Displacement looms for Ida victims still recovering from flooding

Nearly five months after thousands of New Jersey families lost their homes, belongings and loved ones to Tropical Storm Ida's devastating floodwaters, many of those still displaced are panicking.

As unclear deadlines loom for them to leave the hotels that local governments have been housing them in, some are still finding it hard to find new affordable places to live in their communities — and they don't know how long the government's hospitality will last.

Recovery is a long, stressful and confusing process for those whose lives were uprooted, and in a state with a serious shortage of available affordable housing, a disaster such as Ida wiping out hundreds of affordable units adds another high hurdle.

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Close to 600 former residents of Oakwood Plaza Apartments, a public housing complex in Elizabeth where four residents died in Ida's floodwaters, lost access to their homes in the flooding with no long-term housing to turn to. Elizabeth paid for the displaced families — many of them refugees who had come to the United States after fleeing disruption in their homelands — to stay in hotels as they searched for new housing.

Salaam Ismial, a local activist and director of the National United Youth Council, said Friday he has been fielding calls all week from frightened residents who say they are being told they have to leave the Embassy Suites in Elizabeth soon — and the families don't have backup plans.

One woman said Friday she was given less than a day's notice to leave her hotel room — even as a strong winter snowstorm with the potential for blizzardlike conditions approached the state on Friday.

And conflicting statements from local and county governments didn't make things any clearer for the families.

“The city is not evicting anyone, the County of Union is,” Ruby Contreras, communications specialist with the city of Elizabeth, told NorthJersey.com Friday in an email.

Union County said that wasn't true, pointing the finger back at Elizabeth officials.

"The city of Elizabeth is in charge of Embassy Suites," said Kelly Martins, director of public information for Union County. "We have 11 families in WoodSpring and APA and we wouldn't evict anybody during a Code Blue in the first place," she said, referring to a designation that opens up warming centers and relaxes shelter rules when the temperature drops below freezing, which was in effect on Friday.

"They were given a deadline of the 31st and are being transitioned into other housing until they can find permanent housing," Martins said. "They will not be on the streets. Nobody will be without housing."

In response to Union County's comments, Contreras said, "The city of Elizabeth has worked to provide apartments for over 700 people left homeless. Currently only 252 remain in hotels. If tenants turn down multiple opportunities for relocation, they are advised the hotel voucher will cease."

Lataiyyah Washington, one of the displaced Elizabeth residents staying at the Embassy Suites, told NorthJersey.com that as she stepped off a bus Friday morning on the way to take her 3-year-old son to the doctor, she got a call from an Elizabeth city official who told her she and her two sons had to leave the room in the hotel that the city was paying for by 11:00 p.m. Friday — even as Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency and the Northeast braced for a winter blizzard and brutal winds.

Washington started to cry.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” said Washington, 35. “I said, ‘It’s about to be a snowstorm, so where are we gonna go, we don’t have anywhere to go,’ and the worker was like ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’”

CIS Management, the company that owns Oakwood Plaza, did not respond to questions by time of publishing. Mayor Christian Bollwage did not return calls to his office for comment.

A HUD spokesperson said, "Residents of Oakwood Plaza are not being forced out of hotels tonight. That statement is not true. There is no HUD rule requiring residents to leave their hotel rooms tonight. The City of Elizabeth continues to fund the hotel costs for displaced residents with financial assistance from FEMA."

A desk attendant at the hotel reached Friday afternoon who declined to give her name said a manager was unavailable, but that the displaced residents will be there until the end of the month and that the city has been extending them each month. A spokesperson with the Hilton corporate office said the Elizabeth hotel was independently owned and operated and that they could not comment on the hotel's behalf.

“They are really scared and frightened,” Ismial said of the displaced residents. “We’ve been trying to get all the agencies to sit down — FEMA, HUD, CIS, and the city and tenants — to set up something more comprehensive to try and deal with this and they’re not trying to hear people. They’re telling these people over and over again, ‘You’ve got to go.’”

“They told me I had to leave today because I turned down apartments they offered me,” Washington said. “I’ve been stressed out all day today. The governor declared a state of emergency — I’m not understanding why we have to leave today.”

Washington said CIS tried to place her and her two children in a one-bedroom apartment in New Brunswick — too small for her family's size — and an apartment in South Jersey.

“That was two hours away in Woolwich from where my kids go to school, and where my baby goes to the doctor at Beth Israel in Newark,” Washington said. “Looking for a new place has been very hard. It’s very hard.”

Samaria White, 42, also staying in the Embassy Suites, received a call Friday from Elizabeth officials and a representative from CIS Management.

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"They offered me a two-bedroom in Atlantic City," White said. "I can't take that, I have a 17-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter and we left a three-bedroom. This doesn't fit my family size. They said, 'Well if you are not willing to take this when we're offering you something, we can no longer pay for you and February 4th will be your last day."

"I would be leaving behind everything if we had to go to Atlantic City," White said. "I have a special needs son who requires important services, and his therapists are here in Elizabeth. I've lived in Elizabeth since I was 20. I'm a little furious but I feel like God is on my side."

White received a housing voucher on Dec. 29, and finding housing in the area has been "rough," she said.

"Six hundred families were evacuated, and everybody is looking for the same thing in the same area," White said. "So right now there is nothing, unless you want a hole in the wall."

HUD provided 113 vouchers to families who lived on the first and second floors of Oakwood Plaza Apartments, and was trying to help residents find HUD-approved housing nearby. “But these units are in short supply,” said Olga Alvarez, a HUD spokesperson.

Of those with vouchers, 44 families have found housing, and 69 are still searching for an apartment, according to HUD. Another 86 families are temporarily living in other privately-owned HUD-subsidized apartments.

Bollwage told NorthJersey.com in November that the city has a team calling apartment owners to find vacant units. Elizabeth is spending $40,000 a week housing flood survivors temporarily in hotels.

He said his focus was "trying to get 600 people into an apartment and out of hotels."

Ashley Balcerzak is a reporter covering affordable housing and its intersection of how we live in New Jersey. For unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: balcerzaka@northjersey.com

Twitter: @abalcerzak

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Ida flooding victims face housing concerns with snowstorm