TROY — Tenants evacuated from an apartment complex with sagging brick walls are still living in a motel, more than two weeks after Troy code enforcers declared their apartments uninhabitable.
They came to the Troy City Council meeting Thursday to describe their current living conditions: buying three meals a day because they have no way to cook in their motel rooms; whole families squeezed into one room; and facing evictions because they have refused to pay the July rent.
City Council members were irate and voted to open an inquiry and subpoena the owners of Harbour Point Gardens to testify about the situation.
“I’m furious,” said council President Carmella Mantello. “We are being snowballed. We appreciate you telling us the real truth of what is going on.”
Council members said they had been told that the owners were providing food for the residents, who were moved to a motel on Wolf Road while repairs are made to their buildings.
Tenants said they were only given ramen noodles.
“Here’s the ramen noodles, of which I have three packages. I don’t know which is supposed to be breakfast, lunch or dinner,” said tenant Evarist Nicholas, 70, who is retired and diabetic. “Having the health issues I have, I am on a special diet. This is not on my diet. There is no protein here. We’re in a place where we can’t cook.”
She went out to buy food near the motel, on Wolf Road, but it was too expensive, she said.
“Have you looked at the food prices in that area?” she said. “My pension cannot stretch. … This is not how I expected to be living my ‘golden years.’”
When workers turned off the electricity to her building, she called many friends to try to move her expensive oxtail to their freezers. But she had to abandon the rest of her food. And when she went back to her apartment to get the oxtail, she discovered a…
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