TO BERNICE EDWARDS, a 27-year-old single mother of three, the irony seems rich. In 1997, when she moved from the shelters of Boston into Watuppa Heights, a state-funded public-housing project in Fall River, Edwards felt as if she had arrived. Though she might have been grateful to call any home her own, Edwards was especially grateful for her three-bedroom apartment at Watuppa. Back then, Fall River officials had just unveiled a sweeping renovation plan for the 100-unit complex, complete with a day-care facility, a computer room, and a community center. Local lawmakers, who had visited the development, pledged to fight for the funds to modernize it.

Now, just four years later, those same Fall River politicians have abandoned their renovation plan. Rather than fix up the state public-housing project, they’ve put forth a controversial proposal to scrap it altogether. The apparent about-face has left Watuppa tenants like Edwards shaking her head. "I don’t understand," says Edwards, whose diabetes allows her to work only part-time at her $10-per-hour social-services job. "There’s always going to be poor people. Why not meet me halfway? Why try to tear down my stability?"

Edwards is among 91 Watuppa families whose lives hang in the balance as the Massachusetts legislature prepares to debate one of the weightier political questions to come before it this spring. This past August, the Fall River City Council approved an initiative to knock down Watuppa Heights, a townhouse-style development built in 1950. But before that initiative can take effect, it must be approved by the legislature. So city officials forwarded the measure to Beacon Hill as a home-rule petition — a piece of special legislation that allows local communities to deviate from state law. Originally, Fall River proposed to scrap 180 units of public housing (from Watuppa and another development) and build 23 houses on the site, 12 of which would be reserved for low-income families. But this month, after facing resistance from state legislators, the city amended its original home-rule petition. It now proposes to build a privately developed neighborhood consisting of 26 single-family homes, all of them affordable, on the site where Watuppa now stands. The proposal’s being pushed by Fall River mayor Edward Lambert himself, and it’s backed by nearly every local politician.

While the petition has proved wildly popular at home, it has drummed up fierce opposition among housing advocates statewide. If successful, it would make Fall River the first community in Massachusetts ever to tear down a state public-housing project simply because it doesn’t want the units. And this precedent, advocates fear, could set off an avalanche of requests to demolish public housing just when people need it most — during an economic downturn.

"It’s a real threat," says Harris Gruman of Neighbor to Neighbor, a Boston-based housing-advocacy group that organizes in Fitchburg, Worcester, Salem, Lynn, and Holyoke. When Gruman and his colleagues make the rounds at City Halls across the state, they’re often shocked to hear politicians express interest in razing their own low-income-housing developments. "Any of the low-income cities," Gruman says — such as Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Brockton, New Bedford, Springfield, and Holyoke — "is in danger of taking this path because most of them have high amounts of subsidized housing."

Even natural allies of Fall River politicians worry about the petition’s precedent-setting potential. Tom Connelly, who heads the state chapter of National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (MassNAHRO), a trade group representing 245 housing authorities in Massachusetts, including Fall River’s, predicts the plan will dramatically affect state public housing. After all, he explains, the public-housing program has been chronically underfunded for years. Developments have fallen into disrepair. And public housing doesn’t enjoy staunch support among politicians, many of whom see the program as a magnet for the poor. Warns Connelly, "Every mayor is watching to see how Fall River makes out."

If advocates sound alarmed, it’s because much is at stake. In Massachusetts — the only state besides New York to provide state-funded public housing — state law forbids the demolition of any of its 50,000 public-housing units unless severe circumstances, such as dilapidation or natural disaster, make it necessary. Even then, the law requires that every unit be replaced by another in the same spot. The Fall River home-rule petition effectively seeks exemption from the law, which housing advocates argue would undermine statewide policy. If the legislature allows communities to opt out of public housing on a case-by-case basis, pretty soon the state’s program will fall apart — at a time when Massachusetts is gripped by a housing shortage.

Aaron Gornstein, director of the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), in Boston, describes the situation as "a conundrum." Suburbs have long blocked construction of affordable housing, he notes; now some cities want to do the same with public housing. All this raises an obvious question for Gornstein: "Tell me, where are low-income people supposed to live?"