6 Jul

UNCG housing expansion saves a landlord from debt

Posted by Emma Kincaid in Education Master | Tags :Housing, Housing Expansion |

Say what you want about UNCG and its plans to move into Glenwood.

As the university has slowly staked its claim in the neighborhood by buying properties to make room for student housing, a police station and recreation center, it has angered, worried and scared some residents.

But for Carolyn Tritthart,  UNCG  held the key that finally set the 66-year-old  free.

UNCG is under contract for all the properties it needs to begin the first phase of its expansion into Glenwood, according to a university spokesman. Construction is slated to begin in the fall.

Tritthart said she’s the only one left on her street. Vacant homes are marked with “no trespassing” signs and are boarded on the inside.

She’s not complaining.

“I’ve been living in real estate jail,” said Tritthart, who in March  sold one of two homes she still owned to the university. No more.

Tritthart, who is divorced, came to Greensboro in 2000  from St. Louis with good intentions. The former office worker and nursing assistant figured she would start a new career as a landlord.

Using money from the sale of her St. Louis home, she eventually became the owner of about a dozen  houses in Greensboro, three  of them in Glenwood.

But a kind heart combined with bad tenants turned that dream into a nightmare. “I have just taken in desperate, homeless people who haven’t acted nice and have used and abused me,” she said.

There was Blondie. One of Tritthart’s male tenants moved her in with him.

The man eventually moved out, but Blondie stayed.

And then there was the guy Tritthart met while he was walking down the street looking for a place to live, limping and wearing a “Jesus shirt.” They talked about the Lord.

Tritthart let him move into one of the houses she owned on Highland Avenue. 

“Never could get any money out of him,” she said. She finally paid him — and the girlfriend he moved in with him — $100  to leave.

Tritthart, who has shuffled from one of her rental houses to the next, was in her own personal debtors’ prison. Multiple homes had been foreclosed on. She racked up credit card debt because she wasn’t getting rent payments. She started missing mortgage payments to make the credit card payments.

And then came UNCG.

They bought one of her houses on Highland Avenue, and the money went straight to the lien holder. “They saved me from going through foreclosure,” Tritthart said.

She is hoping UNCG will buy the house she’s living in now, although she said there have been no formal negotiations.And then, possibly, she can start a new life in Colorado where her children live.

No more walking everywhere. She lost her car in the “nightmare housing thing.”

No more lunches at Urban Ministry or dinners at area churches. She doesn’t eat breakfast.

“UNCG showing up is a blessing from the Lord for me.”

 

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