New lives at Tucson House

Tenants forced to leave soon-to-be-demolished MLK Jr. Apartments

It’s a long way from his gold-prospecting days in Shirttail Creek, but Floyd Haxton is happy now that he can make a good pancake in his new apartment on the 12th floor of Tucson House.

Haxton is one of 98 low-income residents of the Martin Luther King Jr. Apartments who were told they had to leave the downtown high-rise by the end of this month.

The building has been used by the city, which built it 36 years ago as subsidized housing for low-income individuals, the elderly and people with mental or physical disabilities.

But times have changed, and the apartment building with 95 units will be demolished in October to make way for two projects at North Fifth Avenue and Congress Street, one a new MLK apartment house built by the city, the other a market-rate apartment house with 89 units built by a private developer.

The new MLK high-rise with 68 one- and two-bedroom apartments is expected to be completed in 2009. Those who moved from the old one have the option to move into the new one.

Most of the MLK residents are settled into other subsidized housing away from the Armory Park Senior Center, the convenient Ronstadt Transit Center, nearby banks and shops and the main library.

The last three tenants are expected to moveout by the end of this week

Haxton, 74, is one of 41 MLK residents who chose to move to Tucson House, built as a luxury high-rise in 1960 at 1501 N. Miracle Mile by Chicago developers.

Haxton said he’ll stay put at Tucson House.

“It’s healthier for me here,” he said.

His apartment has a terrace, a 90-degree view of the city and “less city noise” because he’s up so high above traffic.

“I’m breathing better. I sleep better. It’s cleaner, quieter. And it’s got an oven I know how to use,” he said.

And the burners on the stove are even, so pancake batter won’t slide.

Haxton, a musician and poet, lived at the MLK Apartments for eight years after waiting 18 months for an apartment while rooming at the Marshall Home for Men, 3314 S. 16th Ave.

“As much as I love downtown, I feel better here,” he said. “I’m gonna be 75 in September, so health counts.”

Haxton, who performs as “Shirttail Slim,” gets a bus pass each month and favors his longtime pharmacy at Ajo Way and South 12th Avenue, where he’s gotten his medication since May 2, 1991, he said.

He has housekeeping help and a ride to get groceries twice a month so he can stock up.

Raymond Sidoma, 56, worked at Tucson House as a housekeeper after graduating from Amphitheater High School and never imagined he’d live there one day himself.

Sidoma, president of the MLK Residents Council for about six years, chose to move to Tucson House after he learned he’d have to leave the MLK apartments. The Tucson native is physically disabled from a work injury.

He and his wife, Beverly, 55, chose to relocate to the 17-story high-rise over Section 8 housing or other subsidized apartments the city offered.

He had good memories of Tucson House. “It was like a hotel. It was real nice,” he said.

Olga Osterhage oversees low-income housing for the city’s Community Services Department. She said 13 MLK tenants have moved in with relatives or to a nursing home.

Others moved into Section 8 housing units, and still others to the subsidized apartments at Craycroft Towers at 1635 N. Craycroft Road, or the subsidized Lander Gardens apartments at 902 W. Congress St., Osterhage said.

When the Sidomas moved into MLK about 13 years ago, “I was kinda scared,” he said. “I didn’t know how to live in in apartment. I had always lived in a house.”

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LOW-INCOME LIVING

By federal standards, 19.5 percent of Tucson residents lived in poverty in 2004, compared with 13 percent of the U.S. population.

The federal poverty rate is based on a percentage of the median income of a community.

Source: U.S. Census, American Community Survey 2001-2005