranger to The Game” co written with Lonnie Wheeler.

References

Bibliography

* Loschen, D. (1990) ''An Analysis of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project and the Scattered Site Housing Proposal in Omaha, Nebraska.''

External links

"A History of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects"
by Adam Fletcher Sasse for NorthOmahaHistory.com {{North Omaha Residential buildings completed in 1938 History of North Omaha, Nebraska African-American history in Omaha, Nebraska Demolished buildings and structures in Omaha, Nebraska Public housing in Omaha, Nebraska Buildings and structures demolished in 1995