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GREENSBORO — As deputies prepared to carry out an eviction and padlocking before a judge signed a last-minute stay Monday, Otis Hairston Jr. was more than just another face in the crowd gathered on the sidewalk.

His grandfather was J.T. Hairston, who pastored Shiloh Baptist Church, touchstone of  the city’s civil rights movement, for 53 years. His successor, Otis Hairston Sr., honored him by naming his brainchild J.T. Hairston Memorial Apartments.

Built in 1968 near Florida Street and Freeman Mill Road, the apartments were a way for Shiloh to practice what it preached. With the help of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it erected a clean, modern, 108-unit community that was a low-cost alternative to the tumbledown, rat-infested shanties and shotgun houses afforded poor people in Warnersville.

“When my father conceived of this housing idea, his vision wasn’t what we are seeing today,” said Hairston Jr., who joined a show of support Monday for tenant LaTonya Stimpson.

Stimpson and her four children were to be evicted Monday, but the action was blocked by a judge’s last-minute restraining order. The 10-day reprieve came not because of Shiloh, but the city human relations department, whose attorneys argued that the family would be left homeless and unable to find subsidized housing in the future.

“It just shows a lack of compassion,” Hairston Jr. said of the church’s role. “The church’s lack of intervention is one of the issues. The pettiness as to why they are being evicted, from what I hear in talking to residents, is another.”
A phone message left for Shiloh housing board Chairwoman Mary Mims was not returned Monday. Ron Cagno, regional property manager for the leasing agent, Westminster Co.,  referred questions to the firm’s lawyers.

A Westminster Co. lawyer  appeared in Superior Court Monday along with attorneys for the human relations department, who spoke on behalf of Stimpson.

Stimpson was to be the last of six tenants evicted from the subsidized housing for failing to pay amounts due for small repairs, including broken miniblinds and new drip pans under stove-top burners.

In Stimpson’s case, the repair was for a burn mark the size of a quarter on a kitchen counter.

Stimpson and the city, invoking the fair housing ordinance, argue that she is being evicted in retaliation for having drawn up a petition complaining about the management.

But Westminster attorney Amiel Rossabi said Stimpson never brought forth her discrimination complaint until she was being evicted.

“The way it’s been portrayed is that there’s some unfair action going on here. Westminster is simply following the (HUD) rules,” Rossabi said.

“There’s a manipulation of the system going on here. Work was done to her apartment. She was supposed to pay. She did not pay.”

Five other tenants who signed the petition protesting management practices have already been evicted from Hairston, where most tenants are either single parents paying minimal or no rent, or senior citizens on fixed incomes.

Human relations department Director Anthony Wade said Monday’s restraining order will allow Stimpson to remain in the apartment until her appeal can be heard in Superior Court on March 25.

In the meantime, Wade confirmed, other tenants from the Hairston community have brought fair housing concerns to the city, but Wade said those investigations are confidential.

Several tenants said they had been contacted Friday by a city mediator with a possible settlement offer. City mediator Cheryl Gant said she could not confirm any such talks.

“In every complaint that involves fair housing, conciliation is a requirement,” Gant said. “That’s all I can say.”

Dante Townsend, who was evicted in mid-December along with his fiancee and seven children, said his family only had the chance to get a few clothes and their mail before the locks were changed and their furniture was tossed to the curb.

Townsend, who said he tried to contact the manager to pay $128 he owed, was told the management wanted the unit and not the money. Though Rossabi said he was unaware of any possibility of a settlement, Townsend and several tenants interviewed Monday said they have been offered substantial sums, including moving expenses.

“It tells me, basically, they recognize there’s a problem and it needs to be fixed,” said Townsend, who said he was bothered that attempts by the tenants to speak with church leaders were rebuffed.

“It’s hard to swallow that it’s church people acting this way. A church in the neighborhood, at that.”

Reached Monday, church trustee chairwoman and housing board member Marva Watlington declined to comment, and deacon Floyd Pettit did not return a phone message.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com