More than three months after the roof of 267 Mill St. in Worcester collapsed into the second and third floors of the apartment building, a handful of its displaced tenants still havent been able to find housing, according to Leah Bradley, CEO of Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance.
CMHA has been helping the tenants who immediately became homeless following the July 15 collapse which led city officials to condemn the building.
CMHA has focused its attention on the 80 tenants who have being staying in a hotel since the collapse because they didnt have another place to stay, but Bradley said CMHA would help any of the 110 displaced tenants that reached out to them.Read More: Some tenants of a collapsed Mill Street apartment in Worcester able to reach agreement with landlords on belongings, others have to return to court
Half of the residents CMHA has been helping are already in housing and a quarter more will have housing by Oct. 1 if everything goes right with their leases, according to Bradley.
She pointed to the existing housing crisis in Worcester as to why some tenants havent been able to secure new places to live.
Its really a challenge for folks … especially one-bedrooms, Bradley said of the tenants housing search. She said they are asking area landlords with available units to reach out to CMHA.
Residents without housing have been staying in a hotel funded at first by United Way of Central Massachusetts, then the states Department of Housing and Community Development and finally by the city.
Worcester Acting Manager Eric Batista announced on Aug. 23 that the city would extend the hotel stay until Oct. 1 to give the families, who have been through so much, more time to secure long-term housing.
In the intervening months since the collapse residents have told MassLive that their search for new housing was going horribly, with one resident saying theres nothing.
The tenants have mostly been able to relocate to other locations within Worcester, according to Bradly.
When asked if the city would be extending the hotel for the handful of tenants that dont have housing by Oct. 1, Bradley said the state and city has done the best they could to fund housing when there isnt money at the state or federal level to support it. The funding the city and state has been using is going to run out, Bradley said.
I think the property managers (of 267 Mill St.) are really the one responsible to make sure these (tenants) are OK, Bradley said. Really the property manager needs to step up and make sure they have a place to stay whether its a relocation to another one of their properties or a stay at a hotel.
The relationship between the tenants and property manager Michelle Fren has been fraught since the collapse, with Fren taking the tenants to housing court 10 days after the collapse.
The tenants had to return to court on multiple occasions to determine when and how the property owners could enter the property and remove the tenants property. A housing court judge required the manager to pay for the tenants property to be moved and, if necessary, stored.