Retired truck driver Herman Lee White, 75, lives in a neighborhood in Wellston where he knows everyone’s face, if not their name.
White found his apartment after realizing he wouldn’t be able to retire unless he lived in public housing. When he moved in 17 years ago, it was a complex for seniors, and now some families with children live there as well. It’s the kind of place where people check up on each other, he said.
In August, White learned that his apartment was among the approximately 200 public housing structures in Wellston proposed to be demolished.
“A lot of my neighbors are thinking that they don’t want to move,” White said. “We’ve been together since 2002. If you go somewhere else, people don’t know you.”
About 530 people (or 174 families) reside in the low-income housing units ‒ about one-fourth of Wellston’s residents. Wellston is the poorest municipality in St. Louis County, where more than 40 percent of its 2,300 residents live below the poverty line ‒ and 65 percent of those are children.
The decision by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was unexpected, according to records.
In fact, the City of Wellston officials had been negotiating with the federal agency for a year to regain local control of the Wellston Housing Authority, which consists of some 200 public housing structures scattered throughout the city. The city lost control in 1996, when the federal agency took possession and governance of the housing authority due to a breach of contract.
On April 19, Daniel Sherrod made an impassioned speech at his last board meeting serving as chair of the Wellston Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, according to the meeting minutes. There, he said that Wellston had “earned its rightful place” to regain control.
“You all should be happy that I am leaving because that means that you are within six months of transitioning back to local control,” said Sherrod, who is an employee of the HUD St. Louis Field Office.
At the May meeting, the commissioners announced that the plan to transition control in September was still underway.
However, in August the commissioners announced that the housing authority was struggling and the decision was made to dissolve it, rather than transfer the operation back to the city. This decision meant demolishing all of the properties.
Since then, residents and city officials have been waiting for more information about a timeline for the demolition. The HUD St. Louis Field Office was supposed to submit an application to dissolve the Wellston Housing Authority in January. But it has not yet made a move, and local city officials are hoping that HUD won’t.
“Most of them are elderly and been in Wellston for a long time,” said Janice Trigg, city administrator of Wellston. “Displacing people is not what we want to happen. They were supposed to have made a decision January 1, and now we are almost to March. We are expecting nothing to happen.”
Trigg hopes that HUD is giving the city time to find investors that will help the city develop units before the old ones are destroyed so residents can stay in Wellston.
However, James Heard, director of the HUD St. Louis Field Office, said that the delay was only due to the government shutdown earlier this year.
“I cannot tell you what will be the timeframe when all of this is going to take place, but it will be taking place,” Heard said.
After the St. Louis HUD office puts in its application to dissolve the authority, then the Housing Authority of St. Louis County will apply to demolish and will work with residents to find other housing arrangements.
“This process has been going on for a while,” Heard said. “The mayor and his council have been in various meetings from time to time. They had time to work on any type of strategy or solution or development plan.”
Heard cited several reasons for the decision, including increase in crime, vandalism, ongoing maintenance costs and lack of revenue.
Heard said he did not want to respond to whether or not he thought the community was justified in feeling confused and shocked about the demolition after hearing Sherrod’s statement about a return to local control.
Not knowing is ‘torture’
Wellston resident and community organizer Farrakhan Shegog believes tearing down all the units would be a waste.
“From our standpoint, instead of spending $1.7 million to demolish of them, they could modernize some of the ones that are not in bad shape,” Shegog said.
Some of the units that were built in the 1960s are not fit for families to live in and need to be torn down, he said, but the ones that were built in the late 1980s and ‘90s just need some work.
Shegog’s grandfather has lived in Wellston since 1960s.
“Wellston is a prideful small city in spite of not having everything other cities have,” he said. “We all want to see beautiful sidewalks and home repair programs.”
At the November 28 Wellston City Council meeting, HUD officials said that the only way to stop the demolition and disposition was for the city to find investors or buyers who would commit to redeveloping the public housing and who had secured financing by December 23.
“Yet HUD knew or should have known that finding such individuals or entities in less than one month was a practical impossibility,” Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, who is representing some of the residents, wrote to HUD Secretary Ben Carson on February 5.
Legal Services attorneys said they have been working with the city since late November to bring together people with expertise in redevelopment, financing, and urban planning. And they’ve had some success but need more time, said Lisa J. D’Souza, the Legal Services attorney who wrote the letter. Legal Services asked for HUD not to demolish the public housing units until the “developers have a full and fair opportunity to make a proposal for financing and preservation.”
Carson has not responded to the letter.
Shegog said community leaders decided not to wait for the federal government to offer residents services. They hosted a community event with 25 service providers ‒ including housing, credit agencies, mental health, attorneys, utility assistance ‒ and about 650 people attended.
D’Souza said that the federal government is legally obligated to resident relocation assistance under the U.S. Housing Act that governs the demolition of public housing.
Shegog said not knowing when the federal government will act is “torture” for the community.
“It’s forcing people to ask, ‘Should I drop everything and move now? Should I wait until HUD comes and talks to me? Even if I do wait on HUD, will they say if I’m eligible or ineligible to get vouchers?’” he said.
“It leaves people in fear.”
