Heritage House Evacuees Must Find New Housing by March 4, City Says

But many displaced tenants don’t know what they’ll do

Feb 29, 2024 at 8:41 am

The 18-story Heritage House has been condemned since a water pipe burst January 14 — leaving its elderly and disabled tenants in a scramble to find new housing. FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN

Everyone who knows anything about St. Louis real estate can agree on one thing: there is a dire shortage of decent, affordable housing for low- and moderate-income tenants.

Which is why Richard Johnson is so mystified by the city of St. Louis’ announcement Wednesday that it will stop paying after March 4 for emergency housing for dozens of elderly and disabled people evacuated from Heritage House Apartments six weeks ago.

Johnson, 65, and his wife Sheila, 67, have spent the past three weeks at a hotel near downtown St. Louis, courtesy of the city.

The hotel is their third in six weeks — ever since frozen pipes burst on January 15 at Heritage House Apartments, 2800 Olive Street, flooding the 18-story high-rise’s top floors and basement, and resulting in its condemnation.

The Johnsons, who are both disabled and need canes to walk, have been looking for a new place to stay, but so far they’ve had no luck.

”Well, we’re working on it,” Richard Johnson said Wednesday. “Just give us a few more days to work harder…We’re praying. We just don’t know.”

Kennard Williams, a program coordinator with Action St. Louis, which has been working closely with displaced tenants, said he believed most of the 120 tenants being provided emergency housing still have not found new places to live.

”It’s really hard to find housing in St. Louis right now,” Williams says.

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MIKE FITZGERALD

At a meeting in January, tenants of Heritage House, including JoAnne Adams, sounded off on problems at the facility prior to its condemnation.

Heritage House was run by a board of directors, not the city — but the city stepped in because the residents there, many of whom are disabled or elderly, didn’t know where to go. Though he hasn’t shared specifics of where funding has come from, the city has facilitated a month of hotel stays to buy time for residents to find other options.

But now the clock is running out of time.

In an email sent out Wednesday morning, Conner Kerrigan, the communications director for Mayor Tishaura Jones, noted the city has paid for hotel stays “from January 30, 2024 to present. The City reviewed funding available and is able to pay for one final hotel stay extension for residents.”

The city is covering hotel stays until March 4, “but this will be the final extension,” Kerrigan wrote. “There will be no more extensions in hotel stays past March 4th.”

Kerrigan noted that many Heritage House residents are moving to permanent housing. Those who are still seeking it out should apply for it and “make progress on their individualized Housing Plan daily.”

In addition, Heritage House tenants 60 years and older can obtain help from a group called Housing Options Provided for the Elderly, or HOPE, at (314) 776-0155.

Tenants under 60 years old can get help seeking permanent housing by calling city housing specialist Dillon Holliam, at (314) 484-0313.

Buzz Zeman, HOPE’s executive director, said the city’s affordable housing crunch has hit subsidized housing especially hard.

”The waiting list for subsidized housing is remarkably long everywhere,” Zeman says. “And so people can’t get a place. It’s been like this for a long time.”