CHOICE NEIGHBORHOOD
In Production
Washington Village was the oldest public housing development in Connecticut, occupied from 1941 to 2018. The 136 Unit complex stood a block away from the Long Island Sound shoreline in the South Norwalk neighborhood. Segregated by redlining, over time, disinvestment led to commercial vacancies, poverty, vandalism, structural decay, and safety concerns for residents and their property. Nonetheless, for eighty years, generations of families, businesses, church groups, and friends built a set of traditions and networks—a community and a home—that instilled a deep sense of love and pride for their neighborhood.
In 2013, the city of Norwalk received a $30 million Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to replace Washington Village with Soundview Landing, a mixed-income apartment complex, and to create “conditions necessary for reinvestment.” The initial grant has stimulated more than $350 million in private, non-profit, and other investments driving a coordinated effort with the stated goal of ending intergenerational poverty in South Norwalk. Norwalk, It’s Housing Authority and partners have taken advantage of the historically poor neighborhood’s adjacency to the hip, waterfront, SoNo Historic District’s dining and nightlife center, itself controversially redeveloped in the 1990’s to attract high-end renters. While millennials flock to the newly built, high-rise apartments with water views, rooftop pools and dog-runs, many Washington Village residents, all of whom were guaranteed a unit in Soundview Landing, grapple with conflicting feelings about the changes to their lives and the neighborhood that are happening.
Engaging with a range of stakeholders and filming their opinions, work and lives, the filmmakers have collected a range perspectives on their city’s effort to foster a long-term socioeconomically integrated community. The story and history of this neighborhood’s transformation will unfold in a documentary feature film that weaves five, tangled, yet formally distinct narrative strands.