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The Frederick city Board of Aldermen unanimously changed the names of two streets in Sagner on Thursday night in hopes of improving the image of the public housing community.

The addresses of 55 homes in Sagner will change; 33 will change from Sagner Drive to Rhode Island Court while 22 homes will change from Sagner Court to Vermont Court.

The rest of the homes in the complex have a Pennsylvania Avenue address. The two new street names were chosen to be consistent with other nearby streets that are named after mid-Atlantic states.

But more importantly, said officials with the Housing Authority of the City of Frederick, which owns and manages the community, the street name changes will also lead to a new reputation for the public housing community, which they said often falls victim to negative connotations, such as poverty and crime.

Teresa Justice, executive director of the city's Housing Authority, said the name "Sagner" in residents' addresses often draws a stifling response from the Frederick community.

Justice said the Housing Authority was also looking to change the name of the entire community, but that they did not yet want to make their proposed name public.

Justice said the Housing Authority asked residents for input, and none have objected so far. No resident spoke before the aldermen Thursday night.

"This is part of an overall plan to improve the image," Justice told the Board of Aldermen Thursday night. "The name change goes along with self-esteem. ... We just want to get rid of this connotation."

As part of the revitalization plan, Justice said the Housing Authority also plans to sell eight homes in the complex to promote homeownership. The homes would be sold to anyone who qualifies for a mortgage and earns less than 80 percent of the region's median income, she said.

One home has already been sold to a Sagner resident.

The organization also has plans for a "visual facelift" of the community, which will include replacing siding and the trim on the outside of the homes, and increasing their job training programs for adult residents and educational support for children.

Justice said residents of the 100-unit community, built in 1927, often perceived a shift in attitude whenever they mentioned the names of their streets; that residents have reported that it "sometimes interferes with being fairly considered for employment" and that "kids feel embarrassed."

This is in part due to the neighborhood having a past of being what Lt. Dennis Dudley of the Frederick Police Department called a crime "hot spot."

The police department could not immediately provide crime statistics for Sagner to compare it with other neighborhoods.

However, Dudley said Sagner has made strides in the last decade, and has even been dropped from the "hot spot" list for grant-funded crime fighting initiatives in the last five years.

Aldermen questioned the technicality of changing street names in terms of emergency response and mail delivery.

Justice said emergency response crews and mail carriers sometimes were confused by the slight difference in the two names — Sagner Drive and Sagner Court — and the name changes would help that.

She said the Housing Authority doesn't know when the name changes will take effect, and will work with the city to see what the next steps would be.

"We do plan to let our residents know immediately, but we need to check with the city about the next steps," she said.

The city's planning, public works and geographic information systems departments have already reviewed and signed off on the plan.

Gil House of Urbana, a Frederick County historian, was the only resident to offer public testimony on the subject, advising the city to think about the loss of historical context associated with the Sagner name.

House said the streets were named after Stanley Sagner, who owned a factory in Frederick that employed thousands.

"Changing the name is not going to change the perception," House said. "The main thing is to build up the esteem of these people."

E-mail Erica L. Green at egreen@gazette.net.