Fort Myers government housing facility to close; residents oppose

Reporter: Annette Montgomery Writer: Matias Abril
Published: Updated:

The people who call a condominium along the downtown Fort Myers riverfront home will have to move out.

The city said the government housing facility needs too many repairs.

And now, the property is too valuable for a lot of seniors who call it home.

“We have people here who are retired county workers, government workers,” said Jenna Satterfield, resident at Royal Palm Towers. “We have people here who are retired nurses and first responders. We have people here above and beyond all that. We have retired armed forces service people here, and I want to ask Marcia Davis, Kevin Anderson, Bruce Strayhorn to their face: Why we are not good enough to be on this property?”

Satterfield told WINK News that the people elected and the people entrusted to care of them are not doing so. Neighbor Judith Tucci agrees.

“I want to be in a city where my mayor embraces all of the residents,” Tucci said.

But it’s a done deal. The people who right now call Royal Palm Towers Home must move to a building at Cleveland and Layfatte.

“There’s very few people who want to relocate over to that location,” Tucci said.

The Housing Authority of Fort Myers told WINK that now that Lee County commissioners have approved a land use agreement for the Royal Palm Towers, giving them permission to sell it, that’s what’s going to happen. Not today but in two to three years.

“We are in the process of designing that land with a new building,” said Marcia Davis, executive director of the housing authority of Fort Myers. “Once we have that building designed, bid out and on it’s way to being constructed, once it’s completed, we will relocate the residents that are currently at Royal Palm Towers to the new building.”

Satterfield made it clear: there are hard feelings.

“I don’t trust them. I don’t trust them as far as I could throw this building,” Satterfield said.

The seniors WINK News spoke with said that they found out about the new location through word of mouth, and to be clear, their new home has not yet been built.

The housing authority said they have kept people who live at Royal Palm Towers in the loop and will continue to do so.

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