ADRIAN, Mich. — There's no place like home and that's where displaced Riverview Terrace residents desperately wish they were right now instead of the Adrian Inn.
"Ugh, this has been a rough one," former Riverview Terrace resident Penny King said to WTOL 11 during an impromptu meeting with ten of the displaced Monday morning.
"This is uninhabitable for me," agreed Collette Tudman.
So how did they end up here?
They used to live at the Riverview Terrace Apartments only a few minutes away but in July 2022, the 160 units inside the building received shocking news. There were cracks in the foundation of the building and everyone inside had only mere minutes to pack up and leave.
This situation created a housing crisis and in the weeks following Riverview Terrace being condemned, the city of Adrian put the displaced residents up at the Adrian Inn, a former nuisance property they had purchased, as a way of providing temporary housing.
But only weeks later, city leaders leased the property to Housing Help of Lenawee and established a supportive housing program here. The Riverview Terrace residents said once the switch happened it brought in a different kind of crowd.
"The arguing, the yelling, the drugs, the alcohol, the prostitution still," Richard Houle said. "I mean come on, there's people afraid to even come out of their rooms and sit in the courtyard."
In fact, according to Adrian police records, officers have been to the Adrian Inn 205 times just in the last year, responding to everything from suspicious people to overdoses and break-ins.
And that's just what's going on outside. The residents said inside the apartments, the situation isn't much better.
"In our room, we found a whole bunch of cockroaches and we have mold in our rooms, on top of our bathroom and in our room," Cynthia Houle, Richard's wife said. "They said they're going to have someone come out and fix it but I haven't seen anybody yet."
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel for these people. The management company that owns Riverview Terrace has told WTOL 11 the building could re-open by the end of the month and families like the Houles have already re-applied.
But after two years in this environment, some are still feeling bitter.
"I'm ashamed to call myself a resident of Adrian," Tudman said.
WTOL 11 reached out to the city to get their side of the story and received this statement from city administrator Greg Elliott:
On August 19, 2022, the City of Adrian purchased the Adrian Inn to act as transitional housing for those affected by the Riverview Terrace housing emergency. On October 6, 2022, the City leased the Adrian Inn to Housing Help of Lenawee at no cost to Housing Help. A condition of that lease was that Housing Help would accommodate the former residents of Riverview Terrace for not less than one year. All residents of the Adrian Inn were expected to be actively seeking permanent housing as a condition of occupancy. While the owners of Riverview Terrace, with support from the State of Michigan, have repaired that building, which we expect to be open again in a few weeks, it was unclear in 2022 that the building would be repaired and our advice to former residents at that time was to seek other accommodations as expeditiously as possible. We understand that some former residents chose not to do so. Fortunately, those residents may now apply for tenancy at Riverview Terrace again.