MEMPHIS, Tenn. — County officials took to the streets to talk to residents about their living conditions at apartment complexes with seedy pasts.
On Tuesday afternoon, county commissioners, District Attorney General Amy Weirich, LEDIC Management and others toured Goodwill Village, Tulane and Warren Apartments, all three of which are having to answer to environmental court about what they’re doing to bring their complexes up to code.
Residents at Goodwill Village told WREG while conditions are better than they were a couple of years ago, there are still a lot of safety and health concerns.
Since a resolution was brought before the board asking HUD to suspend Section 8 assistance for residents until conditions improve, commissioners decided to see the problems for themselves.
Commissioners came to get a firsthand look at Goodwill Village, Tulane and Warren apartments. All, they said, are in desperate need of change.
“We’ve been dealing with these properties for over a year now,” Commissioner Eddie Jones said. “They’re already in court for environmental issues for living conditions.”
Goodwill Village resident Trenisha Harris said some of those conditions have included bed bugs and plumbing issues. Harris even had her upstairs neighbor’s toilet water seep through her ceiling.
“You all can see that hole up there,” she said, pointing to her ceiling. “It was flooding just three days ago. Sunday there was a flood in my apartment, and I had to sweep up all the feces water.”
Code Enforcement did an inspection on the properties recently. All three are in environmental court Wednesday to update a judge on improvements they have made.
LEDIC Management said they have made improvements, including using a program called Safeways to track crime around the complexes.
“We have a list of priorities that we are supplying to HUD to lay out a plan as to how we would like to attack the problems,” a representative with LEDIC said.
But some residents told WREG they are only fixing the visible problems and are doing just enough to get by.
LEDIC Management said some residents are also not reporting problems to them in some cases and are calling code enforcement instead.
