HOUSTON – Monday night, KPRC 2 was at the Houston Housing Authority board meeting where the president and CEO, David Northern, resigned after investigations into questionable contracts that may have been granted to underqualified companies.
At that same board meeting, an 86-year-old woman named Madine Lewis spoke out. Lewis lives at the Historic Oaks of Allen Parkway Village. She’s lived there since 1998 and says there are some major issues there, so Tuesday, KPRC 2 went to take a look for ourselves.
“I’m asking for a safer and a decent place to live,” Lewis said.
Lewis lives on the ground floor and she says some of the issues are coming from above where there are balconies not screened in.
“They throw stuff down. You get people up above, spit on you, they throw water on you, dog poop and everything,” she said.
That’s not the only issue she’s reporting.
“We have people sleeping in the empty apartments. Homeless people here,” she said. “They got every playground…they got all of it blocked off.”
Another resident who didn’t want to be identified chimed in.
“This is the stuff that we need on the property you know for the safety of us,” she said pointing to a petition neighbors are signing hoping for change.
Here are the listed issues:
- Lack of residential council.
- Uncertified maintenance staff.
- Unlicensed construction workers.
- Poor treatment of tenants and lack of trust.
- Lack of responsiveness from constables in emergencies.
Another resident says the unlicensed maintenance staff has been known to steal from apartments.
“We don’t want to live here and not be safe on the property,” another resident said.
Even though we did reach out to the HHA before the close of business, a spokesperson told us that because of the time being so close to 5 p.m., they would not be able to get us an answer tonight.
We plan to follow up with the HHA to see how they plan to address these issues in the future. We’ll bring you those details when they become available.
