Seniors Evicted From Westerly in Low-Income Housing Transition

More than 30 seniors were told this week that they will be required to leave Lakewood's The Westerly, the senior living facility reports on its website.

The 179-unit Westerly III, one of three buildings on the property, will be renovated using federal Housing & Urban Development (HUD) money beginning in October 2013.

But one of the requirements of the funding is that all residents are low-income — categorized by HUD as making less than $26,640 annually, or less than $30,480 for couples.

The facility notified 34 residents who do not qualify as low income that they must leave the apartments by Sept. 30. Westerly is offering $1,200 to help cover moving costs to each resident, it noted on its website.

The Community's Response

Residents and community members have sounded off about the announcement on Lakewood Patch.

Writes Maggie Rader, whose mother will be evicted from Westerly III:

Because her income is less than $2,000 over the eligible guidelines, she will be forced to live in other accommodations that do not have the services she has relied on. My Mom worked hard at minimum wage jobs all her life. We came here as immigrants because she believed in the American dream for our family. She never took aid or handouts from anyone ... These LIHTC guidelines do not take into consideration long-term residents who have established a home. Why won't the government allow for a grandfather clause, especially for long term residents like my Mom? My Mom called me scared and crying when she had to sign her own eviction notice.

85-year-old Clark Stager, a seven-year resident of the Westerly, said he was “stunned” by the announcement. “It didn’t really sink in,” he said. “I didn’t think it would affect me because I’m pretty handicapped.”

Stager, who had both legs amputated due to diabetes and suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis, along with a host of other debilitating ailments, gets by on a pension from his decades of work as a teacher at an Ohio juvenile correctional facility. He pays $626 per month for rent, plus $10 for cable.

One of these women, Eleanor French, has led a letter writing campaign for the troops in Afghanistan. The Marine Corp has given the Westerly a gift of their flag flown over Camp Leatherneck in the Helmund Provence during Operation Enduring Freedom as thanks to her work. It is a dreadful shame that these men and women whose generation have lived through the depression, a world war, Korea and Vietnam and losses of fathers, sons, and brothers should be treated so cavalierly. As you know some of these people are very elderly and are thriving here and a move such as this can affect them very adversely because they will not only lose their home, but their community. In cases like this, if nothing else, there should be an age cap (80 years) on who can be forced out of their homes. This is a plea to allow these people to stay until their deaths or upon their need to move to another residence.