Ralston Towers fails HUD inspection for ‘deplorable’ conditions. What’s next for tenants?
Owners of Ralston Towers apartment complex have 60 days to comply with federal regulations before they are in danger of losing the funding that helps around 200 low-income residents pay their rent.
A letter dated August 1 notified the facility’s New Jersey-based manager PF Holdings that the building had failed a recent inspection by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, earning a score of 42.
A score of 60 is passing.
The building is under a Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance contract with HUD, where HUD issues vouchers to help make up the difference between the rent and what the residents can afford.
The letter came exactly one month after a Muscogee State Court jury granted a $125 million award to Christina Thornton, the daughter of a 62-year-old Ralston resident who died in his 98-degree room on July 6, 2017.
Ralston attorneys afterward filed a motion asking Judge Andy Prather to set the verdict aside or order a new trial, arguing the jury’s decision was contrary to evidence. The Ralston plans to appeal the verdict to the Georgia Court of Appeals, when a trial transcript is available.
Charles Hart died weeks after Ralston residents petitioned May 30, 2017, to have their air-conditioning repaired. That same day, the head of Columbus Building Inspections and Code Enforcement sent an email to PF Holdings regional manager Yaakov Litvin warning of the consequences if the company didn’t act on residents’ complaints.
“With this being South Georgia, and an elderly lady calling yesterday telling me that inside her unit it is over 100 degrees, I need to know what PF Holdings is doing to remedy this before this also reaches an ‘unfit for human occupancy’ threshold,” wrote John Hudgison, director of inspections and code.
The city subsequently declared 26 of the Ralston’s 269 apartments unfit for human occupancy.
‘Conditions are deplorable’
On Monday, two U.S. congressmen and local officials viewed the very unit Hart died in during an hour-long tour of the building’s 10 floors.
“To put it mildly, the conditions are deplorable,” U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA) said immediately after the tour.
The letter from HUD stated that issues observed during the inspection included a “leaking central water supply, sharp edges throughout the site, bulging and buckling ceilings” as well as damaged hardware, locks, walls, sinks and toilets.
Bishop said he observed far more.
“It’s dirty. In many places the air conditioning is not functioning,” he said. “We saw facilities that have greatly deteriorated. We saw droppings of vermin. We saw many places were the paint was peeling. Very, very unsanitary conditions.”
Bishop said Mayor Skip Henderson contacted his office in May about the conditions at the Ralston, and that his office in turn contacted HUD. The tour was scheduled after the July 8 inspection.
The building has been on the city’s radar since at least 2016, routinely violating fire code regulations and being declared unfit for habitation due to excessive heat and cold.
In recent months, threats of water service being disconnected and downed elevators have left residents wondering if the problems will ever be resolved.
Henderson said it it didn’t seem local management was to blame.
“It appears that there is a real disconnect. I think the local management folks that are in place have a desire to really make sure that they deliver a quality place to live,” Henderson said. “The challenge is, I don’t think they’re getting the resources, and that comes from the corporate side.”
A new place to live?
U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA) said that the owners have not provided equipment, such as floor buffers, to the maintenance staff in order for them to keep the building clean. He called the conditions “completely unacceptable.”
“It’s not something you would want your family to live in. We shouldn’t ask our fellow Americans to live there either,” Ferguson said.
There are several options for HUD once the 60 day window, ending October 1, is up.
According to the letter, if the owners of the Ralston do not comply with the guidelines set out by HUD, the funding assistance “may be reduced suspended, or abated, or the (contract) may be terminated.”
“If this facility does not comply with HUD’s requirements and those standards of decency, then these residents need to be afforded a place to live that does comply with the requirements of safety and sanitation and decency,” Bishop said.
Ferguson said he didn’t want to wait 60 days for HUD to respond.
“I’m willing to go out and fight for these residents to get a voucher to move out tomorrow,” Ferguson said. “(And) there has to be a change in the legislation. When one of these property owners fails to meet their obligation, this needs to happen overnight. We do not need to be going through years and months of this trying to get relief.”
Ferguson did not propose a location for the residents to move if the Ralston was shut down.
Because the units at the Ralston are project-subsidized, the vouchers might not be easily transferred to another location like the individual Section 8 vouchers administered by the Housing Authority of Columbus.
Ledger-Enquirer reporter Tim Chitwood contributed to this report.