After three attempted break-ins in one month, Bowen Homes resident Evette Harris put a handwritten warning on her front door: "I Hope U Ready When U Break In. Boom."

Like most tenants in the northwest Atlanta public housing complex, Harris, 49, is eager to leave.

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'I hate to move because I've been here for twenty-eight years,' Hattie Homes said after listening to a discussion about the future for Bowen Homes tenants.

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Barney Simms, a vice president with the Atlanta Housing Authority, met with tenants of Bowen Homes on Tuesday to discuss their upcoming relocation.

Mikki K. Harris/AJC (ENLARGE)

Kenard Shaw, 25, was among the 150 or so residents who attended a meeting Tuesday about moving from Bowen Homes. 'I'm ready,' said Shaw, who has lived at the complex his entire life.

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The tenants soon will have their chance. Federal housing officials Friday approved the Atlanta Housing Authority's request to demolish Bowen Homes. The demolition will take place in about 12 to 18 months.

The authority will help Bowen residents find new homes and give those who fill out the proper paperwork vouchers to help pay for their rent and utilities.

The key question is whether the tenants will fare better in their new surroundings.

Housing Authority officials say yes, citing a study by Thomas Boston, an economics professor at Georgia Tech, which found most tenants who left the authority's developments between 1995 and 2001 improved their social and economic standing.

Skeptics disagree. Lindsay Jones, a Emory Law School professor who has been helping tenant groups, said tenants are moving to neighborhoods with higher percentages of poverty than the city's rate of 23 percent.

"The AHA has simply pushed families from one ghetto to another while allowing private developers to build new communities to the exclusion of the displaced low-income families on the site of the demolished public housing," Jones said.

Since the mid-1990s, the Housing Authority has torn down much of its housing stock and has worked with developers to rebuild the properties as mixed-income communities.

In February 2007, the authority announced its "Quality of Life Initiative," a plan to demolish a dozen public housing developments with about 3,000 units and 9,600 tenants. The agency has started or completed the relocation process in six complexes and is awaiting federal approval for six other developments.

Juanita Redmond, 59, is a believer in the authority's plan. She lived in the Antoine Graves complex near the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. Authority officials sped up relocation plans for residents of the complex after a tornado damaged it in March.

"I was ready to move because I wanted a bigger place," said Redmond, who now lives in a larger, one-bedroom apartment in southeast Atlanta. "It's nice. I love it."

But Gary Bazley, 53, another former Antoine Graves tenant, is unhappy with his current surroundings in Mechanicsville in south Atlanta. He said it's now tougher to get to his physical therapy sessions at Grady Memorial Hospital to treat a herniated disc.

"[The authority] used the tornado to force people out of downtown, and it's not fair," Bazley said.

Housing Authority officials said the relocation was nearly complete before the tornado struck.

Boston's research, distributed by the Housing Authority, shows most tenants who received rent vouchers last year live in Atlanta. Many reside in southwest DeKalb County, southeast Fulton County and northwest Clayton County, the data show.

Built in 1964, Bowen Homes is a sprawling complex of two-story, orange-colored duplexes, with an elementary school and a library. Most tenants in the 603 occupied units are African-American women with young children. The property drew headlines last fall after five young men were shot and killed there between July and November.

A standing-room-only crowd of about 150 listened Tuesday evening as Housing Authority officials explained the relocation process.

"Are you ready to leave the property?" asked Housing Authority Senior Vice President Barney Simms.

"Yeah," most of the audience yelled.

"I can't hear you," said Simms. "Are you ready to leave the property?"

"Yeah!" the crowd replied.

Harris was among those cheering. She wants to live near the Atlanta University Center. Her daughter, Jawana, plans to attend either Clark Atlanta University or Spelman College this fall. "It's a blessing to me right now," Harris said of relocation.

Shirley Hightower, president of the Bowen Homes tenants association, is less enthusiastic about the plan.

Hightower, 53, has lived in Bowen for 16 years and wonders how some families will manage once they're relocated. Tenants currently must pay 30 percent of their adjusted gross income for rent and utilities. Those costs, she said, will be higher in their new homes.

"They're giving [tenants] an illusion," Hightower said of the authority. "They're taking away a safety net for a lot of people."

Harris, though, said she's ready to take the leap.

"I'm ready to go," she said.