Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 15, 1993 TAG: 9304150448
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
FRANKLIN'S RUNDOWN TANK HILL GETS MONEY FOR ITS WISH LIST
Etholene Dalton Michie, 75, repairs what she can at her house on Tank Hill.Every three years, she hires somebody to paint. She patched the roof around her chimney with a gallon of tar, but that soon leaked.
"I looked up there and I said, `Well, I'll be darned,' " Michie explained. "The tar had come away from there and the water came in."
Michie's Pendleton Street home, just a couple hundred yards from the two green water tanks that give the neighborhood its name, is quaint and homey. But like most of the pre-World War II houses built for furniture-company workers, Michie's house also is old.
After years of making temporary patches to their homes, Michie and Tank Hill residents are getting some help. Rocky Mount, on Tank Hill's behalf, has hit the federal lottery: a $1 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
For many Tank Hill residents, home maintenance is an exasperating and continuing task. Leaking roofs get patched, not replaced, and soon leak again. Broken gutters let water drain straight from the roof into the basement. Cold winds whip through uninsulated walls.
The $1 million grant will be enough to widen streets, put bathrooms in a few houses that have only outdoor facilities, fix roofs, replace old siding and - quite possibly - patch the leak around Etholene Michie's chimney.
Town residents are hailing the grant, which took nearly two years for the town to secure, as one of the best things to happen to Rocky Mount in years.
In an even broader sense, a member of the Tank Hill Housing Rehabilitation Board said, the grant should improve residents' confidence in their government.
"It's so good to see the politicians concentrate on all the citizens of Rocky Mount," said Maceo Toney, spokesman for the board. "It's racially mixed; it's just an area that probably has needed some attention for quite a while."
The rehabilitation board targeted the grant for 30 homes owned by low- and moderate-income people. Some homes need only one or two items repaired; others need more work.
"Mine needs everything," said Nadine Dillon, who lives next to the water tanks. "Mine needs gutters, a roof, something done to the basement."
Rocky Mount Councilwoman Peggy Love said most of the needed work can be done with the grant money. And if a person remains in the house for five years, the money doesn't have to be repaid.
"When we had the meeting, it was hard for some of them to believe exactly what they could get done," Love said. "It's hard for them to realize they could get something for nothing."
Long-time Rocky Mount residents know Tank Hill as a racially mixed neighborhood that has had its ups and downs. For instance, for a while people caused problems by parking and hanging out around the water tanks. But police started chasing them away, and the trouble seems to have subsided.
One irony of the neighborhood is the water tanks themselves. The tanks serve as storage for the town's water system, which works on gravity. Because Tank Hill residents live too close to the water source, the gravity doesn't force the water to them fast enough. Many Tank Hill residents have low water pressure.
That problem, too, will be addressed with the grant money. Toney thinks that once the neighborhood is given a boost with the HUD grant, the residents could take it from there.
"This neighborhood should not be viewed as one that has gone to the dogs," Toney said.
"These people, they're like you and I - they want to be able to live in a good house in a decent neighborhood."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.