Tindall Heights residents moving on to greener pastures

Georgia Public Broadcasting

The tick tick tick with the turn of the key meant just one thing: The moving truck wasn't starting.

Battery? Dead.

Not too long before on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, Kenny Howell Jr. had pulled up behind the apartment that he, his girlfriend and their three children shared in the Tindall Heights public housing project in Macon, ready to load up and go.

"Really, we supposed to been moved. 'Cause, you see, ain't really anybody left on this little section," Howell said of his block on the north end of Tindall Heights.

By the summer it will be demolished in the first step of a plan to replace the 75-year-old apartments with an affordable, mixed-use development.

"Forty dollar truck. And they ain't even got it running the way it supposed to be," he said.

Still, with some help, Howell decided to go ahead and load up. First, back into the apartment, the slapping of the screen door behind him.

"Everything out of here. Everything must go," he said from the kitchen.

He and a friend went for the biggest stuff first.

"See how light this sofa is? This sofa light," he said as he and his friend struggled to find the right combination of twist and turn to get out the door. Then, some laughing as they realized just how steep the ramp to the back of the truck was. Howell had meant to back the truck closer to the back door, but again, dead battery.

Load it up anyway.

Like every other resident here, Howell got help from the Macon Housing Authority in finding his new place. The Section 8 tenant protection voucher paving the way was kind of like a golden ticket, and Howell was satisfied he spent it well.

"It's a pretty nice neighborhood. Better than this. It's like a suburb, the part of Bloomfield we're moving at anyway," Howell said of his new place.

Talk to a lot of mothers here and they will tell you they want to go to a better school district. In Howell's case, that isn't happening. Only 2 percent of third-graders at Barden Elementary, Howell's new school district, were reading at grade level there in 2015, compared to 7.5 percent at their old school district, Ingram-Pye Elementary. The state average is 31 percent.

Still, Howell's children aren't school age yet. He isn't worried about that right now. He's just excited to be going to a house.

"Big house. Three bedrooms, two baths, two full baths at that," he said. "Carport. And we can have dogs there. Can't have no dogs out here."

Altogether, Howell said he feels good.

"Real good at that. 'Cause like I say, we ain't but 20," he said. "By us being young, a lot of folks look at us like we crazy, ... but we got to learn some kind of way."

The risks are worth it, he said. He no longer wants to live in an apartment.

"We out of here, we out of here," he said. "Hopefully it will be today. Gone today."

Howell wants to make the best of it.

This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Tindall Heights residents moving on to greener pastures ."