MEMPHIS, Tennessee — "Man, I cried, I actually cried because I couldn't believe after all those years," Rita Franklin said.
The 68-year-old said she's still in disbelief after learning she has to leave the Memphis rental property she's called home since 2006.
"I knew everybody up and down this street, on both sides of the street, now I get to to do it all over," Franklin added.
She and more than 100 other families in Memphis' Uptown neighborhood will be temporarily or permanently relocated as their single family units are renovated.
"They made a decision, I have to go, so I do what they say," Franklin said.
The Memphis Housing Authority sold the homes to a private developer and said the improvements will sustain the properties for another 15 years.
But Franklin said she's been told she won't be eligible to move back in N. Second Street, since the grandchildren she raised no longer live with her.
"I don't know which house, which apartment, I don't know where they are going to put me but it has to be one bedroom probably."
A MHA spokesperson said Monday: "While we try to place residents in their original homes, it's not always possible and a change in members in the household - larger or smaller - is one of the reasons why a unit change might happen.
Franklin must now focus on the future - somewhere else.
"We don't have riff raff on this street, we really had a real, wonderful neighborhood," Franklin said.
