HOUSTON – George Sowell and his Briargate neighbors feel hopeless.
For years, the homeowners tried getting the attention of Houston city leaders about the blighted home next door.
“After you live with this for all these years, you’d like to have hope, but the reality is nothing has been done. I live in the reality world,” Sowell said.
Sowell has lived at the Summer Briar home for over 40 years. He said the last 10 or so, no one has lived at to his right.
“It’s been deteriorating, deteriorating,” Sowell said. “This is at its worse point, but we saw this coming, and nobody did a thing.”
Sowell’s neighbor Jayne Edwards reached out to KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun after seeing his reports on other abandoned properties owned by Richard Pfirman.
Pfirman was the center of KPRC 2 Investigates’ months-long report in 2018.
In 2016, Richard L. Pfirman agreed to keep 51 of his 340 Harris County properties, in compliance with city code for appearance and safe building standards.
“I am familiar with Mr. Pfirman’s reputation with 200-300 properties with violations,” TaKasha Francis, then-director of Houston’s Department of Neighborhoods told Joel Eisenbaum in 2018.
Last week, the spokesperson for the Department of Neighborhoods said they were preparing for a hearing with Pfirman about his Locksley property.
Edwards said community members with a Pfirman home, in poor condition, should rally around one another to get the city to address their issues.
“This person who owns this property owns so many others and for it to just be allowed to decay all of them being in such reprehensible condition shouldn’t be allowed because I think it’s beyond just one HOA. I think that’s the problem. The person has paid their taxes. Paid their HOA dues,” Edwards said.
“I’m asking the mayor to take a good hard look at this Mayor Whitmire. This is something worth your attention,” Edwards said. “This person doesn’t have one or two properties this a pervasive issue that is impacting all of these neighborhoods.”
Balogun shared this sentiment with Mayor John Whitmire’s Office, the office of Mayor Pro-Tem Martha Castex-Tatum, and the Department of Neighborhoods.
A spokesperson with the Department of Neighborhoods shared they would consult with their inspectors before responding to our inquiry.
We didn’t get a response from the mayor’s office or Castex-Tatum’s.
“Why should we have to suffer with this kind of condition,” Edwards asked. “I don’t think [city leaders are] they’re aware of the broader scheme of it. If they are, we need to absolutely bring it to their attention for some accountability.”
Balogun visited the address Pfirman has listed for each property, a Cypress Creek Parkway office condo. But the space is occupied by Nubian Impressions, a salon, that has been there for two years. A woman there tried pointing us to possible other office space in the complex but nothing.
Balogun was not able to reach Pfirman or any associates.
Not getting a response is something Sowell and those at Briargate said they’re used to.
“Well, that’s – the city cares about the taxes they get,” said Sowell. “And if you ask me ‘Do they care?’ I don’t feel the love because of things like this. I hate to say what one do or do not but I don’t feel it.”
