Editor:
Re: Tenants feel pressured to make way for development, Jan. 7
The building owner/developer is getting an unfair image laid on him by his former caretaker couple, that leaves the owner and the former owners of Whitebirch Apartments wondering what it’s all about.
City council will, without a doubt, take into consideration the pandemic factor before giving the green light for the development to proceed. We are getting closer to getting our vaccinations and after the city says go, tenants need to be given notice of three or four months. That is time enough for everyone to find a new place. Help and compensation are assured, the city demands it.
So maybe after an agonizingly extended waiting process, if he hasn’t been driven to financial ruin, the owner/developer, might possibly start the demolition of this outdated money pit by the end of August 2021.
And if the owner does have to declare bankruptcy, then what? Who will pay to maintain this building for the sake of the seniors everyone alleges to care about? Who will pay their moving expenses if they are so near to poverty?
I’m not a popular 66-year-old tenant at Whitebirch, and I must have been self-deluded in thinking I was doing an adequate job in vacuuming the hallways and helping an exceptional older gentleman who lives here in shovelling the snow last winter. (Chuck, as I know him, still does the 7 p.m. homage to frontline workers while everyone else in the neighbourhood quit some months ago).
But your article seems to indicate otherwise.
M.R. Becker, Whitebirch Apts.