[Senate Hearing 118-524]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-524
HUMAN RIGHTS IN HOUSING
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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
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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
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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
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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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