More than a month after Tropical Storm Chantal sent four feet of water surging through Camelot Village in Chapel Hill, tenants displaced from the condominium complex are struggling to find new housing and some face homelessness when their temporary shelter at a Durham Comfort Inn expires next week.
Six of the tenants, backed by the Triangle Tenant Union, held a press conference Wednesday to demand that their individual landlords return July rent payments, reimburse security deposits, and cancel leases. The tenants also called for more assistance from local governments with relocation efforts.
After Chantal, displaced Camelot Village tenants were initially housed at an emergency shelter at Smith Middle School before being moved to the Comfort Inn and a nearby Red Roof Inn. The hotel stays have been covered thus far by $100,000 that the Town of Chapel Hill gave Orange County from its emergency fund. At the press conference, tenants said they’ve been told the funding runs out August 29 and that they’ll need to find somewhere else to go.
“I’m going to be homeless, pretty much, because I haven’t found no place to go that I can afford,” said Jessica Tickles. “I had to take off work to find housing, so… it’s like starting from zero again.”
At least 26 Camelot Village tenants still need to be relocated, with only four having been successfully rehoused, according to Triangle Mutual Aid.
Orange County Community Relations Director Wil Glenn told the INDY in a Thursday email that the hotel funding “has been extended several times, and it’s possible that may occur again,” though it’s “too early to determine that today.”
“No resident will be left without a housing plan when the temporary funding ends,” Glenn wrote, adding that county staff are “working intensively with each household through personalized case management.”
Finding new housing costs money—for application fees, moving expenses, new deposits—that many Camelot tenants don’t have, especially those whose individual landlords have yet to return rent payments and security deposits despite their homes being uninhabitable since July 7.
One of the tenants still waiting for money back is Heather Gibbs, who moved into her Camelot condo in April through county housing assistance. Gibbs has spent over $300 in non-refundable application fees trying to find new housing. So far, she has nothing to show for it: some apartments she’s applied to have failed inspections, while others have multi-year waiting lists.
Gibbs’ landlord at Camelot is Richard Kunst. In a phone call, Kunst told the INDY that “the deposit is taxpayer money,” referring to the fact that the county put down the money for Gibbs’ security deposit, and that “it’s yet to be resolved how it should be distributed.”
Camelot Village was built in 1967 in a floodplain near Bolin Creek. The complex has flooded repeatedly over the decades.
“That place is a death trap,” Quinten Simmons, a tenant who has lived at the complex for seven years, said at the press conference. “I’m not going back there.”
Simmons said that while his landlord has offered to return his security deposit, he has not been able to collect it because he doesn’t have a forwarding address to provide.
Dale Weldele, a 62-year-old tenant with a prosthetic leg, was more fortunate—his landlord promptly returned his July rent and security deposit, he said. The night of Chantal, Weldele barely escaped his apartment as his prosthetic came off in the rushing current. Like other tenants who spoke at the press conference, Weldele said he owes his life to good Samaritans who live near his unit.
“If it wasn’t for the neighbors coming to rescue me, I wouldn’t have made it out,” Weldele said. “You fall in that current in my condition, even though I was a great swimmer, you’re gone.”
The fire department did arrive with motorized rafts, but they weren’t able to navigate the swift current, according to Weldele.
As tenants try to rebuild their lives, Triangle Mutual Aid volunteers have been providing nightly meals at the Comfort Inn and helping tenants navigate the paperwork required for assistance—a particular challenge for those who lost all their documents in the flood.
“When you go to apply for the county grants and you go to DSS to get a voucher, they want your birth certificate, they want your driver’s license, they want documentation of who you are,” said Devin Gilgor, a volunteer with Triangle Mutual Aid. “And these people don’t have any of that.”
“We’d appreciate it if the city and the county could step up a little bit and help, because this is all being done by mutual aid,” Gilgor continued. “The same way it was mutual aid that neighbors helped neighbors get out of the apartments.”
Chapel Hill Communications Director Alex Carrasquillo told the INDY that beyond working with Orange County to provide funding for displaced residents, the town stands ready to expedite permits as property owners make repairs. Chapel Hill’s CARE team has also been available to help tenants “make connections to a range of resources,” according to Carrasquillo.
Carrasquillo also said the town has had discussions with property management about working with them to pursue a FEMA buyout—in which the government would purchase the property, demolish the condos, and leave the flood-prone land undeveloped—should they receive a presidential disaster declaration. But securing a FEMA buyout isn’t a simple task: Three past attempts were unsuccessful due to lack of unanimous sign-off from property owners and funding constraints.
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