Walking through the junk-mail-strewn vestibule of his North Euclid Avenue apartment building, Jaquaie McAtee almost missed the notice written to postal workers.
Scrawled in black marker and thrown on the floor, the note declared the building vacant and requested an end to service. The phrase “no mail” was underlined three times for emphasis.
For Mr. McAtee, the discovery was the latest in a series of signals from building management that the Section 8 renter was no longer welcome in a building being renovated for market-rate customers.
“I still live here!” he exclaimed, snatching the note off the ground.
The property, leased to Mr. McAtee in October by East Liberty Development Inc. (ELDI), illustrates some of the problems and challenges that have arisen as the organization tries to redevelop the low-income, predominantly black neighborhood into a mixed-income, mixed-race neighborhood.
The redevelopment efforts in East Liberty are to be highlighted today at a meeting Downtown hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. But some East Liberty residents have organized two protests, saying those redevelopment efforts have not been helpful to everyone.
ELDI purchased the building, once a known hotbed for drugs and prostitution, in 2009 with plans to turn it into a mixed-income development. After putting at least $23,346 into plumbing and spending another $38,000 for building management, East Liberty Development gave up on the plan and sold it to CBX Investment Partners VI in March for $1,079,400, leaving the remaining tenants with 60 days to relocate.
While most tenants were given relocation assistance, those with what ELDI director of land recycling Kendall Pelling described as “landlord/tenant issues,” including Mr. McAtee, were left to find housing on their own.
For Mr. McAtee, a former Marine sergeant with post-traumatic stress disorder, that scramble ended last week when the building’s new orders evicted him.
And while ELDI has offered him space in its Mellons Orchard Apartment complex on North Negley Avenue and counseling designed to steer him toward home ownership, the gesture doesn’t erase the feeling he’s no longer wanted in the community.
Aside from a noise complaint for loud music, he said he has never had issues at the complex and feels he has been cheated out of his year lease.
“It’s not like I didn’t pay my rent. It’s not like I’m doing anything crazy. I’m just a Marine veteran that needed somewhere to go,” he said.
Acknowledging there was a lack of communication with tenants that complicated the moving process, Mr. Pelling said the experience at 505 North Euclid was an education for the organization.
After a mass purchase of slumlord properties in 2009, the company addressed security concerns by removing problem tenants and hiring off-duty police officers for patrols.
Although it made the property safer, the building on North Euclid remained in poor physical condition. An exodus of first-floor tenants in the winter led to freezing apartments and cracked water pipes, leaving tenants without water for days and leaving Mr. McAtee with a bad cough.
The lack of tenants meant less rental income, which prevented ELDI from fixing vacant apartments. To complicate matters, revisions to a HUD funding program ruled the organization ineligible for a much-needed redevelopment grant.
ELDI decided to sell the building to a market-rate developer, a decision officials didn’t take lightly, said Mr. Pelling.
ELDI announced on June 2 that it plans convert the Mellons Orchard Apartment complex, where Mr. McAtee moved, from a low-income complex to mixed-income apartments.
“It’s risky for us, it’s risky for the tenants. But the alternative is we know what would happen. They would go to 100 percent market rate if we hadn’t bought them,” he said.
Deborah M. Todd: dtodd@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1652.
First Published: June 18, 2015, 4:00 a.m.