by Bri Dion

(December 2018, Plain Press)        Recently, mail services have been a serious problem for residents of the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority low rise apartments at Lakeview Terrace. Most people expect to receive mail every day. However, many residents at Lakeview Terrace have not received their mail in over a month. The exact number of residents who have not been receiving mail is not known, but it is a minimum of 40 residents who have not been receiving their mail since mid-October.

   Residents not receiving their mail were not informed by either CMHA staff or their postman when the mail was stopped. Finally, resident Yvonne Dawson, talked to one of the postmen about why no mail was being delivered. The postman stated that the key for that set of mailboxes had broken, and the lock and key had yet to be replaced.

   When mail is unable to be delivered to the residents’ mailboxes of Lakeview Terrace, the residents are forced to pick up their mail from the post office on Orange Ave. The distance from Lakeview Terrace to the Orange Avenue post office is over 2 ½ miles. Without access to transportation, it is nearly impossible for many residents to get their mail. 

   For many residents they have not had access to important documents and funds. For Diane Howard, it has prevented her from receiving a new bank debit card and important medications. 

   This is not the only set of mailboxes that are currently damaged. There are a number of other mailboxes in the Upper Division of Lakeview Terrace that do not even have doors on the mailboxes, and anybody can have access to any mail items in each of the mailboxes all the time. 

   Representatives from CMHA had not been able to provide a timeline to the residents as to when the mailboxes would be fixed. However, when contacted for this article on Tuesday, November 27th, a representative from the Lakeview Terrace office stated that the mailboxes should be fixed by the end of this week, but there have been no guarantees of that. 

   “Residents in one of those new fancy $2,000-a-month apartments on Detroit Road would never have their mail stopped being delivered to them,” said Diane Howard.  “It is because we are poor public housing residents who the CMHA management and the postal authority believe doesn’t matter that we are treated this way.”