We are just about finished cleaning out Apartment #12 in our affordable housing unit. Lately, we’ve been referring to it as “Judy’s apartment,” as it had been the storage and sorting location for a multitude of items we received which had belonged this deceased woman.
We found towels, kitchenware, decorations, food items, pillows, blankets, clothing and more! It is rewarding, after all that work, to see the boxes neatly lined up in the basement for our rummage sale, while those items we had other use for were distributed accordingly.
Before that, however, Apartment #12 served in a different roles. For several months, it served as a make-shift sacristy. Due to Covid precautions, we were not able to have Mass in our chapel. We were “exiled” (or so it felt) to the apartment wing lobby for the Liturgy. This vacant apartment was conveniently located right down the hall from our “north valley chapel,” as we’d dubbed the room that was otherwise used for card playing and TV watching.
This apartment was also used as a vaccine clinic location, offering more privacy than the atrium would have. (At this time, apartment residents were still unable to come over to the Basic Care unit.)
When recertifications needed to be done for the government in order to ensure residents were still eligible for housing assistance and set their rent, this apartment was used as the “HUD office, where Sr. Rebecca and her assisting staff member could meet with residents and complete their paperwork.
Really, this efficiency apartment has seen a lot in the past twelve months. We are thankful that it is no longer needed for most of these purposes.
Some of us may never look at this apartment the same again. Once someone moves in there, we might have to make a conscious effort not to think of it as the sacristy or even “Judy’s apartment!”