Some former Latitude residents must vacate motels Monday. What's next?

More than three months after dozens of people were evacuated from their homes in two Near East Side apartment towers, 58 individuals, some with partners and families, still remain in government-funded motel rooms meant to be temporary housing.

The city of Columbus deemed the Latitude Five25 towers unsafe on Christmas Day due to lack of electricity and heat, pipes bursting and nonworking elevators.

History repeating?Dozens were kicked out of these Near East Side apartments. It's happened there before

Those living in the 154 occupied units were sent to Dodge Park Community Center for shelter, and then relocated to two area motels using Franklin County funding and told they could stay until the end of March while working to find a new place.

While many others have been able to find permanent housing with the help of a relocation specialist hired with city funds, government money is still paying for more than one-third of the total households (how the city refers to the people who were in Latitude apartments, whether that is families, couples or individuals) to stay in motels as they are still in various stages of finding a new home.

On March 30, some of the residents who remain in motels got a notice saying they could stay until Monday, April 3, and then they would have to leave or pay for their own rooms.

How is the city helping former Latitude residents find new homes?

In January, the city gave about $765,000 to the Tony R. Wells Foundation to hire R.H. Brown & Company, LLC., a relocation services company, to work with former Latitude Five25 residents to find them new places.

The money is also being used to help residents pay a security deposit and cover the gap between their rent at a new place and what it was at Latitude Five25 for the first six months of their lease, said Hannah Jones, deputy director of community development with the city of Columbus.

Some who have no source of income were identified by Rosetta Brown, the relocation company's president and CEO, and are able to get a full six months of rent paid, Jones said.

Brown interviewed each former tenant to identify their needs and financial situation before finding and offering them options of places to live, Jones said. Some of the first people to find permanent housing moved out at the end of January.

A new start:First of Latitude Five25 residents displaced on Christmas Day find new homes

Each of the 58 remaining individuals and families who have not been housed are at a different stage in the process, Jones said. Those include some who have signed leases, some who are still selecting a home and 19 households who have not engaged with Brown in meaningful ways, she said.

Jones said Tuesday, March 28, that those still in motels would get letters by the next day stating that they could stay past the Friday, March 31 deadline and up until the end of April — if they engage with Brown to find a new home.

The letters did not go out until Thursday morning, according to an individual staying in one of the motels.

The budget for the motel rooms was originally for three months, Jones said, but the Community Shelter Board said the funding in place can cover rooms for those who will need to remain through the end of April.

If those residents living in motels don't work with Brown, Jones said, they are asked to leave their motel room by Monday or pay for it on their own.

“We have been very clear since the beginning that, while our ultimate goal is that nobody faces an evacuation again ... this was not going to be in perpetuity and that we needed to make progress," she said.

'Everybody is panicking'

On Wednesday morning, Daisha Harper, 26, was told that she still only had until Friday, March 31 to vacate her motel room. On Thursday, a notice was at her door saying she had until Monday, April 3.

The notice scared her because she said she has been in contact with Brown, who told her some people can stay longer.

Brown said she wasn't sure why the city told Harper she must leave by Monday, said Harper, who has an 11-month-old son, Zaire Spraggins.

"They're trying to push as much people as they can out," Harper said. "This all could have been done better and more professional."

Harper said she wishes the city had hosted a meeting with former Latitude residents, which she said hasn't happened since January.

A problematic history:Were Latitude Five25 apartments always 'a towering problem'?

"We're trying to be patient, trying to be sane, trying to wait, trying to communicate, trying to be calm," Harper said. "At this point, let's be realistic, they're not moving like they're going to get me a place."

After struggling to get an erroneous eviction off her record from Latitude Five25, Harper said she has worked with Brown to find a new place to live, but was only recently shown some housing options. She chose a few, but was not approved at the first two where she applied.

Harper said she was waiting to hear from a third apartment, but said she felt pressured and worries if she doesn't get approved, she and her son will be homeless.

Her voice was shaking as she explained that she called and called Brown, the relocation specialist, and got no answers or returned calls.

December 2022:Remaining Latitude Five25 residents relocating after Near East Side towers deemed unsafe

Brown declined to talk to the Dispatch, referring inquiries for comment to Jones, who said she wasn't involved enough with the specific logistics of the relocation process to answer certain questions.

Brown is "one of the most accessible people I've encountered ... she is out every single day doing this work," Jones said.

Still, Harper said she feels like no one is talking to her and other residents, and was still under the impression she had to leave the hotel by Friday even though she had nowhere to go.

"This all is just a big nightmare," Harper said. "If they wanted us out so bad, they should be here more. We shouldn't have to hunt them down and play phone tag."

Besides motel stays, is other help running out, too?

The Community Shelter Board was contracted by Franklin County to use $750,000 in funding to find motels for former Latitude Five25 residents and provide food, security and transportation for them, said Sara Loken, community relations director.

As people vacate the hotels, their services are winding down.

Staff members will spend half of the previous amount of time at the motels and are offering gift cards for food instead of hot meals for residents of the motel without kitchenettes, Loken said.

"There was a little bit of money for food for everybody for that first month," said Loken. "After that, food wasn't as much of a concern ... because people were feeding themselves before."

Though Latitude Five25 residents may have been able to afford food while living in the towers, some said that since entering the motels it is hard to get food due to a lack of transportation (one motel isn't on the bus line); some lost their jobs or couldn't work from the motels; wasted food stamps that purchased Christmas dinners that were never eaten due to evacuation on Christmas Day; and a lack of income.

Harper said there were no food deliveries to her hotel, which has kitchenettes in the rooms.

Loken said there were resources to have fresh produce and groceries delivered to the motel Harper and approximately 18 others are in, but people didn't use them, which she said may have been because they were also offered transportation to grocery stores, so they stopped. Some people were moved to the other motel, where hot meals were being delivered to the lobby daily, she said.

To other former Latitude Five25 residents who are struggling with food access, Loken said she sympathizes. 

"The whole thing has been awful. And, you know, us being eager to step in and be as helpful as we can, cannot fix it," Loken said.

A few times, Harper was given money from a Community Shelter Board staff member to purchase food to cook for residents staying at her motel. But there is a lack of communal space there, so it was hard for people to know when she or others were there to provide food or services, as the only small gathering area is not in a well-traveled part of the motel, she said.

The issues date back: October 2022:No power or hot water, bedbugs and other issues at Latitude Five25 towers, residents say

Tony Wells, president of the Wells Foundation, said he and Brown were often at the motels to talk with former residents during the past three months, and got about $35,000 from other donors to help families with expenses including daily needs, moving and buying furniture. He recently estimated about $40,000 more is needed to help those moving to new homes get basic furniture.

Today, most of the donations are exhausted, though he still gets requests from people for more help daily.

"There's only so much we can give each family," he said, adding that, unfortunately, the cap is around $200 in gift cards for each household. "I'd love to give a lot more than that."

Mental Health services for former residents

Franklin County Job and Family Services and Health and Human Services departments have been helping residents since Christmas Day by providing emotional support through social workers in its family stabilization unit and help getting government benefits, said spokesman Bart Logan.

"This is a really traumatic experience," he said. "Throughout all of this, (the social workers have) been that shoulder to cry on, they've been someone to listen to them, judgment free, and help talk people through it."

Columbus Public Health's Neighborhood Social Services team has been working with former Latitude Five25 residents to provide compassionate care and counseling referrals, said spokeswoman Kelli Newman.

As people move on, those offerings will be scaled back.

Will they ever get their belongings back?

Tenants will be able to pick up two to three important items they identified in their former homes Friday and Saturday, said Tony Celebrezze III, of the Columbus Department of Building and Zoning Services.

Some picked up items on Thursday and Friday but the city was expecting most people on Saturday, Celebrezze said.

Once that process is complete, Celebrezze said the city will work toward getting more items from each unit, based on a list from tenants and the ability for the items to be cleaned after asbestos was disturbed in the building in January, ruining all cloth items.

What's next for those who lived at Latitude?

Given the Monday Deadline, Jones said she hoped that notifying some people this week that they must leave the motels or talk with Brown will initiate action.

“The goal is to permanently rehouse everyone,” Jones said. "We recognize that this is catastrophic, this is once in a lifetime, and we want to be as supportive as we can."

If people have questions about getting their belongings back or other topics related to Latitude Five25, they can call Celebrezze at 614-645-6769 or Hannah Jones at 614-645-7125, Celebrezze said.

Former Latitude Five25 residents who are in need of housing help, whether living in the motels or not, can reach R.H. Brown and Company at 614-421-6333.

Anyone who requested replacement food stamps for December can call the number on the back of their Ohio Direction Card to see if they were granted.

dking@dispatch.com

@DanaeKing