Morlene March has lived in Curries Woods for the entire 32 years of her life. She was born in the affordable housing complex, raised there, and now raises her own 9-year old daughter there in an apartment close to her mother.
But she will be separated from her lifelong residence by March 15, when the 127 families living in the remaining two high rises of the former Curries Woods must relocate to make way for the townhouses that make up the final phases of the new Curries Woods.
The final stages of the four-year project have been scheduled for the spring of this year, forcing the demolition of 51 and 71 Merritt streets. A dozen tenants met in the basement of the Mount Olive Church on Arlington Avenue on Wednesday evening to discuss what action they can take that would forestall the final phase. According to these residents, the Jersey City Housing Authority announced the March deadline for the first time days before Thanksgiving.
Although a large percentage of these families may be eligible for the new townhouses slated for construction, they must temporarily relocate off the premises until that possibility is confirmed. In a city that already suffers from a severe shortage in public housing, the temporary relocation is not an easy process.
“I’ve been down there too long and I’m not moving off the area,” said Joyce March, Morlene’s mother. “She said that she was promised her single-bedroom status would not be a problem in obtaining a new townhouse in earlier phases. Now, however, the Housing Authority has told her that it cannot give her a two-bedroom unit if she lives alone, and one-bedroom units no longer exist.”
The new Curries Woods has transformed the antiquated public housing apartment buildings of yesteryear into a community-oriented mixed-income complex of townhouses, reducing the number of existing dwellings from 712 to 307 units. The project is federally funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through a program known as HOPE VI. While this program attempts to rectify the public housing disaster that the former units created by isolating poverty-stricken families in a towering high rise building, it has caused new problems by displacing families it sought to help.
“I think everybody understood that they were going to have to move when this stage came close,” said Robert Rigby, executive director of the Jersey City Housing Authority. “We’ve had about 50 community meetings over the last five years.”
Tenants at the Mount Olive Church can only recall one community meeting per year, none of which discussed the March 15, 2002 relocation deadline, they said.
Fewer options
In the former phases of this five-phase project, residents of Curries Woods would relocate into other Curries Woods residences. But with the demolition of the last two existing Curries Woods buildings, the remaining families do not have such a convenient option. Many of them, too, are not guaranteed that they will receive one of the new townhouses in the future. Nationally, only 50 percent of relocated public housing residents return when the HOPE VI project is completed.
“The residents are always informed of what is going to happen,” said Loretta Mosby, chairperson of the Curries Woods Tenant Task Force and an employee of the Jersey City Housing Authority. The task force is an elected body of residents that have been designated as spokespersons for the tenants and liaisons to the Jersey City Housing Authority. “We always had meetings with the residents.”
On the contrary, Rose Simmons, the task force treasurer, said that the board meetings are not open to the public, and only half of the board members receive specific information about the upcoming events. Those members, Simmons claims, are all employees of the Jersey City Housing Authority.
Grace Malley, the HOPE VI coordinator for the Jersey City Housing Authority, said that half of the 14-member board members are employees of the JCHA. She added, “We’ve been meeting constantly with the Task Force and the community at large.”
Rigby said that residents who need to be relocated are offered moving assistance. In addition, he said tenants unable to qualify for the new townhouses would receive Section 8 housing, a federal program that subsidizes rent for low-income families. “It’s not like they’re being put out on the curb,” he said.
However, a shortage of affordable housing has left plenty of Jersey City residents stranded as they try to find a place to live.
Since the old Curries Woods buildings have been slowly depleted of its tenants as people relocated or moved into one of the new townhouses, residents have complained about growing gang-related problems. After witnessing a rash of shootings on the property in recent months, tenants want tightened security.
Rigby said the Housing Authority is working with the Police Department on enhancing the security.
Another issue tenants in 51 and 71 Merritt have complained about is criminal background checks. Priority for the new townhouses has been given to people with no criminal record. However, tenants complain that the Housing Authority is scrutinizing the applications much closer now.
Rigby said that his office has become privy to better information in recent months, and it plans to use whatever information it receives about potential tenants.