NEW HAVEN – Ten low-income families who live in the dilapidated Church Street South apartments finally received to good news Tuesday. They will be the first to be relocated to cleaner, healthier housing.
Tenants were hard at work both Tuesday and Wednesday packing up their belongings, which will be kept in storage pods until suitable temporary or permanent housing can be found for the displaced families.
“I have been in the baby’s room taking the crib out,” said Yomaly Rivera, who has been living with her five children in the Premiere Hotel and Suites on Long Wharf Drive for nearly a month since her apartment was deemed uninhabitable.
Rivera says she and her children are finally feeling a positive vibe, after living for two years with mold and moisture that exacerbated their respiratory issues.
“Soon we are going to be in another apartment, but I still don’t know when,” said Rivera, who had to take today off from work to pack.
There will be a tenant meeting at the hotel tomorrow afternoon at 5, at which time tenants expect to learn more about when and where they will move.
Unlike most of the tenants at Church Street South, one of the ten families being moved prefers to stay.
One tenant, who did not want to reveal his identity, says this 47-year-old complex is really is not a bad place to live.
“Everybody sees the mold, but most of the people here don’t clean their houses,” said the tenant.
He had been living in the complex for over five years.
“To start all over again is not a good thing,” he adds.
Rivera wishes she could meet face-to-face with Larry Gottesdiener, chairman of Northland Investment Corporation, which has owned the complex since 2008.
“Why he didn’t come out and see, with his own eyes, his place to see what we were going through?” asked Rivera.
Gottendiener did not says whether he has or has not been on site, but, in an email to Fox CT Wednesday he said he “was not informed that there were mold and water infiltration issues at Church Street South until two months ago. The moment I became aware of the health and safety concerns, we started relocating the affected residents and mobilized all of our resources in an effort to find a solution for all of the families.”
The goal of the city of New Haven, HUD and Northland is to have all 289 families living in this complex relocated within a year. Inspections of each apartment are expected to be completed as soon as next week.
