Really?

Taken from the Capital Online:
writer Joshua Stewart

For two weeks residents of College Creek Terrace in Annapolis have lived in their own version of the aftermath of a powerful thunderstorm.

Residents of the public-housing community have passed most of their days in that time without electricity, gas and hot water.

They can’t take a hot shower or watch television. They can’t cook meals. And even if they could, they can’t keep their leftovers – their refrigerators don’t work. They do have running water, but no hot water.

“This is crazy. This is really, really crazy,” said Wanda Blake, a resident of the neighborhood for six years.

At an outdoor meeting yesterday afternoon, residents detailed the extent of their problems. One man said he had to throw out 2 pounds of crabmeat after it spoiled in his warm refrigerator. Another said he had to boil water – when the power was on – to take a bath. Others said they could smell gas.

“All of that? Geez,” said Alderman Fred Paone, R-Ward 2, at the meeting.

Residents from the community, which has about 50 public-housing units, said the problems began around Aug. 20. They complained to the city housing authority, and utilities were restored for a few hours, then turned off again.

Eric Brown, executive director of the housing authority, said that whatever can be done is being done.

“Some people have been inconvenienced without gas and (hot) water, but these are things we don’t have control over,” he said.

He said a housing authority employee is working with the utility companies on the problems.

But residents said they didn’t think the housing authority was responsive enough.

Brown said electricity and gas would soon be restored and offered to shuttle residents to the Glenwood High-rise Apartments where they can get a hot meal. He told residents who lost food or anything else because of the utility problem to write it down.

“If you’ve got a loss, document your loss and we’ll work with it,” he said.

Many residents said they think their problems are related to busted utility lines and nearby construction work on Obery Court, but Brown said the problem is the aging infrastructure in the neighborhood.

College Creek Terrace, one of 11 federally owned public-housing communities in the city, was built 70 years ago. The brick exteriors are solid, but the guts of the units – the water lines, the electric lines, the sewer lines – have deteriorated. They were never replaced because there was never enough funding, Brown said.

College Creek Terrace will be demolished and rebuilt once funds are available, Brown said.

The residents of the neighborhood eventually will need to be relocated to other vacancies in the 1,104 units in the city. The housing authority is working with the families on a case-by-case basis to help them find a new place to live, Brown said.

“Is this perfect? No it is not,” he said. “What we do have is a commitment to work with each and every family.”

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Posted in September 2007