GREENFIELD — Kathleen Grady had a room of her own, which was exactly the problem.
She had a single-occupancy studio apartment at the Winslow building, run by the Greenfield Housing Authority. But on a night with temperatures in single digits and nearly a foot of snow on the grounds, she decided to sleep out in a tent in the woods behind the McDonald’s on the Mohawk Trail with her partner, Clayton Wheeler.
They were found dead in the tent by one of Wheeler’s sons on Monday.
Why Grady decided to stay out in the woods instead of in her own apartment may remain a mystery, but friends that knew her and Wheeler well say she wanted to be with her partner rather than apart. Wheeler’s son Zachary said his father often talked about spending the rest of his life with her.
Grady’s friends say she told them she had tried to ask the Winslow’s property manager Nancy Versailles for a waiver to the buildings strict rules against overnight guests. They say she was turned down. The Greenfield Housing Authority denies this, saying Versailles was not approached to allow Wheeler stay.
The broader question that has come up, though, is whether he could have in the first place, and more generally: Where can homeless people go in extreme weather situations that isn’t the homeless shelter?
The Winslow has its tenants sign an agreement that says “permission for increase in household size will not be granted under any circumstances as the unit is a (single-room occupancy unit).”
Ann Borowski, director of leased housing for the Greenfield Housing Authority, cited state Department of Public Health code as the reasoning behind this, with “every dwelling unit shall contain at least 150 square feet of floor space for its first occupant, and at least 100 square feet of floor space for each additional occupant.”
“If tenants at the Winslow Building have overnight guests in their units they will be given a lease violation from the property manager,” Borowski said.
The state laws the Greenfield Housing Authority are citing may not pass a litmus test with the state itself.
“The action described below of a property manager issuing a lease violation is strictly a contractual issue between the occupant and the property manager,” Massachusetts Department of Public Health Spokesman Omar Cabrera said in a statement.
State regulations would qualify the apartment as a “rooming unit,” which means it’s under the purview of the local board of health.
While the Greenfield Board of Health could issue a variance to the regulation for violations of minimum square footage, a “local board of health has no authority over property manager citing lease violations,” Cabrera said.
So while Grady could have contacted the board of health, whose department remains under staffed as it searches for replacements following a period of transition and lack of sufficient funding, she would have needed them to grant her a specific pass for this instance. Regardless of that variance, Versailles and the Greenfield Housing Authority could have still said it violated her lease, leaving her at risk of an eviction.
“For legal reasons, she was probably denied because it’s just the type of house it is,” friend and former co-worker Kerri Dionne-Santos said.
You can reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261,ext. 264