Life at The Driftwood apartments was far from perfect. Tenants said the plumbing was prone to leaks and once in a while a cockroach might scamper through the kitchen.
But rent, at $800 or less a month, was doable. And the cream-colored building on Pacific Avenue in Long Beach held special memories.
For Jonaya Chadwick, 19, it was where she hoisted friends to grab avocados from a tree and wrote fantasy stories that helped her escape problems at school and home.
When her mother, Theresa Harvey, fought cancer in a nearby hospital, Chadwick even stayed with the complex’s live-in owners….