How the extended family thing works
Owners did the right thing at this point.
Landlord offers Rosa Parks apartment rent-free
Date: Tuesday, December 07, 2004
By: Associated Press
DETROIT -- Rosa Parks' landlord has offered to let her stay in her apartment rent-free, two years after threatening to evict her when the owners said her caretakers missed rental payments.
Parks' doctors say the 91-year-old civil rights pioneer has dementia and is in poor health. Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit had been paying Parks' rent, which had been as high as $1,800 a month, since August 2003, the Rev. Charles Adams said.
"We did not want her set out in the street," Adams said. "We didn't want to make a big noise out of it. ... It was a simple act of kindness."
In an October letter, Riverfront Associates, which owns the apartment where Parks has lived since 1994, said she could stay for free for the rest of her life.
"I thought it was the right thing to do," managing partner Peter Cummings told the Detroit Free Press for Monday's editions. "This woman is an icon. She deserves an enormous amount of respect. In a way, I think it's an honor to be able to accord her that respect.
