Relocated Citrus Heights Residents May Get Huge Payout
CITRUS HEIGHTS, Calif. (CBS13) – A group of local residents may receive tens of thousands of dollars for moving out of one the most dangerous blocks of the street and allow officials to renovate the area.
The tenants of a condemned fourplex on Sayonara Drive may be eligible to receive as much as $82,000 from a federal stimulus grant meant to buy up the properties and redevelop them with new low-income housing.
The Citrus Heights City Council has to make a quick decision on what to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars still remaining in the federal grant to clean up the dangerous and crime-infested street.
The rent of 11 families who were relocated last year to apartments throughout the region is still being covered by the grant, but the money has to be spent by September 30 or it will be returned to federal authorities.
If city officials approve distributing the lump sum of the balance among them, the least the families could receive would be $14,000.
Other residents on Sayanora Drive were outraged that the tenants who were moved off the dangerous street will receive even more money, while they will get nothing at all.
"I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair at all," said Lorraine Serrano. "I've been living here for almost five years."
City council members will make their final decision Thursday.
