Riverchase resident moves into new home, but feels the displaced community was treated ‘like we were kids’

Virginia Holland lived at the East Nashville Riverchase apartments for four years.

Her apartment had ceiling leaks and was infested with mice. So she’s been trying to leave since she got there.

More: An affordable housing complex in East Nashville deteriorated in plain sight. Here’s how it happened.

Texas-based developer CREA bought the complex in December 2021 with plans to demolish it and build a mixed-use development. In order to do that, they’ve been relocating families to new homes.

Even with the help of housing navigators from P.A.T.H.E and Salvation Army, Holland has struggled to find a place that would rent to her seven-person family.

As move-out deadlines passed by her, she watched the complex empty until she finally landed her own place in July.

“It’s very freeing to know that I can come into my house — my house, not an apartment — and just get a piece of tranquility,” she says, as she washes dishes in her new home. “You know, even looking out in my backyard — to know I have a backyard.”

The bonus is she doesn’t have to change schools for her kids “and that was a blessing because I really, really love that school,” Holland says.

But the move wasn’t very smooth.

CREA told residents they would get $500 to cover the moving costs, along with up to $1,700 toward application fees, rent and return of their security deposits from Riverchase. Some residents even had organizers and volunteers with P.A.T.H.E. helping them physically move.

But Holland only got half, and she wasn’t told about this until after she had paid out-of-pocket. The developer says, instead, they paid to remove other barriers — like clearing her electric bill, paying for a storage units and bunk beds for her two kids.

“Everything is ultimately on a case-by-case basis,” Development Manager Stephen Buchanan tells WPLN News. “But in the instance we need to use money elsewhere to best assist that resident, we will do it. In almost all cases, residents are fully aware of every dollar we spend on their behalf, and if they are not aware, then we communicate with them as to what that cost was, why we did it and typically will compensate beyond that if necessary.”

Holland feels like her agency was taken away from her when CREA and P.A.T.H.E. decided what would and wouldn’t be paid for.

“Instead of actually talking to me about it and getting me to say ‘Yes, I need you to help pay that,’ things were being paid for us like we were kids,” she says, “like we didn’t know what to do.”

While Holland moved on her own, she got two flat tires and had to fill her tank — with costly gas prices at the time — to get back and forth.

That put Holland in a financial bind just as her daughters were starting their first week of school, and she missed out on opportunities to purchase a cheap washer and dryer for her new place.

Holland says she qualifies to return to the new Riverchase development when it’s completed in a few years. But she doesn’t want to move back since they aren’t building four-bedroom units.