UC Townhomes residents issue demands, including new ownership to protect their homes

The residents of University City Townhomes laid out their demands and plans Wednesday for new ownership of the low-income housing complex to keep it for the people who have lived there for years.

The Save the UC Townhomes coalition, a group formed to represent the approximately 69 families facing displacement from the affordable housing complex, and hundreds of their supporters stood in front of Philadelphia City Hall and loudly called for the purchase of the complex for preservation as affordable housing.

The group’s list of demands included having the townhomes’ owners, IBID Associates, extend the affordable housing contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for two years and for the owners to sell the property to a third party that would keep the complex as affordable housing.

Residents and supporters also called on the city to step in and contribute funds to preserve affordable housing for low-income families across the city.

“Stand up to the developers and stand in with our communities,” said Rasheda Alexander, a 14-year townhome resident and tenant representative. “There is money through state, federal, and local government to preserve affordable housing that is being lost at a historical pace in Philly. Our demand and our fight is to create community control of the people’s townhomes by purchasing the property.”

A spokesperson for IBID Associates declined to comment.

City spokesperson Kevin Lessard said the situation at University City Townhomes involved a private owner attempting to sell to a private developer, but said affordable housing was a “priority” for the city and Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration.

“The property owners have sued the City and Councilmember [Jamie] Gauthier over the legislation that maintains affordable housing at this location. Nonetheless, the City supports improved creation of and access to affordable housing and the property owners’ right to sell and develop their property. We remain committed to assisting in finding and supporting a resolution that embraces both goals,” Lessard said in an email.

After leaving City Hall, the group marched to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where they said developers were holding a gathering. They carried their signs into the building’s lobby.

The 69 or so primarily Black and Hispanic families, some of whom have lived in the townhomes for decades, are facing an Oct. 8 deadline to leave their homes.

The townhomes’ neighborhood was once known as Black Bottom, a historically Black community that was displaced as the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University continued to develop in the area.

The deadline for residents to leave their homes, originally July 8, was pushed to Sept. 7 to accommodate the arrival of federal housing vouchers for displaced tenants. But HUD approved a request from the townhomes’ owners to extend the affordable housing agreement. Residents now have until Oct. 8 to leave their homes, an IBID spokesperson previously said. HUD will continue to provide rental assistance payments for the residents until that date.

Last year, IBID Associates announced plans to end its federal affordable housing contract and sell the property.

The residents, along with other West Philadelphians, housing activists, and labor groups, have been vehemently protesting the plan. Some residents have said that they have yet to receive federal housing vouchers and that the vouchers are essentially useless, with a limited inventory of affordable housing in the city and many landlords refusing to accept them.

For Amira Brown, who has lived in the townhomes for 19 years, she would not just lose a home. She would lose a direct connection to her family and a community.

“The biggest thing I would lose is seeing my grandkids everyday. I have three grandkids that live up the street. If they need something, they stop by my house,” she said.

Lessard said that all current residents had been offered housing vouchers from the Philadelphia Housing Authority and that residents were looking for new housing with said vouchers.

Brown said that one residence she has been shown by the owners’ relocation group is not “adequate” and that the homes she has seen so far are not handicapped accessible, despite her telling the owners she needs accessibility. She also said that other neighbors have said that they’d been shown dilapidated homes with mold and a detached roof and some homes are too expensive for residents to afford.

At the rally Wednesday, Brown said that residents have been shown alternate housing and been met with long lines of other people seeking the same units. And many residents have only recently received their vouchers, the group said, with little more than a month before they’re expected to leave their homes.

In early July, an encampment of supporters set up on the townhomes’ lawn, a symbolic action meant to show what residents might face if they were displaced. Earlier this month, sheriff’s officers dismantled the encampment as residents and supporters shouted, “Shame on you!” and, “Housing is a human right!”

On Thursday, City Councilmembers Helen Gym and Kendra Brooks released a joint statement of solidarity with townhome residents, saying they supported residents’ demand that the city create a fund to preserve affordable housing.

“Housing stability, accessibility, and affordability are among the most fundamental of human rights and the bedrock of a healthy community. It shapes public wellness, community safety, financial stability, and school performance — and it’s why together, we have worked alongside Councilmember Gauthier to transform our city’s housing landscape and restore equal voice and power back to Black and low-income residents who have borne the brunt of an unjust, broken system,” the two councilmembers said in the statement.

Gym and Brooks also supported an extension of the affordable housing contract with HUD, albeit for one year rather than residents’ proposed two years.

Brown said that at the townhomes, she had a neighborhood she could count on, space for her grandchildren to play, and access to her doctors. Being forced out would mean losing all of that and living in a place she might not feel safe.

“I want to stay in my neighborhood in West Philly,” Brown said, to the supporters, rousing them into cheers.

Staff photographer Tom Gralish contributed to this report.