Paul Bass Photo

Former Church Street South neighbors Jessica Rivera and Bettie Byrd, an original tenant, at Thursday night’s holiday party.

Santa promised Desiree Brown a new home for her family for Christmas. He gave her a cookie instead.

Santa — aka Massachusetts-based Northland Investment Corp. Brown’s landlord at the crumbling Church Street South apartment complex — threw in some chicken too.

Brown (pictured) appreciated the meal (though she didn’t end up touching the cookie). She appreciated the fact that city officials and Gateway Community College — with the help of money donated by Northland — threw a Christmas party Thursday night for 58 families, like hers, who have been living in hotel rooms for months while they await new apartments somewhere else.

They’ve had a tough year.

But Northland and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had promised that they would pay and arrange for those 58 families to transfer their federal Section 8 rental subsidies to new apartments by Thanksgiving. Then they promised that those families — and perhaps all 288 families from the 47-year-old federally subsidized complex across from Union Station, most of them still trapped in the mold-infested, deteriorating buildings — would have moved by that time.

As of Thursday, 28 of those families have actually moved in to new homes so far, HUD spokesman Rhonda Siciliano said. That leaves 30 families like Brown’s still in hotel rooms — and over 200 still at Church Street South.

Now the goal is to get the rest of the hotel-bound families in early 2016, then the families remaining at the complex.

“We want to thank all of the families at Church Street South for their patience throughout the relocation process, and we hope that everyone is settled in safe, quality housing in the new year,” Northland Chairman Larry Gottesdiener stated in an email message.

Thursday night, in Gateway’s Community room, volunteers like Rachael Caron served 175 members of Church Street South families mashed potatoes and grilled eggplant and asparagus along with the chicken, all lovingly prepared by the college’s culinary department …

… while kids like Jani (pictured), who’s 4, colored in pictures, musicians led holiday sing-alongs …

City officials Wolf, Mendi Blue, Marcus Paca, Neal-Sanjurjo, and Mike Carter.

… and city officials, fresh from a day-long retreat training in how to get along well, mingled. Arts czar Andy Wolf organized the party along with Gateway as a way to recognize the tough year the families have had and to express the community’s support. “We’re working hard to get folks moved,” said Livable City Initiative chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, whose inspectors have worked long hours to inspect and condemn Church Street South apartments and arrange temporary and long-term new apartments for families.

Desiree Brown did find the party “nice,” she said, but it didn’t lessen her disappointment about not having a new apartment for her family by Christmas, after all. She’s sharing a bedroom at Hamden’s Clarion Hotel with her 5 and 9‑year-old daughters while her 16-year-old son crashes in the living room.

“It’s a letdown,” she said.

Brown, a food service worker at ESUMS school, lived at Church Street South for 13 years. The family moved on Sept. 11 because of the mold’s impact on her son’s asthma. She has yet to find a four-bedroom apartment where the landlord will accept the offered HUD/Northland subsidy. One problem has been price: The landlords want $1,800 or $2,000 in monthly rent, she said; so far she has received approval for $1,600. Also, some landlords “don’t want to deal” with the bureaucratic process involving not just HUD inspection, but interactions with Northland.

Neal-Sanjurjo confirmed that finding larger apartments, with three to five bedrooms, has proved the biggest challenge, and is one main reason the process has moved more slowly that people would have liked.

In addition to worrying about their new apartments, some of the families are still grieving the loss of their old ones. While Church Street South may have fallen apart amid crime problems, it was home for 47 years for substitute teacher Bettie Byrd (at right in photo, with friend Jessica Rivera). She was an “original” — she moved in to Church Street South when it opened. “No one ever lived in my apartment but me.” She raised eight children there, along with nieces and nephews. She enjoyed living there at least until the past three years, when new management cut back on security and maintenance.

Byrd moved out on Sept. 29. “It was supposed to be Sept. 28. I told them I could do it until the 29th,” she said. “It was devastating, but I knew I had to leave. [The apartment] was full of mold.” She is now at La Quinta Suites on Sargent Drive, looking for a new place.

Families spoke of the personal connections they’ll miss. Clara London (at right in photo) babysat for many of her neighbors over her 37 years at Church Street South, including Bettie Byrd’s granddaughter Aazia (at left). “It’s a community,” London said. “You knew everybody. You looked out for each other’s children.” She and her friends cried three weeks ago when she finally had to leave her mold-infested apartment in the complex’s Malcolm Court building due to her asthma. She and her two sons, currently in a hotel, need to find a three-bedroom apartment.

Crystal Burgos (pictured with sons King, 5 months old, and 3year-old Makhi) is one of the lucky ones. She moved from a hotel to a Quinnipiac venue apartment owned by one of the landlords offering to take in Church Street South families, Pike International.

“When there is adversity,” Mayor Toni Harp told the crowd, “it teaches us how strong we are inside. We are here to support you. We are here to get you through this rough patch.”

Pressured by legal-aid lawyers now representing 89 Church Street South families, the HUD declared landlord Northland in violation of its $3 million-plus annual contract for Section 8 rental subsidies because of longstanding leaks, dangerous mold, and collapsing roofs and balconies. The city condemned dozens of apartments and ordered roofs and deteriorating balconies replaced.

With the help of the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH), which Northland hired to assist in the relocations, 41 families in hotels have selected apartments they’d like to move into with the transfer, in some form, of their Church Street South Section 8 rental subsidies. (That’s another complicated matter, dealt with in some prior articles listed at the bottom of this story; advocates fear that the way those subsidies get transferred might jeopardize the amount of affordable housing stock in New Haven, particularly for families needing three-to-five bedroom apartments.)

HUD and Northland had found many landlords open to accepting subsidized tenants from Church Street South. But the process of getting the families there takes time. Tenants and landlords have to find each other and agree to make a deal. Landlords have to accept the level of subsidized rent. (That level has been a continual source of negotiation, especially for larger apartments.) HUD has to inspect the apartments and approve them.

“As anyone who has ever searched for housing can attest to, in most cases it’s a process that can take some time from beginning to end,” HUD spokeswoman Siciliano wrote in an email Thursday. “The search in New Haven is exacerbated by a very tight rental market and a shortage of units with a larger number of bedrooms. Other factors that have slowed the process include for example: an apartment that a family has selected is not available to be inspected because it is still occupied so requiring a wait for the unit to be vacated to perform an inspection; an apartment that has been inspected requires safety repairs or corrections e.g., installation/replacement of smoke detectors before it can be approved for the family to move into. Everyone involved in this process is working as quickly as possible and will continue to do so.”

The dessert table was popular at the party.

Siciliano now described as “very soon” the time at which officials will present a plan to Church Street South tenants for transferring their subsidy to other landlords. Families will have the choice of having their Section 8 subsidy — which is tied to their apartments — transferred to new apartments elsewhere; or accepting portable vouchers they can take wherever they can find a willing landlord. Officials hope many tenants take the former option — because those subsidies remain with an apartment even if a family leaves, preserving affordable-housing stock in town.

HUD needs to find enough landlords willing to commit to having their apartments become such “project-based” units (tied to a Section 8 subsidy). Siciliano reported that “interest from owners has been strong” — a total of 901 potential units have been identified. But it takes a while to negotiate real deals for those units.

New Haven Legal Assistance Association attorney Amy Marx, who led the effort to force government to take action, said Wednesday that “our biggest fear” is that HUD will fail to preserve enough permanently subsidized three-to-five-bedroom apartments, and that Church Street South — when it gets rebuilt — won’t include those larger apartments. “Which is exactly what Northland wanted to do in the first place,” Marx said.

HUD has also completed an inspection of Church Street South. It is not releasing the results yet: Northland gets to see it first and decide whether to appeal. Whatever happens with the inspection, no one is planning to have families ever move back in. Just out. As soon as possible.

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