GALVESTON, Texas — Starting this week, 74 disabled and elderly residents will have leave Gulf Breeze, a housing project some have called home for decades, as the housing authority continues its first-ever large scale renovation of the high rise.
While some say they are unhappy about leaving Gulf Breeze, 1211 21st St., they are more unhappy they can’t return.
Galveston Housing Authority Executive Director Harish Krishnarao said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development prohibits housing authorities from allowing tenants to return to rehabilitated units if the agency provides them with suitable replacements.
The agency is providing displaced Gulf Breeze residents with recently renovated apartments on the first floor of Holland House, 2810 61st St., which was flooded when Hurricane Ike struck Galveston on Sept. 13, 2008.
But some say they don’t want to move to Holland House, where they say the apartments are smaller and the neighborhood is unfamiliar. They derisively call Holland House "the graveyard" because it looks out over a cemetery.
"I don’t see why we have to leave," Dorothy Mae Jones, 78, said. "And then you can’t come back? Oh no. That’s pathetic. That’s pathetic."
Nazrene Davis’ entire life revolves around Gulf Breeze, where she’s lived for the past 15 years. She plays bingo with her neighbors in the downstairs lobby, she shops at the nearby drugstore, and she’s memorized the schedule of the city buses that stop regularly at the development to take residents to grocery stores and Walmart.
"I don’t understand — I don’t want to go," Davis, 82, said. "I never wanted to go."
Davis said when she read the letter from the housing authority saying she had to move from Gulf Breeze — and that she wouldn’t be allowed to come back — she almost had a stroke.
"It’s taken the wind of her sails," her great-niece, Zina Simmons, said. "She’s not the same."
Krishnarao said he would write a letter asking the federal housing department to allow the agency to let displaced Gulf Breeze residents move back once the units are renovated, but he wasn’t making any promises.
The housing authority started renovating Gulf Breeze before Hurricane Ike, but the project was put on hold for months after the hurricane while the agency did emergency repairs to other hurricane-damaged developments. The agency restarted the renovation again months ago on floors six, seven and eight, abating asbestos by replacing the floors and ceilings, installing new cabinets and appliances, renovating the bathrooms, painting the rooms, replacing the windows and installing new air-conditioning units. The eighth floor should be finished by mid-March, while floors six and seven will be ready by May.
The agency has agreed to replace the sewer lines on the first floor and modernize the rooms on floors two through five. That work will begin in April on the fifth floor.
Residents living in rooms on floors two through five will begin moving into Holland House today. Krishnarao said about that 30 percent of those residents are unhappy about moving to Holland House, but the rest are excited.
William Julian, 75, said he volunteered to leave Gulf Breeze for Holland House because he can safely access more stores and restaurants near Holland House in his motorized scooter. Unlike the Gulf Breeze neighborhood, where the lack of sidewalks forces Julian to ride his scooter in the busy street, Holland House is encircled in sidewalks that connect him to grocery stores, fast-food restaurants and the beach.
Julian said he’s also excited about living in a first-floor apartment at Holland House where he won’t be reliant upon an elevator. The Gulf Breeze elevators are frequently shut down so the housing authority can repair damage that Krishnarao said has been largely caused by motorized scooters. The old elevators aren’t equipped to handle the pressure put on them by the bulky, heavy scooters.
Still Julian said he could understand why some of his neighbors who have lived in Gulf Breeze for years would be reluctant to move.
As Simmons helped her great-aunt pack up eight decades of belongings, she urged Davis not to unpack any of it until the housing authority agreed to let her return to Gulf Breeze.
"I sure don’t want to go," Davis said.
