Tenants say Columbia apartment is uninhabitable with ‘roaches over our heads’
Tenants at a federally subsidized Columbia apartment complex are raising health and safety concerns that they say range from backed up sewer lines leaking into their homes to crumbling ceilings and cabinets.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my own worst enemy,” said Karess Hampton, who has lived the past five years at the Four Seasons Apartments on School House Road. “We just want a safe place for our children to stay.”
The Columbia Housing Authority, which helps administer federal subsidies that the Four Seasons Apartments receives for some of its residents, said the property management company for the complex changed last year. The authority has developed a plan with the new company to bring all units up to code.
Ivory Mathews, CEO of the Housing Authority, said that because of a shortage of affordable housing, the authority prefers to push for the rehabilitation of subsidized complexes. Too often, those residents have nowhere else to go.
“Because there’s already such a desperate need for affordable housing in our community, we’re really trying to work with people and keep the units that can be repaired online.,” she said. “Unfortunately we just can’t move as fast as the need exists.”
Reese Quick, the president of Southern Development Management Company, which took over the Four Seasons Apartments late last year, said 10 of the 32 units have been renovated so far.
“The whole process will take about six months to complete.” he said.
In the meantime, Mathews said the seven tenants who are living in HUD subsidized units have been offered housing vouchers that will enable them to move elsewhere.
But as they search for new apartments, residents still living in The Four Seasons say it is uninhabitable.
At a press conference on Friday, volunteers from local social justice group One Common Cause Community Control Initiative described what they saw while touring some of the units earlier this week.
“We had roaches over our heads,” Sonya Lewis, chief communications liaison for the group, said. “There was black mold over a bassinet where a newborn baby was sleeping.”
Hampton said her unit floods whenever it rains. “The water would start coming into your apartment and just keep coming. Our clothes, our furniture were damaged many times.”
Earlier in the week, the City of Columbia fire marshal issued several summonses at the property for inoperable fire alarms and exposed wires.
Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins said the apartments were in such bad shape that he considered evacuating The Four Seasons because of “imminent danger” but decided against it in hopes that the property manager would move quickly to make repairs.
“It is a shame that we have people living in these conditions and it is bad when you have to get us involved for people to do the right thing,” Jenkins said.
Michael O’Neill from the city’s Code Enforcement Division said its inspectors had also visited the property earlier this month and found several violations, though he declined to provide details about what problems were identified. The State has since filed a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Act to obtain any citations or notices of violations issued at the Four Seasons.
Quick said he has already corrected the issues identified by the fire marshal and is waiting to receive a full report from the Code Enforcement Division so he can make the necessary repairs. When asked about tenants’ descriptions of water damage, mold and vermin, Quick said he had not received any complaints about those problems.
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 3:43 PM.
