MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Several low-income apartment complexes under fire for poor and uninhabitable conditions, have been receiving millions of your hard earned tax payer dollars for years.
So why haven’t the feds done anything to stop it?
WREG sat down with one of the HUD big wigs in Memphis to get some answers.
Global Ministries Foundation, the organization that ran Goodwill Villages and Warren Apartments, was on the hot seat.
Both received federal money to help low-income families pay rent, and both needed to shut down several units because they were deemed uninhabitable.
“No one should have to live under these conditions,”Richard Hamlet with GMF said Friday.
John Gimmel was a director at the Memphis HUD field office, but he told WREG he had no authority over this complex.
The Nashville office did.
He just served as their eyes and ears when necessary.
“We have taken a number of steps to convince global ministries to do what they need to do with this property,” Gimmel explained.
GMF received millions in tax dollars every year from the feds.
Their side of the deal was pretty simple.
“To provide all 660+ tenants with decent, safe and sanitary housing. That’s what we are paying them for,” Gimmel said.
But for the past few years, they haven’t.
Gimmel said even though GMF is still getting money, it’s only on a year to year basis because GMF isn’t up to snuff.
“Being year-to-year makes everyone a little nervous,” he said.
And by nervous, Gimmel meant they are on the line for a lot of money.
Because if HUD stops paying rent, GMF stops getting the subsidy.
Shutting down the complex altogether would leave a lot of innocent people homeless, which was not their goal.
“We take it very, very seriously about shutting down one unit, much less 600 units,”Gimmel added.