President Roosevelt switched on the power at Techwood Homes in 1935 to celebrate the nation's first public housing project. Although the slum-clearance project that made way for Techwood employed almost 2000 people, and the project provided homes for 604 white families, it displaced 1611 families, 28% of whom were black. A portion of those black families found homes in the new University project on the West Side of town, but others, both white and black, remained displaced.