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GREENSBORO — The tenants compare it to a light bulb coming on — a $3 light bulb.

It was the moment when neighbors at J.T. Hairston Memorial Apartments, owned by a nonprofit board from Shiloh Baptist Church, began comparing notes.

They had been cited with lease violations at their HUD-subsidized housing for minor repairs and upkeep charges, some as minor as a $10 mini-blind, and charged $3 for light bulbs.

Trivial as the charges sound, they added up to penalties, small claims court, families being evicted, and potentially more low-income mothers and their children being left homeless.

“We never knew each other before that,” Hairston resident Starlyn Nelson said last week. “I stayed in my house. I kept my children in my house.”

That changed. Beginning with a petition drive and then a series of court hearings in November, the tenants, most of them single mothers, began using LaTonya Stimpson’s kitchen off Marsh Street as an office. There, they wrote meeting agendas and drafted fliers. Weekly, they have walked picket lines, ventured into Shiloh on the occasional Sunday, phoned any public official who might help — with little success.

Thursday, coupled with a notice in their mailboxes that property management firm Westminster Co. will inspect apartments this week, a price list showed how repairs added up:

The charge for a maintenance call is $15 hourly during normal business hours. Added to the labor is parts: $18 for a toilet seat, for example, $6 for a stove burner drip pan, $8 for a toothbrush holder.

Tenants said other items, though they include labor, were unreasonably high: $8 for a key, $6 for a smoke alarm battery, all to be paid within 30 days, subject to penalty or eviction.

“They’re making money off us,” argued Nelson, a mother of four. “People say 'Just move.’ I’m not working, and I’ve been on a waiting list for Section 8 since ’04.”

Site managers at Hairston have referred questions to Westminster Regional Property Manager Ron Cagno, who did not return phone messages.

At Hairston, one of four HUD-subsidized complexes in Greensboro that the national company manages, Nelson lives rent-free in a four-bedroom, one-bath apartment across from Smith Homes.

A nonprofit board made up of members from Shiloh church, through its agent Westminster, is reimbursed by HUD $867 per month for Nelson’s unit, plus $150 for utilities.

The difficulties began when tenants complained about what they saw as inconsistent enforcement of rules by Westminster.

They also complained that there is nowhere for children to play at the 108-home community, a decision the church board said was for the residents’ own safety.

What started with a simple, door-to-door petition circulated by one mother, Stimpson, has pitted the tenants against one of the city’s historic black churches and a large national leasing company represented by a top city law firm.

Attorneys for the City Human Relations Department have sided with the tenants, arguing Stimpson is the target of retaliatory eviction.

With Stimpson due back in court Wednesday on a motion to stave off eviction until her case is heard this summer, the agency has tried to extract monetary settlements by Westminster on behalf of individual tenants.

According to a draft of one such conciliation agreement, Dante Townsend was offered $1,000 after having his family’s belongings left on the curb in December.

Townsend said last week he and his fiance rejected the settlement because it focused on discrimination rather than actual damages he and his family incurred when they lost their furniture, TV sets and children’s clothing.

Townsend said accepting a settlement also would weaken the ongoing efforts of the remaining tenants.

Tim Hopkins, a social justice activist who helped the tenants organize, called the offer, which was not announced publicly, “ridiculous.”

“If people only knew the insulting offer,” Hopkins said during a meeting at Faith Community Church. “The next stop is the homeless shelter.”

“No,” corrected Melva Florence, an anti-poverty specialist who is the director of the nonprofit The Last Straw. “There’s a 91-family waiting list at the homeless shelter. The next stop is the street.”

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