Voters in Clawson this election season will exercise an extraordinary power, and one that is extremely personal for a group of neighbors. They will decide whether the city can sell the Renshaw Senior Apartments, a building that is home to 14 senior citizens.
“We’re good tenants and potentially we could be voted out of our home,” Doug Blank, a 79-year-old Renshaw resident, said as he did laundry in the building's washer and dryer for a 90-year-old neighbor. “Empathy is needed here. I’d like to believe that still matters.”
Clawson’s property disposition proposal 26-1 asks voters if they will grant the city council the ability to sell or dispose of the Renshaw Senior Apartments, with any proceeds to be used for senior services in the city.
Ballot
language explains that the city owns and operates the 15-apartment property, which can’t be sold without the approval of the majority of voters.
The city council voted 5-2 this summer to put the property sale proposal on the ballot, but City Manager Joe Rheker said the council has discussed the issue for years because of concerns over a potential lawsuit.
The two-story Renshaw apartment building was constructed without an elevator around 1980, a decade before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires certain public buildings and commercial facilities to be made accessible to persons with disabilities.
Although the Renshaw building is allowed because it was built before the ADA and not required by law to have an elevator or meet other ADA standards, Rheker said the city is still not protected from potential litigation.
“That is the reason to sell and if the community doesn’t want to, we will have to manage the risk and substantially invest in the building to bring it as compliant as we can for our needs,” Rheker said. He added the city has not faced a lawsuit over Renshaw in its 45-year existence.
He estimated the cost of putting an elevator in the building at over $100,000.
The Renshaw Senior Apartments has a current fund balance of $470,575.21, which can only be used for maintenance and improvements to the building.
That money is from rent collected over several years. The occupants of 14 one-bedroom units in the building are currently charged $495 per month for rent, garnering over $83,000 annually. The sole studio in the building, or “efficiency” apartment, would fetch $465 per month, but has been empty since January as the sale of the building is up in the air.
With rent that Rheker agrees is “incredibly cheap,” there is a waiting list to get in, with no income requirement, only that applicants be 60 or older and have the ability to live independently.
Joanne McCauley, 85, moved into her Renshaw apartment 13 years ago after being on the wait list for five years.
The 66-year resident of Clawson, who previously owned two different homes in the city and was a stay-at-home mother when her three children were growing up, now proudly shows a visitor the "cozy" home in which she plans to live out her remaining years.
“I’m not going anywhere,” McCauley said, as she sat in a recliner in her living room next to built-in shelves adorned with framed photographs and knick-knacks. “They’ll have to drag me out.”
McCauley, who was widowed at the age of 48, now has her daughter Theresa Williams, 65, living next door.
Williams, also a widow, sold her Clawson home after her husband died and then lived with her mother for a year before the adjacent apartment became available about a year-and-a-half ago.
“I am retired and living on Social Security as are most of the people here,” Williams said. “I just want them to take care of the building and don’t sell it. Don’t take my home.”
City Manager Rheker estimated the value of the Renshaw property at about $1.5 million and said with the nearly $500,000 in fund balance, there is “potentially $2 million in public assets tied up in 14 people, where that could be utilized to serve all (seniors).”
He noted the Clawson Senior Center is located in a 1950s former elementary school building (the Hunter Community Center) that is in “dire need of repairs.” But he declined to say what repairs might be made or what specific senior services would be funded if the proposal passes, saying a study would need to be done.
“We have 2,183 seniors in the city versus 14 seniors,” Rheker said. “The money (if voters approve the proposal), could be used for sustainment of senior services, you name it.”
Mayor Sue Moffitt said senior services that would be funded by the sale have not been named and that’s why she voted against putting the proposal on the ballot. She said she's also troubled by the lack of details on what happens to the residents if the property is sold.
“We need to have a plan for the human beings in this building,” said Moffitt, who ponders not leasing to new tenants and letting current residents stay until they have naturally moved on. “The greater good is theoretical,” Moffitt said. “Who is the greater good? We haven’t identified what ‘greater good’ we are trying to benefit. These 14 people are tangible human beings.”
Blank is one of them, an Air Force veteran residing at Renshaw since 2019. He loves the building for the safety and security it offers, as well as the thermostats in individual units allowing him to be as warm as he wants in the winter, and as cool as he needs in the summer.
He hopes he and his friends get several more seasons at Renshaw.
"This is the best place ever," Blank said. "We don't want to lose our home."
Reporter Susan Bromley covers Oakland County for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at sbromley@hometownlife.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Don't take my home': Clawson voters decide fate of senior apartments
