The eviction of Creighton Court residents has been halted by the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, according to housing officials who addressed the matter during a community meeting Monday evening in the Creighton Court Community Center.

“What I want to do is set the record straight. Those 24 residents will be taken care of,” said Creighton Court Tenant Council President and veteran RRHA Commissioner Marilyn B. Olds, speaking to an audience of more than 100 people who packed the room.

Those residents will be going into Richmond’s new Eviction Diversion program, according to Ms. Olds.

This marks the latest development for residents facing eviction for the public housing community.

Last week, RRHA went to Richmond General District Court seeking permission to evict up to 52 households that were behind on their rent. Before the hearing, RRHA dismissed unlawful detainer suits against 17 residents who had paid up, leaving 35 residents subject to removal, including up to nine families who owed less than $100.

The court filings, which also led to the disclosure that RRHA had stopped leasing apartments in Creighton Court, prompted a public outcry and backlash.

In response, Damon Duncan, RRHA’s president and chief executive officer, met with a small coalition of clergy and political leaders to register their concern about mass evictions.

Despite the uproar, RRHA is regularly in court seeking eviction of residents who have fallen behind on payment.

“I want to see the proof as to what they are going to be doing to make sure (those families) aren’t evicted,” said Bernice E. Travers, Richmond Crusade for Voters president, as she stood outside the RRHA headquarters on Chamberlayne Parkway.

Accompanying her to the meeting with Mr. Duncan was King Salim Khalfani, former executive director of the Virginia State Conference NAACP.

Three ministers also participated, Dr. Emanuel Harris, president of the Baptist Ministers’ Conference of Richmond and Vicinity; the Rev. Rodney Hunter, pastor of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church and president of the Richmond Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and the Rev. Marcus Martin, pastor of Newbridge Baptist Church in Henrico County.

Yvette Ross, who was born and raised in Creighton Court and returned five years ago to live in the public housing community, said Wednesday that her conversation with other residents indicates a deep distrust of and exhaustion with RRHA.

That lack of faith, she said, extends beyond Creighton Court, pointing to the example of Takiyah Brathwaite, a Hillside Court resident. On Monday, a Richmond TV station reported on the trouble Ms. Brathwaite has faced after a leaking pipe flooded her kitchen.

Ms. Brathwaite reported the problem, but ultimately had to shut off the water herself. She was told she would have to pay $50 to get an emergency response from RRHA to cut off the water.

Ms. Ross said residents’ biggest problem is the lack of understandable communication.

She said RRHA met with residents during the summer to let them know that part of their rent would go to pay off past due electric bills dating back to 2016, while part of fall rent payments would go to pay off electrical charges for air conditioning during the summer.

Ms. Ross said it was not explained in understandable language that the use of rent money to pay off past due electric charges meant that tenants would get beind in their rent if they did not pay more, which is just what happened and led to evictions, she said.

Advocates, including community organizer Omari Al-Qadaffi, were the first to raise the alarm over the large number of RRHA court filings against Creighton Court residents. The campaign of Nicholas Da Silva, a candidate for the 5th District City Council seat, has promised to pay the rent debts of the nine families who each owed less than $100 and were facing eviction.

“These are our people. We’re going to make sure that they have homes,” Ms. Travers said.

Mr. Al-Qadaffi, who spoke with residents after Monday’s meeting, said, “People felt like they didn’t get a chance to voice any of their concerns, that it was an intimidating space where they didn’t feel empowered to even speak.”

Ms. Olds urged residents to take greater financial reponsibility, rather than using their money for sneakers or cell phone bills, or overwhelming local assistance with last-second pleas for help.

She reminded that 105 people from from Creighton Court soon are to move into apartments being completed on the former site of Armstrong High School on North 31st Street.

“The rules are going to change,” Ms. Olds said. “You need to learn that now to have an opportunity to get yourselves together.”

Describing resident’s dependency on city government “handouts” as “like a junkie” after being cut off and forced to go “cold turkey,” Ms. Olds was withering in her assessment of Creighton Courts’resilience: “Some things you have to do for yourselves. Come on now!”

Steve Fischbach, litigation director for the Virginia Poverty Law Center, who was at the meeting when Ms. Olds made her remarks, called it a shocking display of “disrespect and victim-blaming” that he had never seen in his decades of work as a legal aid lawyer.

“I was really taken aback by her tone towards tenants in the audience who had come there to try to get information,” Mr. Fischbach said. “She was chastising them for failing to pay their rent, without even knowing what the circumstances may have been behind that.”