Rogers Group Experts in Crushed Stone, Aggregates, Gravel, Asphalt Paving, Road Construction, Quarries for 100 Years

MetroCenter Retired Residents Cheered by Neighbors' Support

-- Excerpted from an article in the 10/15/99 Tennessean by Thomas Goldsmith / Staff Writer

Nashville's MetroCenter Teachers' Apartments residential home for the aged was threatened with closure earlier this week over wrongly directed federal funding. At a board meeting yesterday the program got promises of support from local, state and federal elected officials, and cash in hand from a slew of neighboring businesses.

The federal Department of Housing & Urban Development has been working with Vern Smith, administrator of the licensed-care facility, for several years to resolve the use of HUD funds for assisted-living services on one floor of the 16-story federally subsidized building.

Yesterday's board meeting drew several Metro Council members, state Sen. Thelma Harper and an aide to U.S. Rep. Bob Clement.

"Ms. Harper brought us checks for $6,700," Smith said. "She was going to bring over enough to meet the $8,000 it costs for one year." MetroCenter neighbors, including Rogers Group, The Lipman Co., the Regal Maxwell House, Nashville Gas, Davey Tucker Jr. and Film House, donated money, she said.

Under federal law, HUD funds designated for housing can't be used to provide help with hygiene, food, laundry and medication to the 23 older folks who live on the second floor. Bill Mason, an aide to Clement, yesterday offered to provide whatever assistance his office could muster in the facility's dealings with HUD.

The facility isn't completely out of the woods; it still owes HUD $28,000 in back payments for previous years in which some housing funds supplemented other services.

The show of support came as good news to residents like Mary Darvin, 94, Smith said. Like many older Nashvillians, those residents need help with daily activities, but don't require more expensive nursing-home care.

"They were beginning to be fearful that they were going to have to move," Smith said. "Ms. Darvin has been in the building since 1979, and on the second floor for three years. She doesn't want to live with her children: they are in their 70s and 80s."