Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/tag/louisville-metro-housing-authority/)
The COVID-19 pandemic lays bare the quandary of life in public housing: staying home means dealing with a crowded, antiquated high rise, plagued with maintenance issues and infestations.
Inspectors found exposed wires, leaky pipes, clogged drains, peeling paint, broken doors and locks, missing sprinklers, roaches and more after assessing 26 units at Dosker Manor, which houses nearly 700 elderly and disabled residents.
The company that will oversee the redevelopment of Beecher Terrace has been accused by Missouri’s attorney general of creating unsafe, unsanitary conditions in a public housing complex it manages.
The changes include new technology systems, an outside extermination consulting contract and codes enforcement inspections.
“We did not bring the bedbugs in there, the residents brought them in there,” board chair Manfred Reid said. “If they gave us their cooperation, they wouldn’t be there.”
The bedbugs invade DeAnna Malone’s apartment every night. They creep through the vents in her bathroom. They crawl through the sockets on her wall and the cracks along the floor. They climb up her bed to feast. “They bite you, it feels like you’re on fire,” she said. Malone has lived with bedbugs at Dosker Manor for years. Her neighbors at the public housing complex say the whole place is infested.
Employees have lodged 33 formal complaints of sexual harassment or assault since 2012. Most complaints ranged from inappropriate verbal comments and text messages to unwanted touching. (This story includes a description of sexual assault.)
Hi, I’m Jasmine Demers, a reporter for KyCIR covering issues related to youth and social services. I’m also a corps member with Report For America, a national program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.