From her front window, Mayo has watched the street for years. She agrees that BCHA directors Cregan and Clay have done a good job cleaning up a once-tough neighborhood. "Oh it's a whole sight better, much better; it's nice now," Mayo says -- but not because of the one-strike policy of her landlords. Housing Authority officials got rid of the most troublesome tenants years before they went after people such as the Springers. And tenants take care of their own streets too, she says, ensuring criminals stay away. They also care for each other.
Case in point: When the BSO deputy handed Dorothy Springer an eviction notice and Arthur collapsed, Mayo was right there to help.
Sherri Cohen
(Top) Housing officials used a drug conviction against Jeremy Rose (flanked by his parents Dorothy and Arthur Springer) to evict his entire family. (Bottom) Legal aid lawyer Jane Duff tried to prevent the Springers' eviction.
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"She was in the hospital with me, all the way," recalls Springer, speaking of her friend. "She drove me there."
The day almost ended in tragedy -- North Broward Medical Center doctors saved Arthur Springer's life when he arrived in the back of an ambulance. Mayo stayed with Dorothy Springer throughout the day and the evening, helping with the children as she always had.
"She used to watch my children; we all did, we all took care of each other, and it was hard to get in trouble on that street," Springer recalls. "She's like a sister to me, and like a mother to my kids."
As for the Springer family, Mayo says they were among the best influences on the block, a two-parent home without ostensible problems. Mayo remains philosophical about boys such as Jeremy and Jermaine. "Those kids are no trouble -- every child be wild sometime, but they're no trouble." And she wishes, for their sake as well as hers, they had not been booted unceremoniously from the neighborhood. "It won't help them," she insists, "and it don't make this street no better."
Both Mayo and Dorothy Springer tell the same story about Springer's eviction. But Dorothy is telling it from a $700-a-month house in Deerfield Beach that she knows the family can't afford.
To get into the house, she had to make a down payment of $1500, which included almost $500 from a social services agency. The other $1000, Dorothy says, came from unpaid rent the housing authority would not accept when she initially began to contest her eviction.
Last week life was looking tougher than it had for years to Dorothy Springer, and she was asking friends to help her find a less expensive home for her family.
"This is too much [rent] here," she says, glancing around the rooms she spent a month scrubbing and cleaning when she arrived in her new abode. The small structure appears ramshackle and poorly cared for by the landlord, who clearly doesn't maintain his property as well as the BCHA keeps its homes.
The walls, the ancient carpet, and the corners and cracks all look spotless, about as clean and clear as her signature on the piece of paper that confirmed her agreement to abide by the one-strike policy.
Jeremy, now 18 years old and clean-cut, comes in and nods to his mother. Jermaine has gone to visit a friend, and Arthur -- Arthur tried hard to take care of himself after the heart attack. But her husband also worried constantly about locating less expensive quarters. The family's lack of a car hampered his search, and his anxiety and poor health put him back in the hospital twice. Last week Arthur was home again but unable to help Dorothy.
On the wall behind Dorothy is a framed photograph of her still-living mother -- a woman stalwart enough to bear 20 children -- smiling bravely outward at the world.
Dorothy, now 45 years old, glances at her mother and smiles too, in spite of the problems, though they keep coming.
The BCHA has sent her a bill for $1488, demanding unpaid rent money even though housing officials wouldn't accept it when she was still living in public housing and fighting eviction.
If she doesn't pay it, Springer fears, the BCHA will ruin her credit.
She glances out a window, frowning. "In one day," she notes incredulously, "I lost my home, and my husband almost died."
Then she received the BCHA bill.
She pinches it by the corner and holds it away from her, like a woman bearing a dirty rag. "Everybody has trouble with their kids sometime or other, but we didn't deserve this."
Contact Roger Williams at his e-mail address: roger.williams@newtimesbpb.com
