Ms. Doris Dean Parfait
November 20, 2009Mrs. Gloria Celestine
November 24, 2009
Renovations at Senator Circle Housing Complex in East Houma are 95 percent complete, Houma-Terrebonne Housing Authority officials said last week.
However, Senator Circle residents are still not convinced the project is nearing a close.
The residents were asked to leave the dwelling for safety reasons, said Housing Authority Director Wayne Thibodeaux.
“After the storms, we stayed in the apartments and just cleaned them up,” said Senator Circle resident Tawanda Miller. “But then the housing authority conducted a test that showed we had mold in the air. They made us move out of those apartments.”
Miller and her family of more than eight moved from a four-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom dwelling in Senator Circle.
Another resident, Mille Crochet, her three children and granddaughter moved from a three-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom. Crochet said the frustration of being cramped in a small apartment is taking its toll on everyone.
“They’ve told us about five different dates since we moved out of our apartments in January,” she said. “I just want to be back in my apartment. This is getting ridiculous.”
Many other Senator Circle residents did not have the option to move into a vacant apartment. Those residents remain displaced with family and friends, or have found other housing.
Now the lingering question remains: Will the residents be in the renovated apartments by the end of November?
Thibodeaux did not give a specific date as to when residents can return to their apartments.
“I am reluctant to give a specific time frame because there have been some setbacks with the project before,” he said.
Senator Circle residents have been displaced for more than 10 months because hurricanes Gustav and Ike damaged more than 100 apartments.
The apartments were vacated in January because Hurricane Gustav inundated the apartments with nearly 3 feet of water, causing water damage and a mold-like substance to grow in the apartments’ walls.
It took the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners two months to secure an architect and contractor, hiring Houma architects Marcello & Associates and Baton Rouge-based contractors First Millennium Construction.
Thibodeaux said the remainder of the work consists of stripping and waxing the floors in the 30 apartments that were completely renovated.
Project Manager Tramel Lowery of First Millennium started the renovations in April.
First Millennium owner Nathian Hossley estimated the project would take three months to complete.
However, Thibodeaux amended First Millennium’s scope of work in late May to add an extra 30 units to the project that had to be totally renovated.
“We were asked to replace 4 feet of dry wall in the damaged apartments,” Hossley said, “but then Mr. Wayne decided 35 days later that he wanted us to completely redo 30 units. That addition pushed our timeline to September.”
September came and more delays arose, Hossley said. The housing authority ordered the wrong cabinet fixtures for the kitchen, which pushed the timeline to late October.
“The housing authority hired someone else to order the cabinets,” Hossley said. “When it was time to install them they were incorrect, and I refused to install them that way. So the housing authority had to go back and reorder the cabinets to fit.”
Lowery and Curtis Marcello, owner of Marcello and Associates, executed a final inspection of the renovated apartments earlier this week.
“The work First Millennium was responsible for completing is done,” Hossley said. “We are now finishing up the punch lists items and the rest is for the housing authority to complete.”
So, who is actually to blame for the delay?
Former Housing Authority Commissioner Brenda Belcher said Thibodeaux, Hossley and Marcello should share equal responsibility for the holdup.
“The bulk is being shifted from one person to the other,” Belcher said. “The housing authority needs to explain the delay to the tenants and stop giving them dates and never following through on them, because right now they are complaining about housing. They are blaming Mr. Thibodeaux, and I feel that all of them are to blame. The bulk has to stop somewhere.”
Thibodeaux does accept some responsibility for the impasse.
“I am not happy with the way the project is going,” he said, “but it’s nothing that we can’t fix. I don’t want to pacify the residents by moving them back in when there is still a small amount of work that has to be done. I don’t want workers having to move around tenants. I just don’t want to do that.”
