Paul Bass Photo
Delores Robinson outsider her Church Street South apartment.
They kept showing Delores Robinson possible new apartments, waiting until she found one where she felt comfortable.
Then, last week, someone stole the copper water piping leading into her apartment. She had a few hours to gather her belongings and move temporarily to the Village Suites on Long Wharf.
And the 50-year-old Church Street South complex finally had no one left living there.
That means demolition will now begin. The city has given the green light to the complex’s owner Northland Investment Corp., which had already begun pre-demolition work, to tear down the crumbling cinderblock 301-unit federally subsidized complex across from Union Station. The demolition is expected to occur over the next two weeks.
Years of federal inspections claimed the complex was safe. But then legal-aid lawsuits and city inspections revealed leaky roofs, deteriorating porches, and rampant mold that made it hard for families to breathe. The city condemned the property. Then two government agencies — the city government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI) and the housing authority’s management and development arm, the Glendower Group — worked for years to find new apartments for the 266 remaining families.
The process took far longer than expected. Robinson was the last tenant in the complex. She didn’t want to leave, though she knew she needed to. She was particular about what part of town she wanted to live in (not out on the fringes, like at Brookside) and what floor (first). She hung on as an Abcon Abatement & Demolition crew begin ripping out the guts of the other 21 buildings and as thieves grabbed the copper in the apartments surrounding hers.
(Click here to read a previous story detailing her final days at the complex.)
She kept trying to keep the thieves out of her apartment in Jose Marti Court; she worried when she was at work at her factory job that they’d nevertheless get in.
Last week they got close enough, stealing the main value and copper piping from the water utility room feeding her apartment, meaning she no longer had running water. Officials told her it was finally time to go.
The housing authority had just shown Robinson an apartment it had made available for her at the newly rebuilt Farnam Court development.
“It was beautiful,” she said. But she would have to take an elevator upstairs. “I specified the ground floor,” she said.
So for now she and five other families remain in motel rooms. This coming week, Robinson said, she has an appointment to see a vacant townhouse unit at the Beechwood Garden Complex at Whalley and Pendleton.
“Mrs. Robinson has a choice of several units,” LCI Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo said Sunday.
Northland CEO Larry Gottesdiener thanks LCI and the housing authority for their work in finding families new homes.
It “was a complex challenge,” Gottesdiener noted in a release, “and Northland is grateful for the Church Street South families’ patience, understanding, and flexibility throughout the process.”
Once demolition is complete, Northland and the city envision a new mixed-use, mixed-income complex rising on the property with up to 1,000 apartments, 30 percent of them subsidized for lower-income renters.
Key to that plan is obtaining federal or state affordable housing grants. The city has tried twice to obtain a $30 million grant under the federal government’s Project CHOICE program; its application has been rejected both times. The city’s preparing another application, hoping the third time’s the charm.
“We will keep trying,” Neal-Sanjurjo said, “until we get it.”
Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• Northland’s Insurer Sues To Stop Paying
•Who Broke Church Street South?
•Amid Destruction, Last Tenant Holds On
• Survey: 48% Of Complex’s Kids Had Asthma
• Families Relocated After Ceiling Collapses
• Housing Disaster Spawns 4 Lawsuits
• 20 Last Families Urged To Move Out
• Church St. South Refugees Fight Back
• Church St. South Transfers 82 Section 8 Units
• Tenants Seek A Ticket Back Home
• City Teams With Northland To Rebuild
• Church Street South Tenants’ Tickets Have Arrived
• Church Street South Demolition Begins
• This Time, Harp Gets HUD Face Time
• Nightmare In 74B
• Surprise! Now HUD Flunks Church St. South
• Church St. South Tenants Get A Choice
• Home-For-Xmas? Not Happening
• Now It’s Christmas, Not Thanksgiving
• Pols Enlist In Church Street South Fight
• Raze? Preserve? Or Renew?
• Church Street South Has A Suitor
• Northland Faces Class-Action Lawsuit On Church Street South
• First Attempt To Help Tenants Shuts Down
• Few Details For Left-Behind Tenants
• HUD: Help’s Here. Details To Follow
• Mixed Signals For Church Street South Families
• Church St. South Families Displaced A 2nd Time — For Yale Family Weekend
• Church Street South Getting Cleared Out
• 200 Apartments Identified For Church Street South Families
• Northland Asks Housing Authority For Help
• Welcome Home
• Shoddy Repairs Raise Alarm — & Northland Offer
• Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | “Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• “New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize