MOVING DAY: A U-Haul is backed up to the Riverview Apartments door, where Timothy Pierce is waiting for movers to load up his belongings.
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Many residents are quietly, but with determination, making the move from the Riverview Apartments to other housing. Very soon in the future, scenes like the one above will increase, as people use the financial allocation they get from the Kingsport Housing Authority, to vacate the apartments, making way for new single and multi-family housing to be built.
Some of them will return with housing vouchers for the new homes being built by the funds provided by the HOPE VI federal revitilization grant. Others, like the people we encountered moving out, say they are not coming back.
"We're not coming back," Dee Overbey says, "because there was just too much confusion over when we were to move out. One person told us we had two weeks, only to find out we had just one week, once we got the money."
Timothy Pierce is moving to the Holly Hills Apartments just across the river in Rotherwood Hills. "We were lucky to find a good place over there, and all we can do is wish the folks here good luck," he says.
Demolition of the Riverview Apartments is scheduled for later this year, with construction on the new Riverview Housing to begin sometime next year.
