By Thea Jarvis

Hattie Mae Williams, whose friendship with Evelyn Echols goes back to their days in temporary housing on Linden Avenue, lives in the Wheat Street Apartments near the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial with her son, daughter and grandson.

She works nights at the Newton Tobacco Company off Piedmont Road in northeast Atlanta, a considerable distance from her in-town home.

Hattie moved to Atlanta from Montgomery, AL, and settled in a boarding house in the Bedford-Pine community when she first arrived in the city.

But it was a time of growth and progress in Atlanta. The facelifting of the city had begun and Hattie Williams was smack in the middle.

"The housing authority bought the house and I moved to another one," she said. Trouble was, the housing people wanted that one, too, and on the third go-round Hattie Williams found herself in a temporary trailer home on Linden Avenue that had been supplied by the city.

The move to Wheat Street followed. "They gave me money for relocation," she said, judging she has been at the Wheat Street Apartments for upwards of five years.

Once again, however, Hattie Williams is finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Wheat Street apartments consist of three units, all of which were built and sponsored by the Wheat Street Baptist Church with a Federal Housing Authority loan. Because of continuing physical problems with the second and third units, and because a rehabilitation loan was not procured, the mortgage was foreclosed and as of late last year Wheat Street II and III are now in the hands of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The government-owned units continue to look like forlorn stepsisters in the shadow of their Cinderella neighbor, Wheat Street I. And Hattie Williams' three-bedroom apartment is in that section of Wheat Street ripe for repair.

"They haven't told us whether we're going to stay or have to move," said Hattie. "They've put in windowpanes and cleaned up the grounds," but have done no major remodeling of the premises.

Meanwhile, Hattie Williams and her Wheat Street neighbors "continue to pay rent," she explained, living in a limbo of uncertainty and possible change.

Tenants' association meetings are held monthly and have included representatives from HUD and the city who have attempted to listen to community response before making a decision on what to do with the Wheat Street albatross.

Bob Becker, who is a regular at the meetings, is a loan specialist with HUD and the president of the parish council at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Atlanta. He sympathizes with the Wheat Street residents.

"I feel for the tenants. I wish they had a better place to stay," he said, noting that HUD has offered to help relocate those tenants who want to leave. It would seem that not many are ready to risk separation from familiar territory.

According to Becker, HUD's Washington office has requested a decision by local HUD officials on the fate of Wheat Street II and III. He indicated that the local recommendation would be to put the Wheat Street apartments up for sale, making them available to private investors.

"The project should be on the market in possibly three or four months, before the end of our fiscal year," Becker stated. Meanwhile, HUD is in limbo itself but has contracted with a local realty agency to work on cleaning up the units.

Hattie Mae Williams and her family hope for better things, although their future housing seems to be out of their hands and once more left to the powers that be.

"I'm insecure, basically at a standpoint where I don't know what will happen," Hattie said quietly. She would be happy, she said, to move into a new apartment that was "decent and sanitary -- for once in my life."