• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
    • Editorial Independence Policy
    • Corrections & Clarifications
  • Who we are
  • About us

San Antonio Heron

Telling the complete downtown story

  • Development
  • Housing
  • Neighborhoods
  • Food & Drink

With no water or heat, seniors living at Granada Apartments went into survival mode

February 20, 2021 By Ben Olivo 1 Comment

FacebookTweetPrintEmail
Residents of Granada Homes on South St. Mary’s Street receive tacos from Queta Rodriguez (right) and Geremy Landin on Friday morning. Photo by Ben Olivo | Heron

Monday morning, the 170 or so seniors living at the Granada Homes woke up to a snow-covered downtown in their warm apartments. Then the rolling power outages started and the situation turned dire.

For most of the week, the 92-year-old building had power, but no water pressure. The building runs on a boiler system and requires water pressure to create steam that then feeds the heat exchanger. On Friday morning, water pressure in the building was at about 60 pounds per square inch, or PSI. Granada’s system needs 80 PSI to generate heat.

As of last night, water pressure returned, and the Granada, an historic 12-story community for low-income seniors on the River Walk, is slowly getting back to normal.

The Granada Homes, 311 S. St. Mary’s St., on Thursday morning just before the second round of snow began to fall. Photo by Ben Olivo | Heron

As the week started, however, it was touch and go for the elderly residents.

Early on, when highways were closed, food deliveries stopped, in particular the weekly commodities drop off from the San Antonio Food Bank. Residents were surviving on what they had in their fridge.

Without water to flush their toilets, residents started packing snow from the third floor terrace overlooking the River Walk into buckets. Some even went down to the river to collect water.

“When you’re in situations like this, and you can’t have all your good things, you improvise … do what you have to do to survive,” said Sam Alvarado, 90, a civil rights organizer who’s lived at the Granada since 2012. “In the old days, that’s the way people did it.”

Granada residents haul water from the San Antonio River earlier in the week. Photo Courtesy Pat Moreno

Pat Moreno, 64, is one of the youngest residents at the Granada, and Alvarado’s friend. She said they usually go out for breakfast, but since the blast hit, the restaurants were closed.

“I was using all my bottled water to wash dishes and to cook,” Moreno said. “We got so desperate that we said, ‘What are we going to do?’ Well, no one is out here helping us, so we have to do it for ourselves. It was desperation.”

Moreno, like some others, had electric heaters, so the temperatures in their rooms didn’t drop as low. But others, like Alvarado, slept in chilly conditions for most of the week. Moreno began calling public officials, including Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert, Precinct 4, and requested water, heaters and blankets. Alvarado tapped his friends at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

Sam Alvarado visits Pat Moreno in her apartment on Friday morning. Photo by Ben Olivo | Heron

On Wednesday, bottled water finally arrived courtesy of the Bexar County’s Office of Emergency Management. On Thursday, the hot meals started from various groups and volunteers. On Friday morning, it was chorizo and egg, and potato and egg tacos from the Arizona Cafe on South General McMullen Drive on the West Side.

“They’ve been living on what they had,” said Queta Rodriguez, a volunteer who brought in the tacos. “We’re going to try to keep feeding them hot food, and of course, continue to give them water so they don’t have to go out there.”

Earlier in the week, residents were given the opportunity to go to the heating center at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, but most didn’t want to go either because they feared the sleeping conditions’ impact on their frail bodies, or being exposed to Covid-19.

“Because of Covid, we only had two go,” said Shane Denn, the Granada’s building engineer. “Our average age is like 72. They’re in that most vulnerable area when it comes to Covid.”

The Granada, which first opened as the Plaza Hotel in 1928, is owned by San Antonio Building and Construction Trades Council, a local affiliate of D.C.-based AFL-CIO.

Denn said he’s been in touch with public officials throughout the week, as well.

“Most of these big facilities, they run off boilers and chillers,” Denn said. “You’re talking about any kind of hotels and apartments, anything of any size.”

Volunteers deliver buckets of water Friday morning to the Granada Homes. Photo by Ben Olivo | Heron BEN OLIVO | HERON

The Granada is due for a complete renovation, which could begin in June or July, Denn said. That renovation, which is being done in partnership with local developer Mission DG and the San Antonio Housing Authority (SAHA), will include a complete replacement of the boiler and chiller systems.

The plan is to keep the Granada as senior housing. At a SAHA meeting in October, an agenda packet said that all 249 units would be reserved for “tenants whose incomes average 60% or less” of the area median income.

On Friday morning, as the tacos arrived, the mood among the residents seemed better than it must have been earlier in the week, when they were without relief.

The lobby of the building was chilly, and many residents wore coats or jackets or were covered in blankets.

“It’s a big experience for us, because we’ve never been through something like this,” Olivia Lopez said. “And now it’s exciting because they’re coming, they’re blessings to us, and we have everybody helping each other.”

“I’m good. I’m blessed. I’m 77.”

Related
San Antonio Housing Authority, Mission DG chosen as partners on $51M Granada Homes rehab (Oct. 11, 2020)

Heron Editor Ben Olivo can be reached at 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter

FacebookTweetPrintEmail

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Weather Tagged With: AFL-CIO, Arizona Cafe, Granada Homes, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, LULAC, Mission DG, Olivia Lopez, Pat Moreno, Plaza Hotel, Queta Rodriguez, River Walk, SAHA, Sam Alvarado, San Antonio Building and Construction Trades Council, San Antonio Food Bank, San Antonio Housing Authority, Shane Denn, Tommy Calvert

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

Primary Sidebar

Share

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Deep Dives

How municipal bonds work, and a brief history of them in San Antonio

Olivo: How McKee-Rodriguez’s support for a luxury housing project helps shape the Decade of Downtown

The Lofts at River North are under construction at Broadway and Jones Avenue in July.

Analysis: It’s time to call BS on ‘workforce housing’

Copyright © 2023 San Antonio Heron · Site maintained by hmt3design.com

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!