Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 76, printed March 26. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

By Phil Wilayto

Stonewall Place, located near the intersection of Semmes and Cowardin avenues just south of the James River, is one of eight public housing sites operated by the Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority “for qualified low-income elderly and disabled Richmonders.”

And for most of December and nearly a week in February, the residents of the building’s 70 units could not receive their mail.

“First, we didn’t get any mail for the first three weeks in December,” said Dieyah Rasheed, an 11-year resident and president of the Stonewall Tenants Council. “The carriers said the lock on the outside door was broken and they couldn’t get inside.”

Stonewall Place has a mailroom that can only be entered through an outside door, which is kept locked. Postal carriers, who have the key, place the mail in slots that tenants access with individual keys from the other side of the mailroom wall.

“Then we heard the mail was being sent to the post office off Chamberlayne,” Rasheed said.

The main post office at 1801 Brook Road off Chamberlayne Avenue is only 10 minutes from Stonewall by car, but not all residents have cars. Many no longer drive or have someone to drive them. There’s GRTC public transit, but the bus ride takes 40 minutes, and riders have to wait outside for the bus. This was in the middle of winter.

“A few residents went to the Chamberlayne office and got their mail,” Rasheed said, “but then some others went and were told they weren’t allowed to pick it up.”

She said she called someone at the post office and was told the mail would be delivered as soon as the door was fixed.

The problem was, USPS said the door was RRHA’s responsibility, and RRHA said it was the postal service’s.

“The people here depend on their mail,” Rasheed said. “Some of them get their medicine through the mail. And if it’s not delivered, the pharmacy isn’t going to mail it again. So they go a whole month without their meds. The people were really suffering.”

Rasheed decided to go public.

“I called Channel 6, and they came and did a story,” Rasheed said. “And the lock finally got fixed.”

For a while.

Then, in the second week of February, the mail stopped coming again.

The door lock was broken. Again.

“This time it went on for six days,” Rasheed said. “I called Channel 6 again, and they came back out and did another story.

“They called RRHA again, and the next day RRHA maintenance changed the lock. So it was their responsibility and they could have fixed it all along.”

Rasheed was first elected president of the tenants council three years ago and recently was reelected. She also has been a member of the Virginia Defenders since 2013.

The Defender emailed RRHA Chief Executive Officer Steven B. Nesmith on March 7 asking for a comment for this story. As of March 19 there still was no response