A group of residents at the Magnolia Senior Apartments have been displaced since a ruptured pipe on Christmas Day flooded the complex. Since then, the seniors have been living in hotels. The residents have moved again for the third time to another hotel.
A U-Haul truck was parked outside the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Charlotte’s Northlake neighborhood. A group of volunteers packed the truck with suitcases, boxes, and a walker with wheels that belonged to seniors about to take a ride to their new home — a hotel in Huntersville.
Debra Stacks was waiting for the elevator inside the hotel. She was heading to grab her stuff to place on the truck. She wasn’t content with having to move to another hotel.
“I hate it. I don’t think that it’s fair,” Stacks said. “I don’t know why they’re moving us, but we got to go from here to ‘My Place’ in Huntersville.”
‘My Place’ Hotel-Huntersville is the name of the new spot where the seniors will be staying. It will be Stacks’ third hotel since leaving her home. The last few months have been filled with inconveniences for her. One is being away from an area she is familiar with because she can’t carry out her daily tasks. It takes about 18 minutes to drive from the hotel in Huntersville to the home that flooded at Magnolia Senior Apartments on Beatties Ford Road. That’s a problem for her because she doesn’t have a car.
“I have a lot of doctor’s appointments and other things I need to do,” Stack said. “I want to go to church, and moving me way out to Huntersville is making it even worse for me to get a ride.”
Stacks said that the current situation is causing her stress. But she remains optimistic despite being on the move again. As Stacks pushes a cart along the corridor, she remains cheerful as she interacts with other hotel residents.
“I know God got my back, and it’s all going to work out for me,” Stacks said.
Downstairs in the lobby was Bettie Roddey, one of the 24 seniors moving to Huntersville. She can still recall the day of the flooding and her shock over the situation.
“My sister called me and said, ‘Bettie, my apartment is flooded with water,’ … and when I went out there, water was everywhere,” Roddey said.
Roddey and her sister both lived on the second floor. No water entered Roddey’s home. However, she can’t return to the apartment because she was told the building is unsafe. Since living in hotels, she’s faced one specific obstacle.
“Cooking — can’t cook what you want to cook. It just got two burners, and that’s it, so we have to make do the best we can,” Roddey said.
Janette Kinard, the executive director of Champion House of Care, was dashing around the hotel to help seniors place their belongings on the truck. Champion House of Care and Be You Be Great are two nonprofits helping seniors move. Kinard said they are down to ensuring 56 of the senior's needs are met compared to Christmas, when over 80 seniors faced challenges with housing. The number was reduced as some seniors could find accommodations with family members. She said the seniors were in a tough spot when displaced.
“They got placed over here with nothing, and Champion House of Care came in and started making sure that they had food, clothes, personal hygiene, make sure they had a ride to the doctor, their medicine,” Kinard said. “And most of all, just being an advocate for the seniors to make sure that there were not 84 seniors that were homeless.”
Kinard said one of the biggest challenges the seniors face is the uncertainty over the situation, and they would like to receive answers on several issues.
“‘When are we going to get to go back home? When is this building going to open back up, and why is it that we keep moving from hotel to hotel?’” Kinard said.
Bill Bolstad is the executive director of Mosaic Development Group, which owns the apartment building. He said communicating effectively with the residents has been challenging for several reasons.
“Many of them didn't have computers with them,” Bolstad said. “They didn't know how to get email on their phone; we didn't have a good phone number for a lot of folks.”
To help overcome the problem, the company has started hosting meetings at the hotel to inform seniors about the latest updates. He said moving the seniors to a hotel in Huntersville helps reduce seniors' daily living costs.
“It’s got kitchens, I think, in most units, whereas the other hotels they’ve been staying in don’t necessarily,” Bolstad said. “That makes a big difference when people are living on a fixed income, or they’re low income and trying to make sure they can pay for groceries.”
Since the flooding at the apartment damaged the building’s three floors and 51 of the 82 units, some progress has been made to restore the apartment. The company has recovered power in the building and removed the water. When can the residents start moving back into the building? Bolstad said they’re optimistic that residents on the first floor can move back in by the end of May.
