Federal housing agency investigating alleged civil rights violations in Hopewell

Federal housing officials are conducting a wide-ranging investigation of whether the civil rights of Hopewell public housing residents were violated in two redevelopment projects touted as a win-win for the city and its poor. That promise eroded as Community Housing Partners, a nonprofit with 100 properties across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, assumed ownership of two communities from the city’s housing authority and began overhauling them, according to complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in December.