The city of Newark says it’s time.

Time for the residents at Terrell Homes to go to another place to live. The Newark public housing development so many have called home for so long is on its last legs.

It’s too expensive to maintain, the residents were told. It’s old and it’s located near chemical companies and once had 650 tons of contaminated soil removed from the land.

But Terrell Homes’ feisty residents don’t want to move.

Sure the place is in bad shape in some ways, but they are not staying for what it is now. They are staying for what it was.

The milkman delivered juice and milk once upon a time in the 1950s. Residents nodded off on the stoop and nobody bothered them. Unlocked doors were so common that neighbors helped themselves to the cupboard, leaving a note promising to replace what they took.

“People don’t believe it when I tell them that,” Rosemary Horsley, 65, said.

If someone died, residents raised money for the family. They fed each other’s children, and chastised them if necessary. There were fun days in the summer with pie-eating contests and bobbing for apples. Tenants were screened to keep the riffraff out, buildings had floor captains and the hallways were spotless, decorated with flowers, pictures and doodads.

“We tried to out-do each other,” said Rita Fortenberry.

The Newark Housing Authority was about to erase that memory with its plan to move 263 families from the aging three-story complex in the city’s Ironbound section. Built in 1946, Terrell Homes had seen its best days when the administration took a hard look at the place.

Executive Director Keith Kinard said it’ll take $110 million over the next 30 years to maintain, and that doesn’t include unforeseen problems like Sandy. The hurricane caused the Passaic River to flood and wipe out the boiler system.

What you have here is an old car that probably can't make the trip south with the family, but if you have to, you patch it up and hope for the best. The brick homes by the river may be a jalopy, but residents feel it's an antique worth preserving. They made such a stink recently that they persuaded the housing authority back off its plans — a busload of residents dropped in on an authority meeting to protest and get the message across.



"We'll maintain status," Kinard said. "We'll keep it up as best as we can. It's not what I want to do, but it seems like that's the consensus of residents."

Up until the fracas, the idea was simple. The housing authority would apply for funding from the federal government’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program. It allows housing authorities to do a few things to overhaul properties that need a lot of work.

First, the developments get fixed up so residents can stay there. When completed, they become Section 8 property, which means the rental income is higher and housing authorities can borrow money from banks for improvement projects.

This could happen with Terrell as well, but Kinard said its needs were too great. The $110 million he talked about earlier is one problem. When you add in the revenue from rental income at Terrell, Kinard said that money still wouldn’t be enough for the housing agency to pay back a bank if it took out a loan.

Kinard said consultants for the housing authority suggested they could tweak the application to still get federal funds. That's when the plan to move residents got put on the table. Instead of using the federal money to repair Terrell Homes, the NHA would get relocation vouchers and send residents to Georgia King Village, a private Newark apartment building, and two other public housing complexes scheduled to open in 2015.



Everything was moving too fast for residents, and the plan just didn't sit well with them. They hooked up with the Ironbound Community Corp., a neighborhood organization that didn't like what it was hearing.

“Terrell Homes is part of the Ironbound community,” said Joe Della Fave, executive director.

This is home.

They raised families and hold onto memories that keep them here in their senior years.

Mary Brazell, 83, thinks she'll get sick living somewhere else she's been at Terrell so long.

Carol Napier is 74. Her three sisters are 69, 72, 77, and they’ve never left.

“We’ve got history here,” Napier said.

They remember kickball for the kids, family cookouts, sitting outside freely.

Those days are gone, but they’ve dealt with changes when younger residents moved in, disturbing their happy valley.

Crime set in and fighting followed gunshots here and there. Still, they feel safer here than in other parts of the city, knowing police keep an eye on the place. It helps, too, they said, when those living that life would look out for them and show respect for residents who’ve been here a long time.

“We’re still a village,” Fortenberry said.

On most nice days, Horsley is in the park next door to Terrell Homes, where she’s lived 61 years. She takes long walks there to keep her blood pressure in check and her grandson can’t get enough of the playground, which faces the Passaic River. There’s a health clinic and a mini-mall a few blocks away. She can’t ask for much more when you toss in dear friends, many of whom have lived here 50-plus years like her.

“This is my independence,” Horsley said. “Everybody knows everybody.”

Terrell Homes stays open for now, but the NHA will have to pay her a visit down the road again.

Until then, residents can fire up the grill this summer for the annual cookout, then dance their way down the Soul Train line like last year.

“I was so sore the next day,” Horsley said.

True, but it didn’t hurt as much as leaving your home would hurt.

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