Greensboro Housing Coalition’s role as a first responder for housing emergencies in the community has been severely tested in 2018. The devastating April 15th East Greensboro tornado displaced hundreds of families with limited resources. GHC was on site within hours of the tornado coordinating communications with residents and organizing the tremendous outpouring of relief supplies and donations from the community. We staffed the relief centers at Willow Oaks, and at Peeler Recreation Center to start the triage process in the early days following the disaster as well as screening the many residents coming into the GHC offices.
GHC quickly realized that there were many vulnerable residents in need of someone to advocate for their needs, most of whom were renters living in homes that had become uninhabitable due to storm damage. It also became apparent that there were many more who were living in properties which the owner/landlord would not have the resources to repair. These families would have to quickly find somewhere else to live. As many people in the path of the tornado were low income we realized that if we did not act, many of our community members risked becoming homeless. They had already lost much of their belongings and perishable food due to storm damage and the power outages and certainly did not have savings. GHC worked with both the United Way and Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro to allocate monetary donations toward helping families with some of the costs associated with setting up a new household. These costs can include rent deposits, first month’s rent, and help with getting electric and gas services cut on. So far, over forty households have received this assistance through GHC and our partners.
Since the tornado, GHC has continued to participate in the Storm Recovery Alliance, a group of local stakeholders working across the continuum from renters to homeowners to help the most vulnerable survivors relocate, repair and rebuild. While GHC’s focus has largely been on assisting with the relocation of households that rent their homes, we have also been assisting homeowners that cannot afford their insurance deductibles and working with our other housing partners to help repair and rebuild homes where insurance or federal assistance was not an option. In the weeks following the tornado, GHC also partnered with Lincoln Financial to help their employees who were directly impacted by the storm.
On May 12th five children died in an apartment fire at an apartment complex at Cone Boulevard and Summit Avenue. The Greensboro Housing Coalition, along with UNCG’s Center For New North Carolinians and several other community organizations as well as the City of Greensboro and Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro have been responding to resident needs at this complex ever since this tragic event.
Because this apartment complex has a long history of housing code complaints, the City inspected all of the units after the fire and issued repair orders to the owner with a deadline of September 14th to complete those repairs. Due to Hurricane Florence, that deadline was extended to September 21st. Assuming that many if not all of the units would not pass inspections on the 21st, GHC has been actively working with all of the families that may be facing displacement from these units. GHC was onsite for several days doing intake with the families. This step includes verifying they are residents of Cone/Summit, verifying incomes and other information that potential property managers will need during their screening process, and providing listings of available housing units. The families (and many times their advocates) then go out to look for housing that meets their budgets and needs, such as proximity to a bus line. Once the family finds a housing unit and is accepted, GHC does a property inspection to ensure the housing unit meets basic habitability standards.
Most of the families in need of relocation cannot afford the cost of security and utility deposits and often a higher rent amount. For that reason, GHC, the City of Greensboro, and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro (CFGG) have created the Landlord Tenant Partnership (LLTP) that was first used during the Heritage House relocation process in 2014. For Cone/Summit, the City has committed $45,000 that is placed in the LLTP fund at CFGG and then transferred to GHC for payment of direct costs of the displaced families.
Since the majority of residents at Cone/Summit are immigrants from other countries, GHC is working closely with the Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC) at UNC Greensboro. CNNC is coordinating community volunteers, many of them associated with local churches, who are referred to as “family advocates.” The family advocates help each family by doing such things as taking them out to look for housing, helping with moves, transporting furniture from Barnabas Network and other sources, and many other needs that families have.
Friends Homes has also stepped up. They own around ten houses near Guilford College that will eventually be demolished but they wanted to make some of these houses available for the families from Cone and Summit for at least 6 months, particularly the larger families who are having the greatest challenge finding suitable units. Last week two of the larger families began to move into these homes.
As of now, there are 5 families (out of 28 total) that have either not yet located a suitable housing unit to move to or have been accepted and are simply waiting for their new apartment or home to be ready to move into. GHC continues to meet regularly with City department heads, City Council members, faith leaders, and CNNC to work on all of this as the September 21st deadline has passed. This group has been meeting and has placed several families into extended stay hotels while they either continue to search for a home or wait for work to be completed so that they can move in. GHC and our partners are all committed to seeing that that none of these families would become homeless as a result of the condemnations that occurred because of the poor upkeep of this property.
The Monday morning following the weekend of hard rains from Hurricane Florence, an apartment complex near Interstate 40 flooded. Over 30 households had to be evacuated by boat. Many were taken to an emergency shelter at Glenwood Recreation Center. Greensboro Housing Coalition has been advocating for those residents and working with the owner of the complex as well as city officials to help these residents and is coordinating with Guilford County Schools as residents are quickly relocating both within the complex and across the city.
As you can see, these are complicated efforts with many organizations lending a hand and Greensboro Housing Coalition is center stage and will not rest until every displaced family is safely housed in healthy and affordable housing.
Brett Byerly, GHC Executive Director Dan Curry, GHC Board Chair
