While for some, a long and complicated ordeal to relocate from the Housing Authority's soon to be gone Hawk View Apartments is winding down with a somewhat satisfactory outcome, for others it's still an uncertain process or a deeply disappointing one.
The 100 apartments here are being destroyed to be rebuilt safer with double the capacity as part of a public/private agreement between a hidden partner and the Reno Housing Authority. Many of the former tenants we interviewed will miss its community spirit and cozy environment, with a colorful mural outside, a picinic area, a small community garden and playground.
Early this week, a staff point person for the contracted Housing to Home relocation company told Our Town Reno eight tenants still needed to finalize getting new apartments in different parts of northern Nevada.
Among them is William, who couldn't figure out some of the required computer logistics for his paperwork, which delayed his relocation process.
"Last Friday, some stuff happened with the lease, so I couldn't sign the lease, so I couldn't get the keys," he explained.
He didn't put his 11-year-old kid in school for his first day back amid the uncertainty of where he would end up going.
William had a job here as a groundskeeper, getting paid $200 per month, which he's lost now. He's also afraid at how much he'll have to pay himself with his voucher at the Marina Village where he's being relocated, where rents are much more expensive.
Christina, a single mom of four including a special needs child, who was unhoused prior to living here, received a notice she would be required to move by Friday "due to construction plans in your current apartment."
She was provided with a public housing transfer to Essex Manor, which she initially wanted to avoid since it's far out in the North Valleys.
Due to credit issues, she was denied qualifying for the Marina Village or another location.
Christina also needs to register her kids to go to a new school. She will miss her neighbors who were friendly to her. "As a single parent, I should have got something close to here, like anything," she said.
On the bright side, she's been told her rent will be dropped to zero and "the electricity allotment is a lot higher, $175 compared to the $50 that I was getting here. Just trying to look at it from the positive light. But you know, I don't want to be all the way out there," she said.
Christina says she's still on the Housing Authority's list for a three-bedroom voucher, "so whenever my name pops up, God willing, I'll be ready."
Judith Williams, who helped Christina and others as they navigated the drawn out relocation process, just passed her inspection on her Hawk View unit.
There will be at least another step for her to get her security deposit money back as she's just been told she needed to bring the lease of the new apartment where she was relocated, the adjoining Springview by Vintage apartments.
Adding her mom to come live with her helped, due to her good credit, a requirement tenants weren't expecting would factor in so much for the relocation.
"We all were told that our credit wouldn't be a problem," Williams says. "I don't have the greatest credit, obviously, you know, or else I wouldn't be in public housing."
Her only complaint so far is being higher up, having to go up and down three stories.
Another tenant who also moved to Springview, Trista, a single mom of two, was still trying to figure out what the portion of her new rent is. "How is my portion of the rent still supposed to be $496 when it's just me and my 2 girls and I have no source of income right now and we are supposed to be getting something that's similar to what we had at hawk view?" she asked in an email, fearing she would have to move again. At Hawk View, her portion of the rent was just $27.
Trista previously went through the local Step2 Recovery program and recently got a car to be more mobile for job opportunities.
Ashley, who was unhoused in her thirties, is angry at where she was relocated, the Reno Vista apartments, both in terms of the higher costs she'll have to pay as well and inferior living conditions. She's back here to talk to others about their own relocation experiences.
"It's a pretty shitty apartment, to be honest with you," she says of the apartment where she was relocated. "It's got cockroaches, which we don't have here."
She arrived at Hawk View four years ago, thrilled at the opportunity to live here. Now, she's despondent.
Her portion of rent she says has gone up from a base of $21 to $356 with added fees for utilities, water, trash, sewer, washer and dryer and insurance. Her son who lives with her is working part-time at the Boys and Girls Club, but she feels that's not enough to cover what they will need to pay.
"As of right now. I don't have any plans," she says. Like others, she feels the Reno Housing Authority and the relocation company promised an easy, seamless process, where tenants would be satisfied with their new housing.
"I did everything on my own. I had to go through the application process. I had to pay for that. I had to go through their credit checks and everything else," she explains.
Ashley, who was homeless for two years, and suffers from schizoaffective disorder, initially went through a Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health program before getting a place in Sparks and then into subsidized housing. She now regrets having gone in the direction of using a housing voucher during this relocation process.
"This is public housing. You would assume that public housing would be a lot worse to live in than you would an apartment like that. But no, that's not the case, I miss this place. I miss my home. This place is like a community."
She says she believes a few units on shifting clay soil could have been fixed, rather than demolishing the entire complex which was built in the early 1980s.
"I'm just kind of worried after hearing what these guys were saying about, like, extra costs and stuff," William said of his looming move after Ashley was interviewed.
The last days at the Hawk View apartments have been difficult, with people trying to break in to the laundry and dryer area recently to steal money, electricity and gas being cut in different sections, and unhoused people camping within the compound.
Reno Housing Authority says the new housing here will be rebuilt better and with double the size of units. Tenants who used to live here, like Ashley, say they fear other comfortable public housing units will also be demolished as part of growing public private partnerships to house those most in need in our community, creating difficult transitions and imperiling those who had recently gotten out of homelessness like herself.