Carolyn Huitt keeps her spirits up while facing possible homelessness following her family's forced relocation from the now-condemned Chelsea Gardens apartments in College Park. (DorMiya Vance/WABE)
On a sunless Wednesday morning, a few cars drive up and down Tara Boulevard in Jonesboro. Just along the stretch, facing the road, is a motel with a dozen or so cars sprinkled through the main parking lot.
The building has three floors and is painted royal blue with a strip of white on the second level. Solid black railings line each of the floors, as a towering white and blue sign reads “Live In Lodge.”
This extended stay motel is now the temporary home for Carolyn Huitt and her family. Huitt is a former tenant of the now-condemned Chelsea Gardens apartments in College Park.
Carolyn Huitt (center left) stands among other protesters during a May rally outside Chelsea Gardens apartment complex in College Park. (DorMIya Vance/WABE)
Huitt and some other residents have yet to find stable housing since being forced to leave last month.
Residents were initially given until the end of April to vacate the complex, but an extension was pushed to May 31. On the final relocation deadline, Huitt, who had lived there for nine years, was filled with uncertainty.
“I really am scared at this point. I really am. I’m trying not to be, but I’m nervous. I really am at this point,” Huitt said on the day of the May deadline.
Huitt was moved into Live In Lodge motel at the start of June with assistance from a local church. She’s been there with her adult son and two teenage grandkids for a little over two weeks now.
“I just feel like we were just brought here to get [us] out of Chelsea Gardens,” Huitt said. “I just feel like arrangements were made between office personnel and whomever else, you know, just to get us out … so we ended up in a hotel.”
Huitt’s room is small with tan-colored walls and two full-size beds. There’s also a small kitchenette with a mini fridge attached.
“I don’t like hotels. I don’t. I got this sheet on top of the comforter,” Huitt said. “It smells outside, coming in. I don’t like that. It smells terrible. It does.”
However, Huitt says she’s on a fixed income and hasn’t seen any help from the city. She had until Sunday to come up with money for another week at the motel, which costs about $340.
Additional support was up in the air at first, but a local church did provide enough funds for a longer stay at the motel, according to Huitt.
However, over $100,000 in funds for “relocation fund assistance” was approved and released by the College Park officials to Sage Hands International and Community Growth Partners. A spokesperson for the city says the organizations administered these funds for moving and storage fees.
WABE reached out to College Park’s city attorney for contract information on either group. He has yet to respond to our request.
Meanwhile, College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom addressed the Chelsea Gardens matter at a recent town hall meeting.
“Our function as government gives us a lot of tools in the toolbox that I don’t think that we always use,” Motley Broom said. “I think that could have worked better to make the residents of Chelsea Gardens, just overall, have more opportunity by being in College Park than they actually faced in real life.”
As of now, Huitt says she’s doing what she can to find income-based housing.
“It’s just kind of scary. It’s just kinda scary to me. Well, I mean, we are homeless. We just one payment from being on the streets,” Huitt said. “[But] I can’t break down. I can’t fall down. I can’t because I got people depending on me.”
