At 97, her housing dream fades

Leona Wright, then a feisty 94-year-old Bible school teacher, was beaming.

It was November 2013 and Wright and her longtime neighbors had just learned that they would not have to move out of the Mount Holly Gardens, after all.

"Yes, yes, I'm getting a new house" in the Gardens, she said that chilly night when the residents packed a Mount Holly Township meeting to hear about a potential settlement. It was just days before the case was to go before the U.S. Supreme Court and the settlement would allow the Burlington County town to demolish the complex of aging rowhouses but give Wright and 19 other families new condominiums in the planned development of several hundred units in the Gardens neighborhood.

"I think it's a little late, but it's better late than never," she said then, laughing.

Wright, who turns 97 on Sunday, never got her new place in the Gardens neighborhood. Tired of delays in construction and other problems, she moved to a senior-citizen apartment in Mount Holly in October. Since September, four new Gardens dwellings have sat vacant.

"I didn't want to wait, because I didn't know how much longer it would be," Wright said in a phone interview last week. She said she had fallen last year and tore some ligaments when she slipped from a stepladder while hanging curtains. She said she wanted to get settled and wanted to stop worrying about the move. She still teaches her Bible study class at Second Baptist Church in Mount Holly.

Her son, David Wright Sr., said the roof at the Gardens rowhouse where she had lived for more than four decades also became an issue. It had two gaping holes and it would have been a waste to spend thousands of dollars repairing it since the house was to be demolished. She was using buckets to catch the rain.

"They told her she was getting a house, and I said good, but every time I talked to her, she said, 'well, we're waiting'; 'well, there's another problem,' " her son said. Many of the 40 plaintiffs who initially sued the township had died or moved away, and others took buyouts. After Mount Holly agreed to provide 20 replacement houses, her son wondered if the town might "be thinking she would pass away and there would be one less person to worry about."

Linda Tigar, who has lived in the Gardens for more than three decades with her husband, Robert, and who raised four children there, said she, too, is upset with the delays. She said that her husband had to recently patch the roof and that her washer barely spins. "It's frustrating - do we get a new washer or just wait?" she said.

She also said that she used to grow tomatoes and carrots each summer, but the uncertainty of when they will be moving ended that practice the last two summers.

The first four replacement homes for the Gardens plaintiffs were supposed to ready "no later than December 31, 2014," the next seven by December 2016, and the rest by 2018, the settlement agreement stipulated. Township officials give an assortment of reasons for the slow pace of construction.

A year ago, then-Mayor Rich DiFolco said that builders had encountered "soil compaction issues" and bad weather, and predicted the first four units would be ready by that spring.

Those two-bedroom condominiums were not finished until September, but then there were problems converting the residents' mortgages into new mortgages, he said. The units still sit empty. DiFolco, now a councilman, said recently that the problem rests with the residents and the banks. Under the agreement, any residents who still had mortgages would be required to continue paying them off.

Township solicitor George Saponaro said that the residents should have begun their application process sooner because it takes time. The agreement says that as a last resort, the township would obtain and hold the mortgages for the residents, but he said the residents have not yet exhausted their efforts.

Olga Pomar is the attorney with South Jersey Legal Services who represented the Gardens residents in their class-action housing-discrimination lawsuit. After the town declared the Gardens blighted and in need of redevelopment, the residents of the low-income, mostly minority neighborhood claimed the plan was biased because they could not afford the new units.

Pomar said last week that the banks typically do not provide mortgages for less than $60,000 and that some of the longtime residents owe far less than that. She also said the banks that agreed to make an exception were unable to finish processing the applications because the township had not provided information on the tax bills on the new units and other details that were needed.

"It's frustrating because these houses have sat vacant," she said. "There are certain formal steps the township must take before the deeds can be finalized."

Saponaro also said that the information is now being provided by the township and that there were "complications" with the process.

He also said that Leona Wright had informed the town last year that she wanted to sell her house to the township and decline a new one because she had fallen and her doctor advised her to move. "There was no mention of a roof," he said, adding that the town would have "come up with some solution" to remedy such a situation. He said the town "would work with residents" if they need repairs, but he declined to say whether it would pay for them.

Wright was given $91,000 as compensation for her two-bedroom rowhouse, an amount stipulated by the agreement.

Saponaro said four other residents who were supposed to get replacement houses have died, reducing the number the town is now obligated to provide to 16 units.

Pomar said she also was unaware of the roof problems, but knew that Wright's doctor had told her to move to senior housing.

The roof problem, she said, is shared by others in the Gardens. "That's the most heartbreaking part of this. Because the conditions are horrible, the residents are in a predicament of whether to spend thousands to fix a roof, or if a heating unit goes, since the house is going to be knocked down anyway. It's very frustrating," she said.

Pomar also said that it was sad that "Mrs. Wright didn't realize what she had been promised and had fought for. But there's the reality of her age, and I am happy she never had to experience having her home taken away from her by eminent domain. She courageously helped lead the fight, and had she not, she would have been ousted," Pomar said.

Wright also has no regrets. She said she is enjoying her new apartment and doesn't feel like she was pushed out because the move "was my choice."

When asked whether the Gardens legal fight was worth it, she said that she and her neighbors had done "a good thing." She paused. "We had no idea it would be that long. But it shows that if you stand up for your rights, sooner or later, you will win."

jhefler@phillynews.com

856-779-3224 @JanHefler

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