‘Like we’re in prison.’ Public housing families want out of hotels as evacuation drags on
This story was corrected on Jan. 24, 2020,
Hundreds of families evacuated from the city’s largest public housing community will remain in hotels until at least Feb. 7 as the Durham Housing Authority continues addressing carbon monoxide problems, the agency’s chief executive officer said Thursday.
The authority has had to rehouse 20 families after a hotel couldn’t extend their stay due to a prior commitment. DHA now has about 280 households in 329 rooms across 16 hotels, a DHA spokesman said Friday night. (This information has been corrected from an earlier version in which the authority’s CEO misstated the amount of new space needed.)
The news that residents will remain in hotels longer came hours after residents stormed Durham City Hall, one of their leaders briefly sitting in a small cardboard box to symbolize the cramped hotel rooms they have been living in since they were relocated three weeks ago.
The protest started outside City Hall City at 12:30 p.m., then moved inside for the City Council’s 1 p.m. meeting. Council members said residents will get to speak at all future meetings and encouraged the housing authority to keep residents better informed on progress addressing mold, leaking gas appliances and poorly ventilated gas heaters and furnaces — and when they might return home.
“The conditions that people are living in the hotels, we all understand that this has to end as soon as possible,” Mayor Steve Schewel said.
The council’s promise at Thursday’s work session followed a business meeting Tuesday, when Schewel initially said residents couldn’t speak because McDougald Terrace wasn’t on the agenda. He later relented.
Carbon monoxide concern
Emanuel Foster, DHA’s director of operations, said the agency is coordinating with contractors, looking at timelines and still finalizing its plans.
As of Thursday, inspections had been completed at McDougald Terrace, Oxford Manor, Hoover Road, and Club Boulevard, and had begun at Edgemont-Elms with Laurel Oaks remaining, the authority said on its website. Workers are replacing gas stoves with electric stoves, making electrical updates, redoing ventilation systems, and doing mold remediation and exterminations.
Residents told the City Council that living in hotels without kitchens or places for children to play is making people physically and mental ill. Parents have kept kids out of school because they aren’t sleeping at night. Teenage girls have been followed by men, one speaker said.
Some children have gotten sick because of the salty microwave food they’ve been given to eat, said Ashley Canady, reading the sodium content off a box of macaroni.
“The city don’t seem to care. DHA don’t seem to care,” said Canady, the McDougald Terrace resident council president. “So the only way I feel they are going to care is if we start disrupting their business.”
At one point, Canady sat in small, brown cardboard box, symbolizing a hotel room where families with up to five children are living.
“’I can’t move around in this box. I can’t move around in this box,” she said. “Our residents are telling us, ‘It feels like we’re in prison.’”
After the meeting, Canady used Facebook Live to clarify that the protest was about getting answers and was not meant to be critical of those who have donated food. The purpose was to demonstrate how residents are living. Some hotels offer small kitchenettes with stoves and full size refrigerators, while others don’t even have microwaves.
“Nobody in McDougald is ungrateful about anything, but we have to look at the bigger picture,” she said.
Recall election threatened
At the work session, some speakers suggested getting signatures for a recall election for the City Council or that council members be forced to spend nights at hotels with their families.
“I just want to reiterate how deeply troubling this situation is and has been for weeks,” said Council member Vernetta Alston.
While this evacuation was necessary, she said, the circumstances of putting people in hotels has proven to be problematic.
“The reason why you are still in hotels is because you were right about how big the problem is,” Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton told the residents.
Middleton asked that McDougald Terrace be put on the agendas of the council’s regular meetings “until the emergency has passed.” The council approved that addition at the end of the work session.
Schewel said he would allow comments at work sessions as well, saying he wanted to make sure residents feel welcome at meetings.
Mayor Pro Tempore Jillian Johnson said Scott could use council meetings to answer residents’ questions and concerns.
“We are very committed to resolving this situation. We are very concerned about what is happening,” Johnson said.
Durham voters passed a $95 million affordable housing bond last fall that will give DHA $59 million to modernize some of its public housing communities.
None of the money is going to McDougald Terrace, the city’s oldest complex, but officials say the bond will free money in the city’s housing fund to be used for McDougald Terrace renovations. The first week of evacuations cost DHA $485,000 and Scott has said subsequent weeks have cost about the same.
Johnson told residents she is sure money for McDougald Terrace will get council members’ unanimous support.
“At this point we are kind of in a waiting game to see how much y’all need and where it needs to go,” she said.
Meanwhile, city-county inspectors are ready to work as quickly as possible on repairs and replacing appliances, Schewel said. They are ready to work weekends, inspect whole buildings or one apartment at a time.
“So on the city side, our folks are ready to do whatever is necessary to inspect the repairs and only approve those repairs when they are convinced that the apartment is safe,” he said.
This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 3:30 PM with the headline "‘Like we’re in prison.’ Public housing families want out of hotels as evacuation drags on."
