In addition to encouraging white families to move into suburbs by granting them loans which enabled them to do so, the government uprooted many established African American communities by building elevated highways through their neighborhoods. In order to build these elevated highways, the government destroyed tens of thousands of single-family homes. Because these properties were summarily declared to be "in decline," families were given pittances for their properties, and forced to move into federally-funded housing which was called "the projects". To build these projects, still more single family homes were demolished.