Screen door uproar in Great Falls public housing

This story is excerpted from Great Falls This Week, a weekly newsletter featuring Great Falls city government, public school meetings, business news and upcoming entertainment and events. Want to see Great Falls This Week in your inbox every Monday? Sign up here. 

There was a small notice in the summer newsletter that arrived at the start of June. It said maintenance workers would be removing all screen doors from Great Falls Housing Authority homes due to the high cost of maintenance and repair.

Days later, some residents found letters taped to their doors announcing when their screen doors would be taken. “This also is not open for discussion,” the letter said.

Over the past month, some residents of Great Falls public housing worked to make sure the issue would be open for discussion. There have been signature drives and comments at Great Falls Housing Authority board meetings. Residents want to keep their screen doors.

“I’m losing extra security. The natural light. Airflow,” said Marquita Ogawa, who lives off 15th Street in the Parkdale neighborhood.

Ogawa still has her screen door. She said she’s offered to pay to keep the door in place, but it hasn’t been presented as a choice. The housing authority has removed some, but not all, of the doors around Parkdale housing. The uproar led to a pause in removal while the housing authority mulls its options.

Just down the street from Ogawa, workers removed Alan Miller’s screen door in early June shortly after he paid $280 for repairs on it. He said the door helps to provide a breeze. Running an air conditioner can lead to an added penalty, even during the current multi-week heat wave.

“If you run your electricity over your allotment, you get an additional charge,” he said.

Even though the sound of screen doors banging is a sign of summer, Miller is thinking about winter, when his west-facing door gets a foot or two of snow piled up. The screen door provided a barrier that won’t be there anymore.

Miller and Ogawa both showed up to the housing authority board meeting on July 18 to voice their concerns. The housing authority had visitors wait in the lobby during the meeting until it was time for public comment when they were ushered back into a conference room to voice their opinion. 

Miller asked if they could sit through the rest of the meeting to hear the board discuss screen doors rather than give comments. 

“You are more than welcome to attend public comment at any time,” said Rosalie Kiernan, the board chairperson.

Afterward, a police officer led them out while the board continued its meeting.

Chris Tinker, deputy director of the Great Falls Housing Authority, said that management decided to remove the doors because repairs and replacements were taking up a significant amount of time. The agency oversees 522 units in the city.

“I get their frustrations. We completely understand,” Tinker said. “But, just as a business and the maintenance side, it was huge.”

With a short-staffed maintenance team trying to keep up with their work, Tinker said the housing authority didn’t want to get caught with a large backlog of work, particularly during an inspection from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The federal agency subsidizes public housing.

HUD’s housing quality standards don’t specify whether storm doors are required, but they do note that storm doors help contain cool or hot air, depending on the weather. Other HUD information praises storm doors as conservation tools that help with insulation.

After residents started speaking out, Tinker said housing authority management brought the issue to the housing authority board. And the removals are on pause until the board can help identify a solution.

Ogawa, a former housing authority board member herself, said that the swiftness of the announcement and the door removals that followed left residents powerless.

“People are irate,” she said. “If they come to take my screen door, I’m blocking it.”

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