Gore Hails Inner-City Housing Rehabilitation Project

Capping a week of solo campaigning, Democratic vice presidential nominee Al Gore toured a South Side Chicago housing rehabilitation project on Thursday, hailing it as model for the nation.

The tour was the Tennessee senator’s first campaign foray into an inner-city neighborhood and it set the stage for further appearances designed to underscore the Democratic ticket’s concern about urban issues, Gore aides said.

Such issues also will be highlighted during the third joint bus tour by presidential nominee Bill Clinton and Gore, this one from Detroit to Buffalo, N.Y., set to begin the day after the GOP Convention ends.

Visiting a four-story apartment building undergoing rehabilitation, Gore was told that it had been abandoned for nearly eight years, until the South Shorebank stepped in to provide local developers with rehabilitation loans.

The 54-unit building is one of 400 in the community that the bank has helped to rehabilitate, said Dorris Pickens, president of a South Shorebank subsidiary called the Neighborhood Institute.

She said the building also will be used to teach nearby elementary school students about urban renewal and entrepreneurship.

Pickens said the project also has provided jobs in the community.

She also noted that the default rate on the bank’s loans for the project is 1.5%--far below the national or state average.

“You are showing here how it can be a fantastic program for a whole community,” Gore said. “We need to learn from success stories like this.”

Gore’s visit to a Chicago housing project contrasted sharply with a recent visit by Vice President Dan Quayle to a posh suburban Chicago housing development being built around a golf course, with houses selling for $180,000 and up.