Almost.

A judge yesterday cleared the way for city officials to move residents out of unsafe buildings.

But managing partner Jorge Newbery said he plans to retain those tenants who pay full rent by using the few buildings the city has deemed safe. This would leave 100 renters amid the 1,100 apartments that sprawl over 52 acres.

"The goal is to keep 25 buildings open," Newbery said after the conference among attorneys and the judge in Franklin County Environmental Court.

He said income from those tenants would probably be enough to keep the utilities on in those buildings while he looks for new investors.

Newbery told the judge he agrees to vacate the remaining 97 buildings and will no longer fight the city.

Meanwhile, government officials began working last night to relocate about 340 families whose apartments will lose federal-rent subsidies next month because of long-standing safety and maintenance problems.

Families packed the multipurpose room of Broadleigh Elementary School last night to learn that they’ll get rent vouchers and nearly $1,000 each in federal aid to search for a new home, hire movers, hook up utilities and cover miscellaneous expenses.

"We’re going to work to make sure your relocation happens and happens fast," said Thomas H. Leach, Columbus field office director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A command center will open Tuesday at Christ Cathedral on Allegheny Avenue near the complex to match tenants with new landlords and pass out checks and vouchers.

The crowd cheered. Adar Mohamed, 20, says she’s ready to go. Mohamed, a Somali refugee, takes care of her orphaned younger siblings, recently earned a high-school diploma and is starting college to study nursing.

She moved to Woodland Meadows in December. Her apartment lacks bedroom doors and she must haul buckets from under her dripping kitchen sink.

"I lived through civil war, and I thought, ‘Finally, I am someplace safe,’ " she said. But twice in two months, thieves entered her apartment and stole everything — clothes, food, furniture.

"All they left were clothes hangers," she said.

John Beckman, a neighbor in North Eastmoor, said acres of vacant buildings worry him.

"I have faith that city officials won’t let it get that bad," Beckman said, "but 100 boarded-up buildings isn’t going to help anyone."

Newbery said he has no money to continue paying a security company to patrol the complex, though he said he doesn’t know when those services would end.

"If he gets rid of security, let’s go on back to ‘Uzi Alley,’ " said tenant Martha Burgan, referring to what police called the complex during the 1990s because of crime there. "I am nervous about being out here with two kids and no security."

Last weekend, a 15-year-old girl reported she was forced to walk 2 miles to Woodland Meadows, where she was raped at knifepoint in an unsecured, vacant unit.

Columbus police will step up patrols for the time being, police spokesman Sgt. Michael Woods said.

Newbery stopped renovations a week ago, saying his investors were unwilling to sink more money into the project after the loss of his federal-rent subsidies.

His attorney, Mark Decker, told Environmental Judge Harland H. Hale, "Right now, Woodland Meadows is in a financial stranglehold."

City officials, who had planned to systematically inspect and quickly vacate dangerous buildings, now say they’ll work with federal officials already moving out tenants. That process will take two to three months.

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