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ST. LOUIS — Though she owns a house, Evie Williamson-Moore has been renting an apartment for the past several months.

That’s because part of the back wall of her Jeff-Vander-Lou rowhouse collapsed in May when the wall of the crumbling rowhouse connected to it also collapsed.

Her neighbor is Paul McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration.

The NorthSide property connected to hers is one of hundreds owned across the near north side by the St. Charles County developer, who began buying up huge chunks of the struggling area over a decade ago. There have been pockets of development — a new medical facility, a grocery store — but also buildings collapsing from neglect, creating angry neighbors among the residents still left in the hollowed-out swath of the city.

Williamson-Moore has had no luck getting any compensation in the months since the collapse. NorthSide’s lawyers say there was a preexisting problem with her home and it’s not their responsibility.

“I don’t have the money to hire an attorney,� Williamson-Moore said earlier this month. “You almost have to accept the situation and keep on moving.�

She and her five daughters did move to an apartment in the nearby Hyde Park neighborhood — not far but still not the neighborhood she consciously chose to remain in while so many other residents left.

She had purchased her home on Howard Street, just a couple blocks from the site of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s under-construction western headquarters, for a song — $5,000 — in 2013. She used it to take out a loan to start her nearby business, a dance studio. She was friends with her neighbors.

A man who buys property and sells it to NorthSide — Raymond McKee, no relation to the developer — had been talking to Williamson-Moore about buying her rowhouse for months before the collapse. He said he was going to build her a new house in the neighborhood, where she wanted to stay. When that never happened, she said she’d just take money. He kept delaying a closing date.

When the Post-Dispatch profiled her situation in May, Raymond McKee said he’d honor his promise to buy the house for $150,000.

Williamson-Moore said he stopped responding to her texts in July.

“I don’t expect to hear anything from him,� she said.

Raymond McKee said last week his group still planned to buy her house if it can come to an agreement. He wouldn’t say if the $150,000 offer still stands but that the “price offered is consistent� with what his company has paid for nearby property.

�We have purchased other properties adjacent to hers and have others under contract,� he said in an email. “We are hopeful we can also purchase her property.�

There’s no evidence, he said, that NorthSide’s property caused her wall collapse.

That was the position taken by lawyers for NorthSide.

“Investigations to date do not reveal that the condition of the (NorthSide) property caused or contributed to the damage to Ms. Williamson’s home,� Joseph Dulle, an attorney with Stone, Leyton and Gershman wrote in response to questions submitted to longtime McKee lawyer Steve Stone. “In fact, we have been informed that Ms. Williamson’s insurer denied coverage for the wall failure based on an existing condition. A condition that existed at the time Ms. Williamson acquired the property.�

Williamson-Moore acknowledged that her insurer denied a claim years ago. But she said it’s because she couldn’t get NorthSide to help with the wall the two shared.

“It’s shared responsibility,� Williamson-Moore said. “It’s my responsibility and their responsibility. But Paul McKee has no interest in fixing up any problems over there.�

Dulle said NorthSide has “encouraged� Raymond McKee’s firm “to offer a purchase price that is well in excess of her original purchase price several years ago and is well above market value, and not discounted for its current condition.�

Williamson-Moore, though, isn’t convinced. She thinks NorthSide is just waiting her out.

“He has no intention of dealing with this property at all,� she said. “Because who’s going to make him?�