January 9, 2006

By ADAM LONGO
6 News Reporter

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Some residents of an East Knoxville apartment complex are being forced to move out but there are different stories about the cause.

In November, all residents of Morningside Hill Apartments who receive Knoxville Community Development Corp. (KCDC) vouchers to pay rent received letters saying they must find other places to live.

The problem is the contract between KCDC and the property owner has been terminated. The vouchers won't be accepted anymore, leaving low income residents caught in the middle.

"I got a letter and so I've got to find a place to move now," Bernard Phillips says. "I got this place and now all of a sudden, everybody's moving."

Phillips just moved into the apartments on Dandridge Avenue a few months ago. He says he hasn't even fully unpacked. "Somebody said something about the water being cut off. I found that out today."

6 News spoke with the landlord, Mike Lewis, who would only talk off camera. He says he terminated the contract with KCDC as a business decision because he's not required to accept vouchers.

Not true, says KCDC Director Alvin Nance. He tells 6 News KCDC terminated the contract because Lewis wasn't paying his KUB bills.

"I have to find out the next steps I have to take, you know," Bernard Phillips says. "This is unexpected, what I received this morning so I've got to find out what I've got to do and what's what."

Phillips says he signed a year lease.

Alvin Nance says residents like Phillips won't be put out in the street. KCDC is in the process of moving all of its clients into other housing.