East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story | Official Trailer | PBS

Official Website: to.pbs.org/2VY3Cao | #EastLakePBS
Learn the history of East Lake Meadows, a former public housing community in Atlanta. Stories from residents reveal hardship and resilience, and raise critical questions about race, poverty, and who is deserving of public assistance. Tune in or Stream March 24 @ 8/7c
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[@lisegoodman1386]

Great documentary!! I really enjoyed it.

[@ryanbearse8831]

Brother Bear 2 premieres Mar. 24

[@jeffbarnes54]

This is what I don't understand. Trillions of dollars have been spent since the 1930's building public housing. The original (first residents) all say the same thing, of how beautiful and nice the buildings were and how happy they were to be there. Now the buildings, didn't make people commit crimes, the buildings didn't litter, the buildings didn't destroy the grass and vandalize the community. Why is it in every one of these developments, big segments of the population destroy the developments? You can be dirt poor, but that does not mean you live in filth, or do not take care of your surroundings. I just cant grasp the mind set. Plus once they build these the neighborhoods around them all go down hill and become just as bad as the projects. The houses didn't change, the buildings don't change, its the people who change the communities and everyone who can, moves as far away as they can, that will always be the case as long as this pattern of behavior continues.

[@ramblinralph7609]

Demographics, pure and simple.

[@tamikad3535]

According to another documentary I watched, the original people the projects were built for got an opportunity to move out after maybe a year or two of living in them. There was a plan for them, which most moved to the suburbs and recieved help from the government. There was no plan for the african americans who later moved there, which made them spend years there AND on top of that, if they wanted any assistance from the government the man had to move out, which left man families left with only a mother to raise them. Those kind if limitations were not put on whites who originally lived there. Most likely some of the living deterioration you saw was a reflection of the mental and emotional deterioration within the people after time. There was never a plan for them or proper and fair assistance.

[@ramsesstafford4640]

The residence can control leaving trash on the ground but the grass didn't grow the the Meadows because of bad landscaping which eroded the grass and no one cares to fix it and the people who live there are too poor to fix it they don't own any earth movers that can't bring in soil with dump trucks and even if the some of the residents knew about construction repairs they certainly can't do construction on property that they don't own that they're just renting because then you can get in trouble with the law. I will say this if you grow up and you're surroundings are vacant abandoned buildings and no grass growing where it should be it wouldn't encourage you to be so clean and pick up trash because you feel that you're living in a dump and these apartments started going downhill construction wise immediately it's documented two years after they were open they were bad crime-wise and they were going downhill in living conditions as well like backed up sewage runoff flooding people's apartments.

[@sookie4195]

@@ramsesstafford4640Grass doesn’t grow with so many kids. I noticed that myself as a child.

[@kikiwilliams4980]

Absolutely correct. BUT - it’s never their fault. It’s always someone else’s fault that their community doesn’t produce anything but poverty and crime.

[@cjlaw228]

$500,000 condos over there now

[@kikiwilliams4980]

Yup. And I bet the owners take care of their property.

[@chloeyreynolds]

I really miss da Meadows

[@YungRyy]

Carlos Atl when Atlanta was Atlanta

[@chloeyreynolds]

@@YungRyy I remember catching the 28 from 5points and just getting one thing from downtown

[@GEVINCHYGAMEZ]

Zone 3 till I'm dead and gone .......RIO EAGAN HOMES

[@chloeyreynolds]

@@GEVINCHYGAMEZ I grew up on the westside... I went to BTW, Turner middle School... Westside for life 💯

[@ramblinralph7609]

I lived in ELM with my elderly aunt in 1967. 95% white. No problems, no crime. Not exactly a close knit community, but the poor, working class neighbors got along. I went into the army early in '68, my aunt passed away shortly after that. I was actually surprised to learn the fate of the place, years after I had moved. In fact, after I had heard what was going on there, I wasn't even sure it was the same place I had lived in the 60s. At the time I lived there, I didn't even realize that those apartments were a housing project.

[@ramsesstafford4640]

Eastlake Meadows was finished being built in 1970 they weren't even there in 1967 must have been some other apartments in that area you're referring to. You're right about the east side of Atlanta where it meets Decatur that was all white back then. I'm 44 years old but my parents are much older than people my age parents are so I know my history of Atlanta especially this area that I was raised in.

[@sookie4195]

It’s a fact if someone is handed something that they didn’t work for, it’s not taken care of.

[@ka8204]

That’s absolutely hilarious considering how America came to be. I suggest you study history. If anything black ppl earned everything ten times over

[@kikiwilliams4980]

Absolutely correct.

[@retsub3]

I've searched far and wide with zero success -- Does anyone know who the *_actual architect and developers_* were for East Lake Meadows 1970? *Names?* I know it was an AHA directive and all that, but no _actual names_ appear anywhere in documents and pages I've come across. _Who_ in fact were the contracted entities and individuals responsible for designing and building this travesty? Unless I missed it, there is no mention in Burns' doc either.

[@brooklyndorsey3562]

Steve X Tom cousins

[@retsub3]

@@brooklyndorsey3562 The original "East Lake Meadows 1970." See 👆. Cousins didn't get involved until 1995.

[@Smiileylovesyou]

brooklyn dorsey Tom Cousins was apart of the rebuild, The Villages of East Lake and Drew Charter School.

[@retsub3]

@@Smiileylovesyou Exactly. Weird you never see mention of the architect and builders of the original disastrous East Lake complex from 1970. It's a complete mystery, when they should have been sued many times over and raked thru the coals.

[@ramsesstafford4640]

@@retsub3 my guess is their not proud of how shabby the apartments were built and of course the bad landscaping that caused the grass not to grow from erosion so they don't want to put it on the architect or architects even though they are definitely the ones to blame. I'm 44 years old and I was born and raised in apartments right next to East Lake Meadows. I can't look at footage of these apartments without thinking of my childhood.

[@underacheiver2000]

Another White guilt trip brought to you by the Burns family.

[@joemaxwell1044]

The fact was that real estate did plummet when the black people moved in and the whites moved out.

[@rep4daATL]

The fact that the real estate plummeted because the buildings were poorly constructed.

[@chloeyreynolds]

@joe Maxwell You must be white saying that

[@ade6219]

@@chloeyreynolds and it's called "Red Linening".

[@hakeemsd70m]

That's called redlining. Banks and real estate constructed maps of all of the neighborhoods of the cities, and the black neighborhoods were purposefully marked in red, as passovers for buisness loans, investments, and even single family homes. This happened in every major city across the country, from Philadelphia to Atlanta, to St. Louis to to San Francisco.

[@ramblinralph7609]

@@rep4daATL I lived there for a year in 67-68. Nothing wrong with the buildings whatsoever.

[@crusadershuakbar]

its not the place its the people, and i`ll put money on it was a democrat run hood

[@hakeemsd70m]

Not even close to being that simple of situation, but okay... 🙄 let's throw in racial segregation and isolation, no career or job opportunities, and total lack of community investment into the mix. It doesn't matter, Democrats or Republicans, both have had their fair share of disenfranching and destroying black neighborhoods. Why I don't vote for Satan's parties.

[@tamikad3535]

Ignorance

[@kikiwilliams4980]

Nope, it’s very simple. We know the problem. Black men don’t stick around. Black women have babies bc gov pays, no education is valued, poverty flourishes which brings desperation which brings crime. Black kids in projects grow up without fathers and no discipline so the police become their disciplinary parent. But by then it’s too late, they’re in jail.

[@mwhite4764]

blacks destroy everywhere they go, but blame everyone else around them for their primitive behavior every single team. They don't have the capacity to look at themselves that they are the problem.