NAACP Calls For Action in Low Income Neighborhoods

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF-TV) -The Hamilton county chapter of the NAACP has issued a "call to action."
Citing a report titled "The Unfinished Agenda", the civil rights group says it’s time to end the inequity in some of Chattanooga’s neighborhoods.

DR. ELENORA WOODS, PRESIDENT, HAMILTON COUNTY NAACP "We’re here because there has been a loss of hope and there is a lot of helplessness in these communities."

Using a report prepared at Tennessee Tech University, leaders of the NAACP say the same imagination and strategies used to make Chattanooga a leading city should now be turned to communities like East Lake, Piney Woods and Alton Park.

ELENORA WOODS "..also we’ll be in the community registering them to vote…helping convicted felons get their voters’ rights back. These are things that are plaguing the African American community."

KEN CHILTON, PROFESSOR, TENNESSEE TECH UNIVERSITY "The same type of discipline ..the same type of strategic vision we had to turn around downtown Chattanooga and the Riverfront ..we need that same level of commitment and fidelity that accomplished those goals to now be applied to community development."

City council member Larry Grohn says residents of low income neighborhoods tell him their lives are worse now than 25 years ago. And they’re blaming city council for inaction over the years.

LARRY GROHN, CITY COUNCIL MEMBER "I’m really going to be pushing for not only an increase in low income affordable housing but specifically low income home ownership."

Grohn says he will unveil a program in October aimed at the city’s low income areas.

KEN CHILTON "Its not necessarily pulling everyone out of poverty. Its about quality of life, and its about dignity. You can be working class and have some sense of impowerment and control about what happens in your community."

Chilton was author of the Unfinished Agenda report.

Dr. Woods says registration of voters is important this year because the names of those who haven’t voted in two years were purged from the system last year.