    [Senate Hearing 118-524]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 118-524

                            HUMAN RIGHTS IN HOUSING

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
                                  AND THE LAW

                                     OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 MARCH 4, 2024

                                   __________

                               Serial No. J-118-57

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                            www.judiciary.senate.gov
                                www.govinfo.gov

                                    __________

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    57-774                  WASHINGTON : 2025

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                       RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina,
    AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota                 Ranking Member
    CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
    RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      JOHN CORNYN, Texas
    MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
    CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           TED CRUZ, Texas
    ALEX PADILLA, California             JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  TOM COTTON, Arkansas
    PETER WELCH, Vermont                 JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
    LAPHONZA BUTLER, California          THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
                                         MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
                     Joseph Zogby, Majority Staff Director
                    Katherine Nikas, Minority Staff Director

                    Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law

                           JON OSSOFF, Georgia, Chair
    RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee,
    PETER WELCH, Vermont                     Ranking Member
    LAPHONZA BUTLER, California          JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
                                         JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
                    Jessica Jensen, Democratic Chief Counsel
                     Josh Divine, Republican Chief Counsel

                               C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    Ossoff, Hon. Jon.................................................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Fletcher, Miracle................................................     3
        Prepared statement...........................................    28

    Graff-Radford, Esther............................................     9
        Prepared statement...........................................    31

    Hines, DeAnna....................................................     7
        Prepared statement...........................................    33

    Jones, Ayanna....................................................    10
        Prepared statement...........................................    35

    Odom, Latysha....................................................     5
        Prepared statement...........................................    38

                                    APPENDIX

    Items submitted for the record...................................    27

                            HUMAN RIGHTS IN HOUSING

                                  ----------

                             MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2024

                          United States Senate,
              Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law,
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:13 a.m., in
    Roswell City Hall, Roswell, Georgia, Hon. Jon Ossoff, Chair of
    the Subcommittee, presiding.
        Present: Senator Ossoff [presiding].

                 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JON OSSOFF,
                A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA

        Chair Ossoff. The Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
    will come to order. Before we begin this hearing, I'd like to
    take a moment to acknowledge and express appreciation on behalf
    of the U.S. Senate and on behalf of the people of Georgia for
    our witnesses today, for the courage and determination that you
    demonstrate by speaking out in public on this important issue.
    Thank you so much for being here, and thank you for lending
    your voice to the effort to stand up for families across
    Georgia and across the country.
        I'd also like to take a moment to thank Mayor Kurt Wilson
    and the City Council, the extraordinary staff here in Roswell
    City Hall for their hospitality, for opening up this
    extraordinary civic space to the U.S. Senate today to hear
    directly from people impacted by the issues that we're
    discussing today. Thank you, mayor, for your hospitality.
        I would ask that all who are present at this U.S. Senate
    Subcommittee hearing remain respectful throughout our hearing
    so that witnesses have the opportunity to make their voices
    heard and to contribute to the record. I would also note for
    those of you who may be here in order to express or pursue your
    personal concerns regarding your housing situation or any other
    matter, that while today's hearing testimony will be limited to
    those witnesses who are at the witness stand today, a member of
    my staff named Alexia Johnson is here.
        Alexia, would you please stand up so that everybody can
    identify you? Alexia? Alexia's coming back and we will make
    sure that she's identified in just a moment, but a member of my
    team is here to meet with you, make sure we have your contact
    information, and followup with you directly should you have
    concerns that we can pursue on your behalf.
        Now here's the background. Five months ago as Chair of the
    Human Rights Subcommittee, I launched an investigation into the
    mistreatment of families by landlords in Georgia and across the
    country, and in particular on threats to the safety of children
    who dwell in dangerous living conditions. And what we found
    thus far is that too often landlords and large property owners
    and managers are securing and receiving massive Federal
    subsidies, while subjecting vulnerable families and children to
    dangerously unsafe and unsanitary living conditions.
        The Subcommittee has conducted site visits and interviewed
    nearly 100 tenants, landlords, maintenance staff, housing
    attorneys, and policy experts across Georgia and the Nation.
    The staff has reviewed court records, resident complaints,
    housing inspection reports and work orders, photo and video
    evidence, and extensive correspondence between tenants,
    landlords, and federal housing officials.
        We've heard from families who live in apartments plagued by
    severe mold and pest infestations who lack basic plumbing, or
    whose floors were so rotten that they collapsed. We heard from
    a tenant whose child fell through a collapsed floor, and
    another whose child was bitten by a rat.
        We've interviewed tenants who described balconies falling
    off their buildings, fires, violent assaults and shootings,
    inadequate safety and security infrastructure, elevator outages
    that left elderly Americans trapped in their homes without
    access to food or medication, and children who became sick from
    mold and sewage exposure. Yet the Subcommittee heard time and
    time again that when many of these tenants asked their
    landlords for help, that help never came and worse, they
    sometimes reported facing retaliation or eviction.
        The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes a human
    right to an adequate standard of living, including housing. A
    home is more of than a place to sleep. It must be a place of
    safety and of security, but for too many Georgians and for too
    many children in Georgia, home is instead a place of peril.
        We are here today because the mistreatment of Georgia
    families and children by landlords must stop. We're talking
    about families living in dangerous apartments, many of whom are
    paying rent to live in the apartments that are to be the
    sanctuary for themselves and for their kids, and yet they face
    the risk of black mold and rats, of sewage floods and stray
    bullets. And meanwhile, the property owners and property
    managers who run these properties are collecting taxpayer
    dollars while failing to provide a decent standard of living.
        The Department of Housing and Urban Development has
    obligations and enforcement tools to hold accountable the
    thousands of landlords and private property owners and managers
    who receive many millions in taxpayer dollars every year across
    the country. Yet we've found that some properties pass their
    HUD inspections even while residents are experiencing dangerous
    and unhealthy conditions, and it takes far too long to identify
    bad actors and to hold them accountable.
        So today we'll hear from current and former residents at
    three different properties here in Georgia. The Subcommittee
    was able to confirm that two of these properties passed
    multiple HUD inspections in the past 4 years, despite severe
    issues reported to the Subcommittee. We will also hear from two
    expert attorneys who represent tenants facing alleged
    retaliation for reporting maintenance and security concerns.
        I want to emphasize that this is an active and ongoing
    inquiry of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights. Our
    Subcommittee will continue to investigate human rights
    violations in housing and elsewhere to protect families in
    Georgia and nationwide.
        I'll now introduce our witnesses with gratitude again for
    your appearance and testimony today. We will hear today from
    Ms. Miracle Fletcher, a mother, cancer survivor, and tenants'
    rights advocate who formerly lived at Trestletree Village in
    Atlanta, Georgia. We'll hear from Ms. Latysha Odom. Ms. Odom is
    the mother of four children and lives at Heritage Apartments in
    Griffin, Georgia. We'll hear from Ms. DeAnna Hines. Ms. Hines
    is a mother who lives at Southwood Apartments in Morrow,
    Georgia.
        We'll hear from Ms. Esther Graff-Radford, a tenants' rights
    attorney representing clients here in Georgia, and Ms. Ayanna
    Jones, a senior litigation counsel at the Atlanta Volunteer
    Lawyers Foundation with extensive experience representing
    tenants living in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
        Before we hear your opening statements, we will swear in
    the witnesses. So I would ask that you all please rise and
    raise your right hand.
        [Witnesses are sworn in.]
        Chair Ossoff. Let the record reflect that all witnesses
    answer in the affirmative. You may take your seats, and we will
    now begin with opening statements from our witnesses, beginning
    when you are ready with Ms. Fletcher. Thank you, Ms. Fletcher.
    You may begin.

                    STATEMENT OF MIRACLE FLETCHER,
                    FORMER TENANT, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

        Ms. Fletcher. Chairman Ossoff and Members of the
    Subcommittee on Human Rights. My name is Miracle Fletcher. I'm
    a 40-year-old mother, a rare cancer survivor, and a housing
    advocate. I am here today to share my experiences as a former
    tenant living in the Trestletree Village Apartments.
        In late 2018, I moved into Trestletree Village to ensure I
    was able to afford to pay my monthly bills without assistance
    from family members, due to complications from my previous
    cancer diagnosis. I moved into unit 777A with a feeling of
    security and ease, thinking this was a safe, secure environment
    for myself and my children. Shortly after moving into my unit,
    I started to hear loud bubbling noises erupting from my pipes,
    centering from my bathtub drain.
        The sounds mimic the sound your stomach makes as if the
    room is silent, and the person hasn't eaten in a while. Little
    did I know the rumbles would grow into a massive plumbing
    issue. My unit at 777A flooded constantly with an upload of raw
    sewage consistent with my neighbors flushing their toilets and
    heavy rainfalls. Floating pieces of fecal matter, even eaten
    food, toilet paper, and debris filled my bathtub overflowing
    unto my floors throughout my apartment.
        The everyday smell of a foul odor of feces that would
    normally cause someone to cringe upon smelling it, became the
    dreadful smell we endured daily. Our reality was not a Folgers
    cup wake up. Instead, our mornings consisted of walking
    through, contaminated sewer water to reach the restroom to
    brush our teeth and wash our faces while inhaling the vile
    smelling odor, fumes of bowel movements drifting in the
    bathtub.
        Thoughts about the quality and sanitation of our water
    remained a constant and consistent thought in our minds. Four
    months, four months of daily exposure to raw sewage, floating,
    discarded food particles, fecal matter, and blood was extremely
    hurtful and inhumane.
        Despite reports to management, my daughter was taking a
    shower while my upstairs neighbor flushed her toilet. The
    content of her bowel movements covered my daughter's feet while
    she attempted to take a shower to clean her body, instead found
    her feet covered in feces. This was a horrifying experience for
    my daughter and myself as a mother. At that moment, I felt the
    pain of being unheard all over my body, leaving me empty
    without recourse or support.
        My children and I lived in uninhabitable conditions after
    consistent attempts to get management to address the severe
    plumbing issues related in a merry-go-round of emails to
    management, phone calls to the National Housing Compliance,
    leading to a dead end of hopelessness. After repeated attempts
    to seek assistance, my unit in 777A erupted with a nonstop flow
    of raw sewage that flowed over into my neighbor's unit
    underneath the floor and baseboards.
        As my neighbors assisted in attempting to salvage our
    things, the things in my unit discarded during previous months
    of exposure to sewage due to the consistency of the water flow
    in my unit daily, I utilized all the towels covers and any
    other material we could use to stop the water flow. Constant
    exposure to fecal matter and raw sewage contributed to my
    exposure to a bacteria and stomach infection.
        Finally, intense flooding led to our relocation from the
    downstairs unit 777A into the upstairs unit 777D. After moving
    into unit D, I along with other tenants, came together and
    addressed concerns that we mutually shared. After partnering
    with other organizations to assist us in organizing, the
    pathway for us to get assistance for our concerns was still not
    clear. I started to research our HUD tenants' rights uncovering
    HUD CFR part 245, the rights for tenants to organize without
    interference from management.
        The tenants' association canvased passing out flyers for
    meetings, rallies, and community resources. Due to our
    organizing during the COVID-19 pandemic, we experienced fines,
    retaliation, lease violations, threats of eviction, and the
    placement of any suspected community organizer, churches, or
    organizations suspended of offering support to us placed on the
    criminal trespassing list.
        Throughout all our efforts, we still felt unheard. Our
    rights were violated daily, yet the constant threats of losing
    our homes weighed heavier than the support we received from
    HUD. Our posted meeting signs removed, and the oppressive
    treatment received for our unwavering commitment to upholding
    our HUD rights to organize, living in one of the nicest
    neighborhoods in Atlanta, surrounded by $250,000 homes, yet
    isolated from the exposure to the nature preserve.
        Our children were climbing kudzu to reach the BeltLine or
    the blatant disregard for electrical issues, plumbing concerns
    on massive water flood streaming from a utility hole, sewer
    cover in our parking lot causing massive flooding. A shared
    feeling of insignificance resonated amongst us all. My question
    as well as the tenants at that time and still is today, where
    is HUD? How, how are we allowed to live like this?
        Continually organizing and educating ourselves prompted the
    tenant's association to send more invites for meetings between
    management and HUD. This led to missed scheduled meetings from
    management and the police enforcement officers requesting
    tenants and organizers to leave the property. The constant
    fight for our association's acknowledgement overshadowed our
    main concern, the habitability of our living conditions.
        In late October 2021, I experienced issues concerning my
    water heater previously being reported, the water heater was
    left unfixed or replaced and declared unsafe by the gas
    company. From October until January 31st, 2022, when I moved
    out of unit 777D, my children and I was without access to hot
    water.
        Today, I leave challenging HUD to implement a task force
    created of tenants with lived experiences of housing
    insecurities, in partnership with HUD and the National Housing
    Compliance. The HUD Tenants Taskforce will serve to ensure
    tenants concerns for the habitability of their living, will be
    efficiently addressed urgently by HUD, placing the
    accountability on landlords, property owners to provide safe
    and healthy housing for us all. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Fletcher appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Fletcher, for your testimony.
    Ms. Odom, we will turn now to you. I might respectfully request
    if you can move that microphone so it's fairly close that way
    everyone in the room will be able to hear your opening
    statement.

          STATEMENT OF LATYSHA ODOM, TENANT, GRIFFIN, GEORGIA

        Ms. Odom. Hello, my name is Latysha Odom. I'm a 39-year-
    old----
        Chair Ossoff. Ms. Odom, forgive me. If you could move that
    microphone just a little bit closer, I'd be grateful to you.
    Thank you, ma'am.
        Ms. Odom. Okay. I'm a 39-year-old single mother of four.
    I'm so very grateful and thankful to be here and to be heard.
    I'm here to testify on my experience living in Heritage Heights
    in Griffin, Georgia. My kids and I moved to Heritage December
    2019. As happy as we were to have our own place, it quickly
    turned into a nightmare, a constant nightmare.
        It all started in January 2020. From 2020-2023, my bathroom
    ceiling leaked every few days. I did as I was supposed to,
    which was to call the office to put in work orders. Each time
    the management company told me it wasn't a leak. They blamed my
    upstairs neighbor saying she was letting the toilet overflow or
    didn't have a shower curtain or the shower mat, and the kids
    were splashing water on the floor. None of those excuses made
    sense to me because of how much water was leaking and how much
    damage it caused.
        After constant leaks, my bathroom ceiling actually
    collapsed. This happened over and over, sometimes repeatedly in
    the same week. If it collapsed on a Friday and I called the
    emergency hotline, no one would show up until that Monday. So
    that leaves me and my children having to find somewhere to
    stay, since that was our only bathroom.
        The only thing the management company ever did was replace
    the ceiling panels, but that didn't actually fix the problem.
    When the ceiling would collapse, the debris would fall into the
    toilet and clog it. It would cover the tub, and get all over
    the floor. One time, my 6-year-old daughter had no choice but
    to relieve herself in the sink because the toilet was full of
    the ceiling debris.
        This has caused unbelievable trauma for me and my kids. To
    hear your child cry because they're scared to go in the
    bathroom by themselves, that makes me feel less of a mom
    because my kids live in this environment. After making a
    complaint with the housing authority and nothing changed, I
    almost gave up. In 2021, I contacted HUD because I was told by
    the manager that they weren't going to continue to change the
    ceiling tiles.
        I was shocked, angry, and hurt. So I emailed customer
    service and told them, and they came and changed the tile.
    However, it still wasn't fixed. I continue to deal with this
    even today. It's my new normal. No one actually came and fixed
    my ceiling until 2023. After I found my angel, a local advocate
    named Sharon King, she helped me push for change.
        During this time, we dealt with intimidation, being lied
    to, and different men from the management companies coming in
    and out of my apartment, and sometimes without me knowing,
    because a key to my apartment was being circulated amongst
    staff like a hot plate of food. Along with this issue comes the
    biggest problem, a roach infestation.
        My apartment has been infested for about two going on three
    years now. It's so bad that my kids and I never eat at the
    table in the kitchen due to the roaches being everywhere. I
    can't leave any food out even to fix our plates because if I
    do, there'll be roaches in our food. If I fix anything to
    drink, we have to cover our cups and cans with a book or
    something heavy, otherwise, bugs will get into our drinks.
        My youngest 2-year-old does not want to go to the bathroom
    alone because of the roaches. It's been several times that I or
    my girls have been in the tub or the shower and a roach would
    fall into the water. When we are ready for bed, we all climb
    into my bed because my 6-year-old is afraid to sleep alone.
    Even being in my room, it's still scary. There have been times
    that roaches crawl onto the pillows we were using, under the
    sheets, side of the bed, the headboard, the walls, the dresser,
    and the TV.
        And because of this, I don't sleep. I'm afraid to move my
    mattress because I worry that the roaches may have a colony
    underneath it. My 6-year-old falls asleep with her hands
    covering her ears. I have asked several times for some type of
    extermination, and all I've gotten is pest control spraying
    around the kitchen and the bathroom. Whatever the spray is,
    it's not killing the roaches. I'm still killing all of the
    roaches myself.
        It is to the point that the building now totally ignores
    me. They have not responded to me since December 2023 when I
    asked for a plan to kill the roaches. So instead, I do my own
    pest control. In the 4-years that I've lived in Heritage, what
    I've been shown is a lack of human compassion and abuse of
    power. When will they be held accountable? When will it end? We
    deserve better.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Odom appears as a submission
    for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Odom, for your testimony. Ms.
    Hines, please will you now offer your opening statement, and
    I'd ask as well, thank you, that you should use the microphone.
    Thank you.

           STATEMENT OF DEANNA HINES, TENANT, MORROW, GEORGIA

        Ms. Hines. All right. Hi everyone. My name is DeAnna Hines.
    My two children, one 4 and one 16, and I, have been in my
    residence at Southwood Apartment Complex in Morrow, Georgia
    since 2016. Ever since I moved in, I have had little issues
    that are now starting to be major issues. Since my time in
    Southwood, my ceiling has repeatedly fell, collapsed four or
    five times in 2023 alone, and for several months, I have
    visited the rent office or manager's office daily to report the
    needs for repairs.
        Each time the building only temporarily repaired my patches
    in my ceiling and everything, such as cutting a hole in the
    ceiling and replacing the ceiling panel that fell rather than
    repairing the ongoing leak that's inside of the ceiling.
    Sometimes maintenance just cuts a hole in the ceiling and does
    not return for weeks or months.
        I have taped trash bags to the gapping hole in my bathroom
    to cover up the hole because my children are scared to bathe in
    the bathroom. They stopped coming to fix it. My kids are
    afraid. When I told maintenance staff that I believe it was a
    pipe leak inside of the building that's causing all the
    leakage, the staff told me that--I'm sorry--that they could not
    afford the renovations in the building to prevent this from
    happening again and again. The whole building is slanting and
    caving in, and they say they don't have money to fix it.
        After about some time--well after about 3 years,
    maintenance supposedly fixed the pipes, but my ceilings
    continued to collapse from water damage and leaking. Once the
    ceiling collapsed while my 11-year-old then, who's now 16, was
    in the shower, he was bathing and yelled for me. When I ran in
    there to him to see what was going on, he said the water was
    coming out of the ceiling. When I grabbed him to pull him out
    of the tub, the ceiling fell exactly where he was bathing at.
        I felt very hopeless and terrified that I couldn't protect
    my child from a ceiling. On November 15, 2022, which I called
    the day of everything collapsing in our household, my son, who
    was three then, who is now four, was walking through the living
    room and the ceiling began to leak and it fell. As soon as he
    walked past my couches, it fell on him. Well, not on him. It
    could have been, I'm sorry. It fell literally right behind him.
    And even then, I felt hopeless.
        So I called the emergency line, which is maintenance, to
    contact him, to let them know that what had happened, this was
    at 3 a.m. in the morning. They came at 10 a.m. that morning. It
    took the building several months to repair my kitchen, which
    had also fell.
        In the spring of 2023, my kitchen and bathroom floors
    started to collapse. You can feel the vinyl sinking between the
    beams when you stand on it, and you can see the beams poking
    through the floor. My sons and I have to jump from beam to beam
    because we're scared they could--I'm mostly scared that they
    could fall through the floor at any given time while they're
    using the bathroom.
        It is caving in and I feel at the moment I will be--or my
    kids will be in the basement of the floor. Sorry.
        Chair Ossoff. You take your time.
        Ms. Hines. I'm like picturing this up.
        Chair Ossoff. Take your time Ms. Hines. There's no rush at
    all.
        Ms. Hines. Thank you. Okay. I have told the rent office
    repeatedly of my floor, and they just come and look at it. My
    floor is caving in and they say--or that the maintenance man
    says that in order to fix the floor, they would have to tear
    down the whole complex just to fix the floor. So they can't do
    anything about that. So they don't really care that our life is
    in danger.
        My front door is also not closed all the way. You could see
    outside and in the house through the opening of the door. You
    can fit your fingers through and pull it open if you want it
    to. The rent office told me that someone had to kick my door
    in, but no one has ever kicked my door in the whole time I have
    been living in my apartment since 2016. I told them no one has
    kicked it in. They tell me that they're going to have someone
    come fix it, but no one still hasn't showed.
        Although I have reported these issues frequently to the
    building management, as of January 2024, no one has come to fix
    my floors, or my door. But they came to look at the floors and
    the door, and I have not seen anyone since February 7th, 2024.
    These things and so much more are falling apart around me and
    my family. I don't have the means to move right now, and I feel
    trapped somewhere I no longer want to have my family living,
    nor do I feel we are living in a safe environment.
        The rent office seems to think that we are people in the
    lowest society because we receive based on income, apartments
    that we don't deserve to live in a healthy environment, and my
    kids don't deserve to grow up in a healthy environment. My 4-
    year-old who is about to be five tomorrow, has developed asthma
    and cannot be in our apartment all the time because of the mold
    that's building in our apartment.
        It started to become a health issue, and the rent office
    just doesn't care or wants to put the money--or doesn't want to
    put the money into repairs to fix it rather than patch the
    problem. I am just disgusted with the way the apartment is
    right now and the management. My hope is to have a better
    service and the future that we all deserve, no income or not.
    Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Hines appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Hines. Ms. Graff-Radford,
    please.

                   STATEMENT OF ESTHER GRAFF-RADFORD,

                        TENANTS RIGHTS ATTORNEY,

            FOUNDER OF GRAFF-RADFORD LAW, CHAMBLEE, GEORGIA

        Ms. Graff-Radford. Good morning. I'm Esther Graff-Radford,
    and I run a private law practice that represents tenants in
    housing across metro Atlanta. I work closely with Legal Aid and
    the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation and local housing
    nonprofits, and I do a lot of work educating the community and
    tenants and other lawyers about tenants' rights.
        Cases that I work on deal with landlords not repairing
    properties, landlords retaliating against tenants who ask for
    repairs, housing discrimination and unfair and deceptive
    business practices by landlords and management companies. I
    personally have lived in subsidized housing as a small child.
    Some of my earliest memories are being a kid in the East Side
    Hills, Section 8 Project in Farmerville, Louisiana.
        What our kids are going through in subsidized housing is
    personal to me. My tenant clients are mostly working and
    disabled women with children. Some of their landlords get money
    from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs or from a
    County Housing Authority in the form of Section 8 vouchers.
    Some landlords are getting money directly from HUD in the form
    of project based rental assistance. Some landlords are getting
    millions of dollars from the government to buy and renovate
    their properties in the form of low-income housing tax credits.
        Usually, the same landlords are benefiting from multiple
    subsidies in a combination of subsidies at the same time. In
    exchange for these millions of dollars of subsidies, these
    landlords are supposed to be providing housing that is kept up
    to a basic repair standard.
        The lights, and the water, and the heat are supposed to
    work. The toilets are supposed to flush. People are supposed to
    be able to cook meals, take showers, get a full night's sleep,
    have their friends over, do homework, hang up their clothes in
    the closet, put cereal in the kitchen cabinet, and milk in the
    fridge. All of the basic things that we do at home.
        The sad truth as we're hearing this morning is that
    subsidized landlords in Georgia who are getting government rent
    money, often are not providing the basic housing that we the
    taxpayers are paying for. I frequently see that landlords are
    neglecting maintenance to the point that they are endangering
    their tenants. Most of my clients are in metro Atlanta, but I
    get calls from people across the state.
        I frequently see situations where sewage is backing up in
    people's apartments because of old and broken-down plumbing,
    not once, not twice, but chronically to the point that families
    are expected to live in homes that are continually soaked in
    raw sewage and have no working bathrooms.
        Some of my clients have to use the bathroom at a
    neighboring business or in buckets lined with plastic bags. I
    see extreme rat and cockroach infestations. A lot of my clients
    in subsidized properties can't store food in their kitchen
    cabinets because the rats will just tear into it and eat it and
    urinate all over it. They can't put food in their fridge or
    cook because the appliances don't work.
        I see horrific mold because of unmitigated water leaks and
    sewage backups. I see lead in drinking water. I see situations
    where families have no heat or air conditioning for months at a
    time. I see collapsing ceilings and floors full of asbestos,
    rotting structures where you can see right down to the dirt
    below, and families are putting boards down on the floor so
    that they can walk to the bathroom without endangering their
    lives.
        I see vacant units piled with garbage that share walls with
    occupied apartments, and there seems to be very little
    meaningful enforcement when tenants report these repair issues.
    We often see that local Code Enforcement will issue citations
    and take a landlord to court. The landlord will simply pay a
    fine and continue the same behavior. When HUD or the Department
    of Community Affairs inspect, they either are missing the worst
    issues in occupied units or they simply take the landlord's
    word for it, that issues have been repaired.
        There is often not meaningful reinspection, especially
    since COVID. For housing choice voucher tenants, the end result
    is often that they simply lose their housing and are displaced.
    There's no real consequence for the landlord. We often see that
    landlords retaliate against tenants who ask for repairs. People
    outside metro Atlanta are often just out of luck for finding
    legal representation or alternative housing.
        This is leaving the most vulnerable Georgians without a
    safe home base. Kids cannot thrive in school when they were
    woken up by rats running across their bed, and they can't take
    a shower because the tub is full of feces. Parents cannot work
    when they sleep crowded in one mattress with their children
    because the other bedrooms are covered in mold and sewage. This
    is an issue that impacts every aspect of Georgia family's
    lives, and I thank you for listening and paying attention.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Graff-Radford appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Graff-Radford. Ms. Jones,
    please.

                       STATEMENT OF AYANNA JONES,

                       SENIOR LITIGATION COUNSEL,

                 ATLANTA VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOUNDATION,

                            ATLANTA, GEORGIA

        Ms. Jones. Good morning. My name is Ayanna Jones, and I
    have been an attorney for nearly two decades.
        Throughout my career, I have made it my mission to serve
    low-income tenants and underserved populations in the State of
    Georgia. In my first 7 years of practice, I worked with Georgia
    Legal Services Program to support communities beyond and
    outside the metro Atlanta area. And for the last 7 years, I
    have represented low-income tenants within the city of Atlanta,
    the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation.
        During the entirety of my career, I have been able to
    connect with advocates across the country, and we all have
    witnessed similar challenges in the affordable housing sphere.
    Thank you for allowing me and us this opportunity to reflect
    upon our experiences, our journeys, and share the challenges
    that we have all witnessed in the affordable housing landscape.
        Today, I come before you, not only as an advocate for
    affordable housing, but as a voice for those who are too often
    overlooked and neglected; low-income tenants living in
    substandard conditions within apartments that have been
    subsidized by HUD. On a daily basis, this marginalized group
    faces poor housing conditions, mismanagement, while project
    owners continue to benefit from large financial subsidies
    intended to be used to prevent these problems.
        Here are just a few examples of what my clients have had to
    endure for months and sometimes years on end. One mother came
    to me because her preschool age child fell out of a second-
    floor window twice, on two separate occasions as a result of
    rotted window casing. Improper repairs left gaps that led to
    water intrusion and clear disintegration of the wood. And once
    we brought the issue to property management, they just boarded
    up the whole window rather than make the necessary repairs.
        Another client, an elderly grandmother living in housing
    with her daughter and her granddaughter, had an entryway closet
    that was literally full of black mold. The grandmother was
    undergoing chemotherapy and had to walk with a cane, and the
    floor structure, the apartment was so rotted away in some
    areas, that it was dangerously uneven and soft in many places,
    making it difficult for the grandmother to even get around
    safely in her own home.
        A woman called me literally from the top floor of her town
    home desperate because there were rats in her kitchen
    downstairs, and she was terrified to go downstairs to get any
    of her food. She had already stored what food she had in large
    plastic bins, but the rats had previously chewed through them,
    and she just didn't know what else to do.
        Due to mold and rot and moisture, my clients have shown me
    literal dangerous growth of mushrooms and fungus coming off of
    their walls, the ceiling, and even out of their furniture.
    These growths pose serious health risks to their young
    children, and they either have to throw out furniture or resort
    to donated furniture.
        One of our clients was actually trapped in her home because
    the sewer had overflowed outside and there was raw sewage
    surrounding her home. Management promised to come and pump the
    water, and she ended up having to wait for hours upon hours for
    the waters to recede so she could at least walk out of her back
    door to pick up her children for school.
        These aren't just mere inconveniences. These are flagrant
    violations of human dignity and the right to live in safe and
    decent condition. And these violations are in direct conflict
    with HUD's purposes and mandates. By not acting quickly and
    with the full force of law behind it, HUD has allowed these
    property owners to place their profit over the health and
    safety of children and their families, the populations that
    overwhelmingly rely on affordable housing.
        Although HUD has an inspection and reinspection process,
    tenants are not included enough in the process. Once a property
    is flagged for poor conditions, HUD relies on the
    certifications of the property managers that these health and
    safety violations are remedied, but the tenants are not
    contacted to verify that the issues have actually been fixed.
        Even when the property continues to fall short of its
    obligations, HUD is slow to issue abatements and defaults in
    order to force the property managers to comply with basic
    health and safety guidelines. My clients often come to me when
    they are at the end of their rope. On more than one occasion,
    they have reached out to property managers in person, via text,
    email, and rental portals, to request repairs.
        And often their only point of contact is with the front
    office staff because they were never provided the numbers for
    supervisors or even HUD local offices that could oversee the
    management. And even when the compliance line is contacted,
    there is no guarantee that anything will be done to remedy the
    situation.
        I assisted several clients at a complex where the managers
    failed to make sure that the trash in the dumpsters was being
    picked up. The property had several vacant units and tenants
    were forced to put their overflowing trash into these units,
    which are adjacent to units where people were living in.
    Despite urgent calls to management and the HUD compliance line
    from tenants and advocates, the trash continued to pile up.
        I saw rats running rampant through the piles and the smell
    was horrible. Eventually, a local philanthropic organization
    offered to donate funds to pay an independent contractor, 1-
    800-GOT-JUNK I'm sure you've heard, to haul the debris from
    some of the more deteriorated buildings, and I was able to
    schedule the work.
        But this is not, not something that an outsider should have
    to do. This was indisputably a failing of management to which
    they were never held accountable. In these and other
    situations, the tenant is left with no opportunity for rebuttal
    to management's assertions to HUD and the tenants face
    retaliation. Getting evicted is not an option tenants can
    consider when many of them are living paycheck to paycheck or
    just coming out of homelessness with their children. And so,
    they will suffer in silence for as long as they can.
        We must ensure that HUD has the resources to conduct
    thorough investigations of subsidized properties, promptly
    address any violations, and enforce penalties for violations
    and non-compliance. Sometimes we forget how vulnerable we all
    are. We aren't like turtles with the ability to carry our homes
    on our back. We aren't like other species on this planet. We
    don't have fur or scales to protect us from the environment.
        Humans must have shelter. We cannot survive, let alone
    thrive without good homes. Without a stable home, we have small
    chance of having stable and supportive neighborhoods and
    families. They provide the foundation for everything else that
    we could ever do or hope to achieve. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Jones appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Jones, for that powerful
    statement, and thank you all for your testimony.
        Ms. Jones, you made a couple points that struck me. I was
    reminded of a prior investigation that I led when I'd shared
    the permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into the
    mistreatment of military families in privatized housing on
    post, at then Fort Gordon, now Fort Moore. And we heard
    testimony in one of those hearings from a young Army officer
    named Captain Cho. He had been stationed at Fort Moore. I
    happened to then later see him a few months later. He was
    deployed overseas in Korea.
        He'd been living in some of this privatized housing on post
    at Fort Moore and he testified that because of the mold running
    rampant in his housing unit, that his young daughter, his young
    girl, had broken out with a skin condition, was scratching
    herself to the point of bleeding at night. And I was reflecting
    on Captain Cho's powerful testimony of that hearing and what
    we've heard from our extraordinarily courageous witnesses today
    and your expertise.
        And of course, one of the great similarities here, we're
    talking about tenants who lack power. In the case of these
    military families, they don't have a choice about where they're
    stationed, and they don't have much of a choice about where
    they live. And there's no competitive market for these
    privatized home at defense installations. And we're talking
    about tenants here with few choices, and little power, because
    as you just pointed out, Ms. Jones, eviction is not a mere
    inconvenience.
        Ms. Jones, can you just talk us through what eviction means
    for a family in financial precarity and particularly for
    children?
        Ms. Jones. Yes, it has several consequences that are
    collateral damage. First, eviction in Georgia happens most
    quickly than one of the other regions. You could be pre-Covid,
    you could be served with an eviction notice and out of your
    home within 4 weeks. Even a voluntary move is difficult.
    Imagine involuntary displacement. You have to find new schools,
    you have to find new medical homes, you have to commute to
    work, all of these different issues.
        In addition, once you have an eviction in Georgia, it's
    public. The records from magistrate court are public, anyone
    can search your name, which means that landlords, potential
    landlords could look, find your name, see that an eviction was
    just filed against you and deny you housing.
        What that does is, it forces tenants who have faced
    eviction into a smaller and smaller market. And a lot of times
    that market is in substandard housing and their conditions get
    worse and worse and worse, until they have no recourse. It
    feels like they have no option, and they're living in
    substandard housing in neighborhoods that they are unfamiliar
    with, trying to commute back and forth to work when they were
    familiar with their route before, in addition to facing health
    and safety.
        Chair Ossoff. And one recourse is supposed to be HUD. I
    mean, I think one thing that's worth us all pointing out is,
    we're talking about billions of dollars in public funds,
    taxpayer dollars, billions per year that flow to these project
    managers and project donors. And with the receipt of those
    taxpayer dollars comes obligations, duties of care to tenants.
        Now, Ms. Fletcher, did I hear you correctly, you testified
    that you endured sewage, floods of feces, food, blood, and
    urine in your apartment every day for four straight months?
        Ms. Fletcher. Yes, that's correct, Senator. For four
    straight months consistently, my apartment flooded from the
    bathtub drain, which was kind of, you know, confusing at the
    time, which I referred to earlier about the bubbling noises
    from the bathtub drain. So my drain would fill up with the
    sewer water from the drain and just fill the whole entire tub,
    and then my actual toilet would fill and overflow onto the
    floor.
        So if someone say it rained and someone may have cooked
    noodles or something and flushed it in the toilet, sometime you
    would actually be able to see like the noodle pieces like
    floating amongst the debris and the fecal matter in my bathtub.
    And this would be like all over our floor consistently.
        Chair Ossoff. And Ms. Fletcher, you testified that your
    daughter was coated in raw sewage while taking a shower.
        Ms. Fletcher. Yes, she was. She was actually taking a
    shower and my upstairs neighbor actually used her restroom and
    we were pretty close at the time. So she flushed her toilet in
    the contents of her toilet, actually came up in the restroom,
    in the bathtub while my daughter was showering, and it was
    actually fecal matter and blood in the shower with my daughter.
        Chair Ossoff. How did it feel seeing your daughter endure
    that?
        Ms. Fletcher. It was humiliating. I felt very, very
    hopeless. I felt degraded. I felt as if my quality of life or
    my daughter's life and who we are, it didn't matter. And the
    standard in which we were treated it was very, very, very, very
    hurtful. And it actually caused me to like, feel extremely sad,
    disheartened and as a mother, you know, it is your job to
    actually protect your kids.
        So in that moment, I felt helpless and powerless because
    despite me actually, you know, actually identifying these
    maintenance issues in my apartment, I still had no way to
    prevent this from happening consistently to myself and my
    children.
        Chair Ossoff. You described to Subcommittee staff, I
    understand that you contacted management, you reached out to
    the emergency line. Did you get a response?
        Ms. Fletcher. Actually, several times, I actually didn't
    get a response. There were days that I actually sat and I
    waited with no one actually coming. But understanding like the
    process and procedure that we had to take in order to get
    recourse or the procedures put in place for us as tenants, we,
    I actually emailed National Housing Compliance, which was to my
    knowledge at this time, the way that we as public based rental
    assistant tenants, you know, get recourse for our maintenance
    concerns. But still nothing was done to help us.
        Chair Ossoff. So you reported this to National Housing
    Compliance. What happened then?
        Ms. Fletcher. Basically, nothing really happened as far as
    anything being done for my maintenance concerns. Nothing
    happened until actually, the unit flooded to the point of just
    no return, to where the water actually, you know, made it over
    into my neighbor's neighboring unit where we actually needed
    like wet vacs in order to, you know, get the water up. That's
    how consistent the sewer and raw sewer was throughout the
    apartment.
        But even with me, you know, emailing my maintenance,
    emailing the landlord leasing team and also actually sending
    emails to National Housing Compliance, I still got no help
    until October to maybe November when they actually moved us.
    But the flooding had been consistently going on for 4 months.
        Chair Ossoff. How was the new unit?
        Ms. Fletcher. The new unit was similar in how it's actually
    made, but I didn't have the flooding inside the new unit, but I
    also received issues with my water heater the entire time that
    I was there. The same process and procedure, emailing the
    leasing team, letting them know about the water heater.
        Chair Ossoff. What were the issues with your water heater?
        Ms. Fletcher. So basically, the water heater sometimes
    would just shut off. So originally when I first started to
    notify maintenance and notify the leasing team about it, they
    would send maintenance in and what I would think would be them
    maybe relighting the heater or something. But that happened for
    a few months, and then up until, I think it was like October or
    November after I was inside the new unit, the gas company had
    to come out.
        And when the gas company came out to actually check the
    water heater, the gas man that was there actually told me that
    the safety had been bypassed on the water heater and that it
    was inoperable and it was unsafe not only to myself, but to the
    other residents in my building and community in order for them
    to actually light the water heater.
        So I still, even after that was there, and the gas man
    actually left the notification in writing about this, no one
    still came to actually replace my water heater or even just
    address the issues at all. So I just lived there without hot
    water.
        Chair Ossoff. So no safe access to hot water?
        Ms. Fletcher. No safe access to hot water.
        Chair Ossoff. I think, you know, and it, Ms. Jones, I think
    it was you, I wrote it down. You said, ``These are not mere
    inconveniences.'' I mean, anybody in this room with young
    children recognizes that lack of hot water is not a mere
    inconvenience. I mean, for a family, that's a full-blown
    emergency.
        Ms. Fletcher. Yes, it is.
        Chair Ossoff. The inability to bathe your child in hot
    water is pretty fundamental. So you were in one unit where you
    had constant sewage leaks, and you described those in vivid
    detail to us. You were moved to another unit where you didn't
    have safe, reliable access to hot water. So you told us about
    forming the Trestle Tree Tenants Association to advocate for
    the rights of tenants in the apartment complex.
        And you described what you called retaliation. Can you
    please tell us what the property managers did after you formed
    the Trestle Tree Tenants' Association?
        Ms. Fletcher. After we came together and reorganized, we
    received numerous lease violations. The process of us actually
    being acknowledged as a tenants' association was very stressful
    for us all because the concern from management was the
    validation of who we were and our identities as tenants. So we
    requested that our identities not be revealed because we all
    were very afraid of losing our housing.
        So we received lease violations. Management created a
    criminal trespassing list, which violated numerous
    organizations from Housing Justice League from Parkside Equity
    Coalition. Teachers that were actually working at the
    elementary school where our kids attended, were placed on the
    criminal trespassing list, and banned the church that actually
    was providing food during the pandemic.
        And when a lot of our tenants out there, you know, were not
    receiving snaps and food assistance, the church that were
    bringing food every day, feeding our children, were put on a
    criminally trespassing list. So anyone that management felt as
    if they were supporting us or helping us to organize was put on
    a list and banned from the property.
        But us as tenants, we continued to organize. We didn't
    stop. We started having our meetings--once we couldn't have our
    guests on property, we started meeting outside the gate on the
    sidewalk so that our guests could come. We ended up partnering
    with food pantries within our neighborhood. Myself and other
    tenants used our cars to go and pick up food. So we basically
    created our own community resources. We organized a Trestle
    Tree giveaway, where we wanted to give back to our community,
    and we passed out toiletry items to our families and our
    children there.
        We did a 1-year anniversary where community partners came
    in and we cleaned up the field near our apartment complex. So
    any time that we wanted to create or go into this partnership
    with management, it wasn't about us fostering an environment
    where it was hostile. We presented this in a way to our
    management team for us to partner and be proactive about even
    the trash and litter for us, teach our children, you know, to
    protect their environment.
        We put trash bins on our porch and still receive lease
    violations for trash in even having the trash bins when
    maintenance and management complain.
        Chair Ossoff. And Ms. Graff-Radford, you represented Ms.
    Fletcher in a case against the landlord, correct?
        Ms. Graff-Radford. I was honored to do that, yes.
        Chair Ossoff. And you won a settlement?
        Ms. Graff-Radford. Yes, that case did settle.
        Chair Ossoff. I should note for everybody that we've
    received reports from tenants at HUD subsidized properties
    across Georgia of eviction threats, when complaints are made,
    of what are described to us as spurious fines, even threats of
    arrest for reporting dangerous conditions, whether to the
    landlords, to code enforcement, or to HUD.
        Is Ms. Fletcher's experience an isolated one? Help us
    understand the issue of retaliation in this context.
        Ms. Graff-Radford. No, everything that Ms. Fletcher said is
    absolutely true. And these are widespread tactics, to the point
    that when someone calls my office, I can almost give them the
    checklist of what's happening to them because I see it so
    often. So what we see very frequently are, you can't evict
    someone from a subsidized property without good cause.
        So if you want to retaliate against a tenant who is
    organizing other tenants to ask for repairs, or who is being a
    squeaky wheel about health issues, you've got to manufacture a
    reason. So a lot of times what we see, is that tenants are hit
    with lease violations that are completely made up, and these
    lease violations come with the threat of eviction, and they
    come with fines.
        Sometimes these fines are not monetarily large, but when
    you are already struggling to feed your kids, getting a $10 to
    $25 fine can be terrible. We see, I have seen that as Miracle
    said, a lot of times, organizers, community organizers who have
    the right to be invited onto the property under Federal law,
    are threatened with criminal prosecution if they come onto the
    property.
        I see that management companies will form competing
    management-controlled tenant associations to try to muddy the
    waters. That is also illegal under Federal regulations. You
    know, I see that landlords have preemptively written letters to
    the Department of Community Affairs or the HUD blaming
    ``troublemaker tenants,'' meaning tenants who are asking for
    repairs and telling other tenants to ask for repairs.
        Landlords will preemptively, falsely accuse them of causing
    damage to the property. I see a general atmosphere of rudeness
    and surveillance and when I subpoena text messages and emails,
    I see management companies and management staff gloating about
    the ability to bully and intimidate tenants in day-to-day
    interactions who asked for repairs.
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Graff-Radford. Ms. Odom, I'm
    looking here--and I regret that I can't make this available to
    the whole room--but I'm looking here at a photograph, and I
    think you have a folder in front of you, Ms. Odom, Exhibit A.
        Can you confirm, I'm looking here at a photograph of your
    bathroom ceiling collapsed in large part into your toilet,
    correct?
        Ms. Odom. Yes.
        Chair Ossoff. Now, I'll ask that this be entered into the
    record.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. You testified that for 3 years, your bathroom
    ceiling repeatedly collapsed due to water leaks and that when
    you reported these issues to maintenance staff, they told you
    it wasn't a leak. They blamed your upstairs neighbors rather
    than inspect and repair the pipes. How did that make you feel?
        Ms. Odom. It was actually pretty frustrating, and it
    angered me a lot, because this picture actually is--I know it
    looks bad, but it's actually a decent picture compared to a lot
    of other times that it happened. You know, sometimes it'll be
    like one or two panels, sometimes it'll be the entire bathroom.
        So it was very frustrating because we only have one
    bathroom, and when you don't know when it starts to leak and
    you don't know if it's going to fall in on your head or your
    kids' head or--I mean, it's scary. It is very scary. And so
    many times when it happened, you know, I would tell them,
    ``Hey, I got a leak.'' ``It's not a leak.'' And I'm like,
    ``Okay, well, whatever it is, it's a problem because it's
    causing damage.''
        And, you know, I've had to replace a lot of things in my
    bathroom, shoes, you know, when your kid taking the bath, they
    take the shoes. And so I've had to replace a lot of things, and
    I've never had help replacing the stuff.
        Chair Ossoff. How, how has this been for your kids, Ms.
    Odom?
        Ms. Odom. Oh it's bad. When the ceiling first started
    collapsing, my 6-year-old would always come get me and say, ``I
    got to use the bathroom.'' She would never go in there by
    herself. Sometimes now she may, but just recently after they
    claimed that it was fixed, it just started that leaking again.
    So she sees the small stain and the small leak, now it's back
    to, ``Come in the bathroom with me.'' You know, she will not
    use the bathroom by herself.
        And when they're in the tub, it's like anxiety, like she
    has a panic attack sometimes because if she hears--it is so
    thin you can hear every single thing. Like you can hear when
    they're bathing, you can hear when they use the bathroom. So if
    she hears water running, it is like, it's time to get out, you
    know. And my 2-year-old, she just, same difference, you know.
        It is bad because you know, to know that this is, this is
    where you live, this is your home, but your kids are constantly
    afraid to use the bathroom or go in the kitchen or sleep in
    their own bed or just walk in the hallway without something
    terrifying them.
        Chair Ossoff. And I'm looking at Exhibit B here. I think
    you have it in front of you, Ms. Odom. I'll also enter that
    into the record.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. This appears to be dozens, and I mean dozens,
    of roaches on a trap under your fridge. What's it like for your
    kids living with a roach infestation like that day in and day
    out?
        Ms. Odom. It's very traumatic. It is very traumatic. Like,
    no judging nobody, but, you know, I didn't grow up, you know,
    living like that. So when I first moved there, I didn't have
    the issue. But then when I started to see it, and that picture
    is up under my refrigerator, so I had bugs in my refrigerator.
    I put that trap down myself because no one was helping us, you
    know. So I'm like, I noticed--now, at the time too, I was
    dealing with rats. So I decided to put the traps down to see if
    I could catch all the bugs, you know, just whatever.
        And I didn't realize how bad it was until I actually seen
    the trap myself. So my kids are very traumatized, like one bug,
    they can see one bug, and I can tell the difference between
    playing screaming and terrified because Oh, she seen a bug.
    Because she's screaming, like, I know she's terrified. Like,
    you know, sometimes people think you get used to certain
    things, but I just--something I just haven't been able to get
    used to or my kids, you know.
        Chair Ossoff. And you've reported the ceiling collapsing,
    the infestation, repeatedly to the landlord?
        Ms. Odom. Repeatedly to the point where even after I
    reporting it to them, and I noticed that they didn't care, I
    went to housing authority and housing authority didn't care,
    they didn't help me any. Then after that, you know, only help I
    got is when I found Sharon King. Like, other than that, I
    reported it to the point where I started to just email so I
    could have a paper trail, because they started to say, ``If you
    say you called up there, well, I don't remember that. You
    didn't call up here. Well, I didn't know that was happening.''
        And I'm like, but this is the same person I've been talking
    to for years about this same situation. But she doesn't know
    anything about it. Oh, she doesn't know. You know, ``I don't
    remember that.'' So when Sharon started holding them
    responsible and accountable for it, and we started to email, it
    seemed to me like things started to change a little bit, but it
    took a lot.
        Chair Ossoff. Yes. You know, Ms. Odom, I mentioned earlier
    the situation at formerly Fort Gordon now Fort Eisenhower, I
    think I may have inadvertently said now Fort Moore, still
    getting accustomed to the renamed bases. But at formerly Fort
    Gordon now Fort Eisenhower, we saw the same thing for the
    military families there with work orders, with maintenance
    requests going ignored for weeks or months when they were
    urgent.
        And I thank you for sharing your testimony with the
    Subcommittee today. Ms. Hines, you live at Southwood Apartments
    in Morrow, correct?
        Ms. Hines. Yes.
        Chair Ossoff. And you testified that your ceiling has also
    collapsed multiple times since you moved in one time it almost
    injured your son, correct?
        Ms. Hines. Yes.
        Chair Ossoff. Now I've got Exhibit C here in front of you,
    and here again, everyone we're looking at a photo of trash bags
    taped across Ms. Hines' ceiling to prevent the collapsing
    ceiling from coming down on your kids. Is that what we're
    looking at here, Ms. Hines?
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Ms. Hines. No. Right here, the ceiling has already
    collapsed. I'm keeping--I put the bag up because they cut a
    hole into the ceiling. All the hole, yes, basically really most
    of it, and it is really over where the water comes out from the
    bath with--from the shower head and water is not--when my
    children is bathing or I'm bathing, water would come straight
    out of the ceiling while we're bathing.
        So to prevent us from getting wet or at least try to take
    some type of shower, we put a bag up because they wouldn't come
    fix anything.
        Chair Ossoff. And you testified that you're also concerned
    about your floors collapsing, correct?
        Ms. Hines. Yes.
        Chair Ossoff. Can you tell us a little more about that?
        Ms. Hines. The floors, like my kitchen, if I can
    demonstrate, my kitchen, I have my sink area and my
    refrigerator area. And in between that we have a dryer and a
    washing machine and my microwave. If you go into my kitchen,
    the kitchen going this way, so all of my appliances and
    everything is starting to lean over to where my washing machine
    is starting to tear up and shake around.
        And you could slide across the floor, it's uneven, but the
    worst part of the floors is the one that's inside of my
    bathroom, where it's literally, once you step in the bathroom,
    you feel like you going to fall through the floor. It is like a
    floor and then it is beams from what I guess would hold the
    floor up. And then it's the concrete and it feels like the
    concrete parts are just seeping down and we have to jump from
    the floor to the beam, to the beam to the toilet.
        Chair Ossoff. So your roof collapsed, and now your floors
    are caving in?
        Ms. Hines. Yes.
        Chair Ossoff. So your kids are skipping from beam to beam.
    I have it in my notes here that you reported this around June
    2023. Is that correct?
        Ms. Hines. Yes.
        Chair Ossoff. And when did a maintenance crew come and give
    it a proper inspection?
        Ms. Hines. Around October or November. It was a long time
    before they even came. And then they just recently came again
    in February just to look at it again. But back in October,
    November, they told me that they can't do anything about it
    because they had to tear the whole building up just to fix the
    floor, so they can't fix my floor because they would have to
    tear the whole building down.
        And my floor is not the only one because my neighbor
    upstairs is also collapsing to where she's going to be
    downstairs with me if her floor falls. And if her floor falls
    down onto me, we're going to be definitely in the basement. And
    it's not just the bathroom, it's also my living room, my
    hallways, my room.
        It is certain parts of the floor where it's just
    collapsing, but the restroom is the worst because you can
    actually feel it. And even at night, like when you go to the
    restroom and you get up, you go to the restroom and you get
    ready to come out of the bathroom or you're going into the
    bathroom, you forget because you're half asleep, and you
    always, always forget to jump the beams, and I feel like I'm
    about to fall through the floor and all I am doing is just
    sliding across the bathroom because it goes like a hill in my
    house, so I have to jump.
        Chair Ossoff. It's still not fixed.
        Ms. Hines. Still not fixed.
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Hines.
        Ms. Hines. Yes. And I wanted to say one thing.
        Chair Ossoff. Yes ma'am.
        Ms. Hines. If you don't mind.
        Chair Ossoff. Of course.
        Ms. Hines. What they're explaining as far as their
    apartments, which is so sad, I know it's all off subject, but
    mines is the same thing. I have a roach infestation. I have
    toilet coming up. I have where they use a wet vac to vacuum the
    outside of my apartments. So the Housing or anyone that comes
    to look at the apartment knows or won't think that it's a whole
    sewage leak under my building. My bathroom smells like diapers,
    which makes my whole house smell like baby diapers, and I mean,
    like a baby that is sick type of diaper. It stinks. And how
    your apartment is and how yours is, that's how mines is like,
    and it's sad that all of us is having the same issue.
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Hines. Ms. Graff-Radford you
    have a folder in front of you, I think Exhibits D, E and F. Do
    you have that, ma'am?
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Ms. Graff-Radford. I do.
        Chair Ossoff. And you testified that landlords in Georgia
    who are receiving Federal Government subsidies are not
    providing decent, safe, or sanitary housing. Can you tell us
    about these Exhibits D, E and F? Can you describe those please
    to the folks who are tuned in across the country and our
    audience here?
        Ms. Graff-Radford. Absolutely. Exhibit D is a photograph
    that a family that I represent has given me permission to share
    with the Subcommittee. This is in a metro Atlanta property that
    receives both low-income housing tax credits and a large number
    of Section 8 housing choice vouchers. So this landlord got help
    to buy this property, and they're getting help every month in
    the form of rent subsidies as well.
        What we're looking at in these photographs is the black
    congealed sludge of months-worth of an entire building of feces
    and sewage backing up into every bathroom. So what you're
    looking at here is the congealed result of months of sewage
    backups in Exhibit D. This was never repaired, obviously, and
    as you can see from these photographs it was never cleaned and
    sanitized.
        Chair Ossoff. I'm looking at what looks like a bath. This
    is a bathtub.
        Ms. Graff-Radford. On the top photograph is a bathtub.
        Chair Ossoff. This is a bathtub full of contaminated
    sludge.
        Ms. Graff-Radford. Of feces and sewage sludge.
        Chair Ossoff. And what do we have here in Exhibit E? A lot
    of garbage I'm seeing.
        Ms. Graff-Radford. The bottom photo is one of the showers
    in the unit. And that is the sewage sludge that has coated the
    bottom of this shower after months of consistent sewage backups
    in this building. I mean, you can imagine, obviously no one can
    use this bathroom. You can see in the corner of the top photo
    that the toilet seat is on the ground.
        And what you can't see is that next to that above the
    toilet in the wall, there's been a huge hole cut out in the
    wall. There's open exposed leaking plumbing. The entire
    bathroom is covered in a mixture of feces, sludge, and
    construction debris. This family could not use either bathroom
    in their unit. They had no functional bathroom in their unit.
        Chair Ossoff. So let's talk about HUD and the inspection
    regime at HUD. We heard about appalling conditions from
    multiple witnesses today at different properties that receive
    Federal taxpayer dollars. According to documents reviewed by
    the Subcommittee, Southwood Apartments where Ms. Hines
    testified, she lives and has faced what she described as
    repeatedly collapsing ceilings and floors caving in.
        What we found is that it passed its HUD inspections in both
    2021 and 2023. And I have both those reports here. I'm entering
    those into the record.
        [The information appears as a submission for the record.]
        Chair Ossoff. Does this surprise you, Ms. Graff Radford?
    What does it say about HUD's oversight and inspections process?
        Ms. Graff-Radford. Not surprise me. As a taxpayer, I have
    been shocked and deeply, profoundly disappointed at the way
    that HUD's physical inspections fail taxpayers and tenants
    alike in Georgia. HUD does these inspections, first of all, to
    be clear, they're not inspecting every occupied unit. I'm not
    completely certain how HUD chooses the units that they inspect
    on these properties, but they're not inspecting every unit.
        What I have seen across multiple properties is that since
    the pandemic, HUD's inspections have dropped off in frequency
    and in thoroughness, and even when HUD identifies housing
    health and safety issues on these properties, they're relying
    on the landlord's word of honor that they've been fixed. Often
    re-inspections are not happening, especially since COVID. And I
    have specific examples of that in mind, if you're interested to
    hear them.
        Chair Ossoff. What I would suggest is that you submit those
    in detail to the Subcommittee. We'll make sure they're part of
    the record and we'll have our team go through them in detail to
    make sure we're getting all those facts into the inquiry.
        Ms. Graff-Radford. Absolutely.
        Chair Ossoff. And Ms. Jones, you testified that your
    clients have faced unimaginable scenarios. We're talking about
    a child falling out of a second story window due to a rotted
    window casing, someone trapped inside their unit due to rising
    sewage. No one should have to live like that. And that's really
    the bottom line, isn't it? No one should have to live like
    that.
        Ms. Jones. No one. You wouldn't sentence your worst enemy
    to live in some of these apartments. You wouldn't let your dog
    live in some of these apartments because there's no lighting,
    HVAC hasn't been cleaned in years, the children are living, as
    you noted, with rashes, with sleep deprivation, with asthma
    conditions, with respiratory disorders.
        I don't know how they're going to school. I don't know how
    they're getting up and going to school because you can't--it's
    not even a question of thriving. It's a question of living.
    Your home is sacred. It's your safe haven from the world. And
    we have too many tenants who don't have a safe haven anywhere.
    They can't go home because it's not home.
        Chair Ossoff. And we could hold, you know, months of
    hearings on just the connection between these living conditions
    and the rest of life. I mean, we're talking about kids who, as
    we've heard today, can't even eat in their own kitchen because
    of infestation. Can't safely bathe, are afraid to use the
    toilet alone. I mean, how are these kids expected to do
    homework? How are these kids expected to get up in the morning
    ready for school?
        You know, we are putting these kids--by allowing these
    property managers to pocket across the country billions of
    dollars of taxpayer dollars, while not just failing to maintain
    the basic standard, but in some cases, we've heard today, and
    we've heard from multiple members of the panel today,
    retaliating against targeting intimidating tenants who report
    unsafe conditions.
        We're failing children across the country by allowing this
    to continue. Can you talk about the impact, Ms. Jones, on young
    children of living in conditions like this?
        Ms. Jones. Yes. So my AVLF has a pilot program called
    Standing with Our Neighbor. And the object of that program is
    to place teachers and community advocates in specific
    neighborhoods, in schools where we know there's a high degree
    of transiency, where we know there's a high level of eviction.
    And the reason that we do that is because if you have a school
    that has 40 percent turnover, meaning almost half the kids that
    start the year are not going to end the year there, then you
    have a problem because the children cannot learn.
        I used to be a former educator, and on average, getting
    acclimated, the teachers, getting to know the students, the
    students, getting to know the kids is a hard process on a good
    day. On a bad day, when you have constant interruptions and
    disruptions, there's not a lot of learning that can happen. And
    then those children, inevitably, if they aren't learning, then
    they're falling behind and then they're getting blamed for that
    as well.
        So there's this feeling of guilt because, ``I can't seem to
    succeed.'' No child, no person wakes up saying that they want
    to fail. ``I'm going to go into class and fail this test
    today.'' That does not happen. Children are naturally
    resilient, but we're asking too much of them. We ask them to
    have to live in these circumstances and succeed. We're asking
    too much of them. We're asking too much of the teachers, we're
    asking too much of the parents to require them to have to live
    in these conditions and still show up.
        Chair Ossoff. Ms. Jones, what are HUD's obligations and
    what enforcement tools does it have at its disposal?
        Ms. Jones. So ultimately, we talk about the safe, decent,
    and sanitary housing. HUD has to perform physical inspections
    of the property. If the property fails, especially if the
    property fails along health and safety exigencies, things that
    are emergencies, the property owner sends an oath that they
    sign in front of a notary.
        A lot of times what I've seen is they'll send the work
    orders from their own maintenance staff to try to demonstrate
    that they fix these issues. If after that certification,
    there's generally no reinspection, they just take the owner's
    word for it. If the property has fallen below a certain score,
    then HUD may come out a year later.
        But again, with COVID that didn't happen, or they were
    doing these visual inspections where the property owner was
    taking the video and sending it in. They're requiring the bad
    actor to justify themselves and they're not asking the victim.
    So HUD along the lines of that reinspection, let's say they
    find that there's still poor conditions, HUD has several tools.
    It can issue a notice of default, letting the property owners
    know that they are in default of their contract with HUD.
        Based on that default, if they're still not remedied, the
    conditions are still not remedied, then HUD can do an
    abatement. That abatement is, ``We're going to terminate this
    contract, we're going to withhold money.'' Once they supposedly
    withhold that money, that can lead to a termination of the
    contract. That process can take years while nothing happens for
    the tenant, nothing remedies those conditions. And it
    definitely can happen more promptly than it has been happening.
        Chair Ossoff. I mean, we even saw--my understanding is
    that, for example, in the infamous Forest Cove case, that HUD
    did not even issue a notice of default to Millennia the
    property manager until 2022, a full year after the city of
    Atlanta condemned the property, and 4 years after the property
    had received its last failing inspection score. Is that
    correct?
        Ms. Jones. Yes. And the property had received several
    failing scores.
        Chair Ossoff. As we've heard today, some properties are
    receiving passing scores without, it seems, due diligence
    having been undertaken to determine the truth about living
    conditions within. When you contact your client's landlords
    about maintenance and safety concerns, Ms. Jones, what do they
    typically say to you?
        Ms. Jones. That it's the client's fault. So some of these
    issues that we're seeing with the sewage, what I'll hear is,
    ``They're just nasty. They're poor housekeepers. They need to
    take better care of their homes.'' Well, sewage, the plumbing,
    is not an issue for the tenant to resolve. Infestations
    typically cover whole building. That is not an issue that the
    tenant can resolve on their own. You can put as many roach
    traps as you want, the roaches will just go to another
    apartment and come back. And so all of these issues continue to
    occur.
        Chair Ossoff. I want to close by asking each of our
    witnesses one more question. So for Ms. Hines, Ms. Odom and Ms.
    Fletcher, and again, I want to express gratitude on behalf of
    the U.S. Senate for your courage in coming forward today and
    testifying on the record and under oath about what you've been
    through.
        I want you to know that it makes a difference, that you're
    speaking out. It makes a difference that this Subcommittee and
    therefore the Senate of the United States, hears your words,
    has this in the record, is informed by your experiences.
        If you could just describe to us here why it is you've
    decided to make your voice heard and to tell your story in
    public today, beginning with you, Ms. Hines, please.
        Ms. Hines. I decided to come and basically speak because I
    wanted to be heard. It's like no one's hasn't been listening to
    me. It's no matter how much I yell, cry, scream, or fuss, no
    one's listening to me. So I came here to be heard.
        And I, like you thank me, I thank you for listening to me.
    It's like I did not have anyone listening to me, and I wanted
    someone to listen to me on my issues in my apartment.
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Hines. Ms. Odom.
        Ms. Odom. Same with me. I just wanted to be heard. I felt
    like a lot of the issues I was having was falling on deaf ears.
    I also felt like it is unfair, not only for me and my children,
    but other people who are afraid to speak up. And some are going
    through worse than I am. I just feel like I can in some kind of
    way, give them a voice too.
        So I'm also thankful to be heard because going through
    different channels trying to get help and you getting shut down
    every single time, it's easy to just give up. So I'm just
    thankful to be heard.
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Odom. Ms. Fletcher.
        Ms. Fletcher. For me, it is a lot of different reasons. It
    is me understanding the power in our voice, understanding that
    when we come together collectively, like we can make a
    difference. And I didn't want my pain or all of the negative
    stereotypes that society put on us as low-income moms, low-
    income renters, you know, as marginalized families in Georgia,
    I didn't want that stigma to be the only thing that we're known
    for.
        And I wanted us to make sure--I wanted to be impactful and
    use my pain in order to make a change and make something happen
    for us. So holding HUD accountable for our habitability is the
    number one reason. Thank you for just listening and taking the
    time to even do this, because we feel like no one care, but
    thank you so much for listening.
        Chair Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Fletcher. And, and for our two
    experts, time is short. We've got about 3 minutes of runtime
    here, but if you could in a nutshell--and we'll followup with
    you obviously in great detail, just describe the most important
    recommendation you would make to Congress on this issue. Ms.
    Graff-Radford.
        Ms. Graff-Radford. Listen to tenants seriously, who are
    trying to keep their families safe in housing communities.
    Trust them. Know what their families need, trust their
    critiques of the way that money flows through the system, and
    consider that they should be the first and primary voices
    consulted in making changes to how that happened.
        Chair Ossoff. Ms. Jones.
        Ms. Jones. First thing I'll say is fund the mechanisms that
    are already there. Fund them, not just on a minimum level. Fund
    them like your lives depended on, because it does. I would say
    not just listen to the tenants because they speak, they speak
    all the time. Include them in the process. They are
    stakeholders, just like HUD, just like the Senators, just like
    taxpayers. They are stakeholders and they, with their lived
    experiences have the best knowledge about how to remedy the
    situation.
        And last, enforcement. Nobody's going to change their
    behavior if there are no consequences. There has to be meat and
    teeth behind those consequences.
        Chair Ossoff. Well, thank you, Ms. Jones. Thank you, Ms.
    Graff-Radford. Thank you all and thank you as well to the
    audience here for joining us. Thank you again, Mayor Wilson in
    the city of Roswell for hosting us. I'll just close very
    briefly with the following.
        I mentioned earlier I've got a 2-year-old little girl at
    home. I got so used to calling her a baby, but, I guess, I
    can't really do that anymore now she's 2. But for all of the
    families across Georgia who feel what you, Ms. Hines, Ms. Odom,
    Ms. Fletcher have described to us today, that you can't care
    for your children because of the situation that you've been put
    on and that no one is listening, and that you're being ignored,
    and that you face retaliation when you do speak out, and that
    your child's at risk and you are at risk.
        The purpose of this hearing is to elevate your voices and
    to ensure that the U.S. Senate is listening. There are not easy
    answers and easy solutions, but I'm going to continue to fight
    for and work on behalf of families facing mistreatment by
    landlords here in Georgia and across the country.
        I want to again mention Alexia Johnson is on my team.
    Alexia, would you please stand up and raise your hand? If you
    are here with a particular concern that you would like
    addressed by my office, please introduce yourself to Alexia and
    she will take down your information and followup with you.
        The hearing record will remain open for one week for
    statements to be submitted into the record. Questions for the
    record may be submitted by Senators by 5 p.m. on Monday, March
    11, and the hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:39 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
        [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

                                A P P E N D I X

    Submitted by Senator Ossoff:

     Presentation Exhibit A (HRL).....................................    40

     Presentation Exhibit B (HRL).....................................    41

     Presentation Exhibit C (HRL).....................................    42

     Presentation Exhibit D (HRL).....................................    43

     Presentation Exhibit E (HRL).....................................    44

     Presentation Exhibit F (HRL).....................................    45

     U.S. Department of HUD, statement................................    46

     U.S. Department of HUD, statement................................   128

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