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What leads you to believe that they were empty homes in Harlem and central Brooklyn just ready to absorb the demand of entire neighborhoods being demolished? 

They don't need to be empty. You could buy them from the existing owners. As we know, property values in black areas were (and still are) depressed and below true market value. So, it shouldn't have been hard to buy a home in a black neighborhood for cheap. 

And even if there were homes available, what leads you to believe that banks and lenders were readily giving out mortgages to black Americans? 

Either the people who's home were bought out had mortgages -- indicating they could get a mortgage again -- or they didn't have mortgages in which case they don't need one to buy a new home. 

 It’s like telling a homeless person to not use this money to meet their immediate needs, such as food, shelter, and healthcare for themselves and family, but instead forgo all that and instead save and invest. 

These weren't homeless people. These were homeowners who got paid for their homes when they were bought out. If they lived in public housing after that, as the article indicated, they didn't need that money to buy a new home.

Bottom line: how much did they get paid for their homes and what happened to that money? That's the answer to the mystery of why there