{"id":178211,"date":"2025-08-26T23:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T23:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/178211\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T23:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T23:07:13","slug":"jacksonville-mayor-hopeful-residents-to-be-relocated-from-shutdown-apartments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/178211\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville mayor hopeful residents to be relocated from shutdown apartments"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jacksonville mayor said federal hang-ups are threatening to delay the relocation of residents out of Willow Bend Apartments, which the city shut down last month.<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE, Ark. \u2014 The process of relocating residents out of Willow Bend Apartments has hit some hang-ups at the federal level, according to Jacksonville Mayor Jeff Elmore.<\/p>\n

Elmore has said since the complex was shut down in July that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would be relocating the remaining residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had spoken to HUD,\u201d Elmore said. “And the representative that we were talking with told us at that point in time that absolutely they would be able to relocate the residents that were there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complex was shut down after becoming a hotspot for crime, not to mention plus poor conditions, including water damage and bugs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Elmore said he was upset when HUD began to delay<\/a> the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the higher-ups at the regional office in Kansas City said that they would indeed be able to relocate and move the people,\u201d Elmore said. \u201cBut it was not going to be in the time frame in which we were initially told that would happen- it was going to be a process that would take over 120 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elmore said he thinks miscommunication at the Kansas City office led to the timeline change.<\/p>\n

We reached out to HUD for comment on this story, and while their statement didn\u2019t mention any miscommunication, they did explain why the relocation process would take a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cHUD issued a Notice of Default on the Section 8 Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) contracts and initiated the formal abatement process to secure Tenant Protection Vouchers (TPVs) and relocation assistance for eligible households,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThis process typically requires a minimum of 120 days to finalize funding and execute relocation contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elmore called that time frame unacceptable, considering what the remaining residents, some of whom spoke\u00a0<\/a>with us last week, are going through.<\/p>\n

\u201cBorderline dangerous, dirty, unsafe, unsanitary,\u201d Elmore said. \u201cYou can fill in the adjective, and it’ll sum it up. That 120 days just can’t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, Elmore said he\u2019s been working with local and even federal officials like Senator Tom Cotton to come up with a plan.<\/p>\n

He now believes he has one. The city will use a federal grant to relocate residents, and then the Jacksonville Housing Authority will work with HUD to get them vouchers for their new housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve actually spoken to one of the residents of the apartments this morning and told her, hopefully, there was help coming and coming soon,\u201d Elmore said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking hopefully just a matter of a week or two instead of four months minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n

We also reached out to Patrick McCann, who serves as Press Secretary for Senator Cotton, for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Cotton encourages any Arkansans experiencing issues with a federal agency to reach out to his office for assistance,\u201d McCann said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jacksonville mayor said federal hang-ups are threatening to delay the relocation of residents out of Willow Bend…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":178212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-178211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115097583223345574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}