Residents must vacate troubled east Columbus apartment complex by Sunday

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – For the past two weeks, residents who once called Colonial Village home have been packing up their belongings and searching for a new place to live.

The exodus comes after city leaders started taking legal action against the complex after hundreds of people were found living in units that were under court order to be boarded up and vacant.

Come Sunday morning, the 508-unit apartment complex in east Columbus will be empty.

“It started out nice, but then over the eight years, it gradually went down,” Colonial Village resident Hazon Benson said.

Benson and his partner Tami Brant lived in the complex for nearly a decade, and while they don’t know what’s to come, they are heading into 2024 with a positive mindset.

“I just went and paid my rent at the beginning of the month but then, like five days later, I open my door and there’s a thing on my door saying we have to be out by the 31st,” Benson said. “The city’s shutting everything down.”

The City of Columbus declared the complex a public nuisance in 2021. Various units had bedbugs, water damage, broken windows, and rotting doors. Police responded to more than 700 calls in the 18 months leading up to August of 2021.

Despite all this, getting a notice to vacate is something the couple didn’t see coming. 

“Like I said, we’re on fixed incomes, we weren't trying to be moving and having to put stuff in storage and going to a motel,” Benson said. “I’m not no spring chicken anymore and neither is she. It was stressful, real stressful.”

The couple said all they really wished they had was more time – time to process all of this and time to move out and find a new place to live.

“By the grace of God, I had somebody in my family that was able to help me out,” Benson said. “It makes for a bad situation, but one thing for sure, two things for sure, God will always make it right.”

The move hasn’t been easy on them, physically or financially, but for the time being, they’re set up in a hotel with their dog.

“And hopefully in the next three months, we’ll be able to put away the money and find a place that’s reasonable,” Benson said.

Colonial Village is under the control of a receivership. Once the property is empty, the receivership will begin to determine what needs to be done to rehabilitate the property.