ATLANTIC CITY — Housing Authority representatives told Stanley Holmes Village residents they must all be out of the troubled complex by October 2025, and gave them options for their future along with offers of credit repair counseling, at a meeting Wednesday evening.
Some may even qualify for help becoming homeowners, a credit counselor told about 100 residents at the All Wars Memorial Building next to Stanley Holmes Village.
“I have talked to engineers and architects, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt — on my mother’s grave — that Stanley Holmes has outlived its usefulness,” said Diane Johnson, a consultant to the authority who used to run the Newark office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HUD funds and oversees thousands of housing authorities nationwide.
Residents were told their options are moving to another housing authority property, moving into private rentals in the city or elsewhere with a Section 8 voucher, or becoming a homeowner with the help of Section 8 and other programs.
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Some residents have said they won’t leave, but Johnson said that’s not an option.
“You are not guaranteed an address, you are guaranteed a unit,” Johnson said. “Nobody is going to say, ‘I’m not going I’ve been here 20 years.’ That ain’t the way it works.”
Seven buildings need to be empty by Oct. 15 of this year, which is the start of the heating season, Johnson said, to ease the demand on the problematic heating system that relies on 1930s underground water pipes.
On June 27, the Atlantic City Housing Authority passed a Stanley Holmes Village transfer plan that said it would move most Village 3 residents out of their apartments by Oct. 1, into either other authority complexes or into private housing using Section 8 vouchers.
Members of the media and attorneys for the residents were not allowed into the meeting, but one attendee recorded what was said and made it available.
Under the Section 8 program, residents pay 30% of their income toward rent and the federal government pays the rest.
“You are all in a bad situation. I get it,” said Russell Graves, executive director of Consumer Credit and Budget Counseling, a nonprofit multistate licensed credit counseling agency in Upper Township.
“The obstacles to buying a house or renting a place are your credit,” said Graves, who said his agency will provide counseling to Stanley Holmes residents free of charge. “If your credit is bad, a private landlord does not want to rent to you.”
His agency has 15 counselors and uses algorithms to help determine what actions will get a person from a 540 credit score to a 620, high enough to rent on the private market, he said.
“We can help you get in,” Graves said.
Graves also said there are programs to help Section 8 voucher holders become homeowners, and he can help people qualify for those programs.
“Who wants to own a house?” he asked the crowd. A couple of hands went up. “The housing choice voucher lasts 15 years if you go buy a house. You can take the voucher and pair it up with down payment assistance of $15,000 to $22,000.”
Atlantic City Housing Authority member Charmaine Hall fought for transparency and residents rights, clashing often with the board's leadership. On Thursday, she said she intends to step down.
Johnson said HUD’s underfunding of all housing authorities for decades has resulted in poor conditions in Atlantic City and elsewhere, and HUD wants to get out of the business of running public housing because Congress won’t properly fund it.
Stanley Holmes’ first village was built in the 1930s, and two more additions were completed by the 1950s, bringing the total number of apartments to 420.
Stanley Holmes Village 2 resident Robin Knuckles said Thursday she got a bit more information about how she will find new housing after the meeting.
“Credit repair will be my first step,” Knuckles said. “I’m making an appointment today.”
She hopes to find an apartment in a complex on the mainland, she said, even though she needs dialysis three times a week and can now walk to it from her Stanley Holmes apartment.
“I can get a ride to dialysis,” Knuckles said of medical transport by Atlantic County. She said she does not own a car.
Under Section 8, she will have to pay her own utilities, she said, but she would still prefer that to going to another housing authority complex. Most are high-rises and she does not want to live in a place that requires use of elevators, she said.
Some in the crowd, however, told Johnson other housing authority buildings are also in bad condition, citing friends who live with rodent and bedbug infestations and more.
Atlantic City Housing Authority Executive Director Tom Sahlin testified last month in Superior Court that the authority was moving to install a new heating system in Stanley Holmes Village by Oct. 1, as repeatedly ordered by the court over the past year. But documents sent to the attorney for about 130 residents of Stanley Holmes suing over unsafe and unhealthy conditions there show the authority has done no such thing.
“How can they pay (to move) people out of these conditions and send them in worse?” asked one resident. “Those high-rises, let’s be honest, are worse than Stanley Holmes Village.”
Authority staff said units will be inspected and problems fixed before anyone is moved to them.
“If they don’t have Stanley to worry about, problems in other buildings can now be corrected,” Johnson said. “I cannot begin to tell you how much money has been spent in Stanley.”
Housing Authority Executive Director Tom Sahlin said HUD will provide less funding to the authority once Stanley’s 420 units are gone, but other buildings will still have more money available for maintenance.
“We could put 100% of our capital budget into Stanley for the next 10 years and barely make a dent in the projected needs, which would simultaneously create a deferred maintenance nightmare for the remainder of our residents,” Sahlin said.
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