City Finds Hotel Rooms for Displaced Heritage House Tenants

After nearly three weeks as evacuees, the former tenants of Heritage House Apartments got a much-needed dose of good news Saturday.

That’s when St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones announced that the city has secured at least one hotel, and was in the process of securing a second, to provide rooms for the evacuees, including 120 still sheltering at the Hilton by the St. Louis International Airport. They'll be able to stay in them until February 29.

The good news couldn’t have come soon enough. Up until Jones’ announcement, the Heritage House tenants were under the belief they needed to move out of the Hilton by Tuesday.

A woman who’s lived at Heritage House for more than 10 years expressed joy and relief at Saturday’s news. She’s been living in hotel rooms with her husband since January 15, when water pipes at the 18-story high-rise on Olive Street in Midtown St. Louis froze up and burst, flooding many floors and the basement, resulting in the 252-unit building’s condemnation.

“This is like a nightmare I haven’t woken up from,” said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. She and her husband were originally evacuated to the Hilton at the Ballpark and stayed there a week before being moved to the Hilton by the airport.

The woman’s husband, who also wished to remain anonymous, said they had no options under the original February 6 deadline.

“All our family’s in California,” he said. “And the daughter that we do have in St. Louis, she’s also homeless.”

Nearly 200 residents, most of them elderly and disabled, were evacuated by the city as a result of the burst pipes. Some have since moved in with family, but up to 150 evacuees are still in need of temporary shelter, according to Conner Kerrigan, Jones’ communications director.

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MIKE FITZGERALD

Charles Wartts, 77, was displaced from Heritage House after a frozen pipe burst. He now needs to find new housing ASAP.

Sansone Property Management Company, which oversees Heritage House, had previously arranged to put residents up at the Hilton and was paying for their stay. But the company sent a letter to the evacuees on January 23, informing them they had until January 30 to stay at the Hilton, after which time they could stay there at their own expense.

The Heritage House Corporation Board of Directors later announced the company would pay for tenants’ stay at the Hilton at least through February 6.

The Heritage House tenants will be refunded their current month’s rent, as well as any deposits they had made on their apartments, according to Marquetta Hamell, the on-site property manager.

Several major issues remain unresolved for the Heritage House tenants, including the fate of major possessions, such as furniture. As one tenant pointed out during a community meeting last week, the building’s freight elevator has been out for a month, and the former residents are allowed only 15-minute stretches to retrieve their stuff. 

Several tenants have told the RFT that moving companies they talked to had told them it would cost at least $1,500 to move their furniture out of the building.

Charles Wartts, a Heritage House tenant staying at the Hilton, told the RFT that so far no one is addressing where to find the money needed for moving expenses.

”We didn’t hear any answers,” Wartts says. “And nobody was supplying them.”