Council Denies Use of Chamber for Housing Sign-Ups

The City Council has voted to deny the firm that manages the Naomi Gardens senior housing project permission to collect housing applications in the council chambers.

Mid-America Apartment Management Co. had advertised in local newspapers that it would take applications from the first 165 people who showed up at the council chambers on Thursday. One hundred apartment units will become available about mid-December at the new low-income housing project located at Naomi and Baldwin avenues.

The City Council, responding to citizen complaints about the selection process, decided not to allow Mid-America to use the council chambers because it said a mail-in lottery arrangement would be more feasible, especially because elderly residents would otherwise have to wait in long lines, City Manager George Watts said. The city also does not want to assume liability for an application procedure over which it will have no control, Watts said. “People have literally come out here to look at the lay of the land so that the day before, they’ll know where to go,” Watts said of the anticipated crowd problem.

Mid-America, an Atlanta-based firm, has told the city that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires that senior citizens apply in person.