Bed bugs, fire hazards and mold: Inside Alabamas worst public housing – AL.com

Bed bugs. Broken or painted over sprinklers. Broken doors and windows that wont lock. Mold on ceilings and walls.

These are just some of the dangerous and unsanitary conditions people living in Alabamas worst public housing properties live with every day.

Across Alabama, most public housing passes federal inspection with flying colors. Look below to see how each property did. However, there were several failures, according to the latest federal data from March 2019.

In all, there are 259 single family public housing properties in Alabama, and 18 of them received scores lower than 60 as of March 2019. Of the 476 multi-family public housing properties in the state, 17 scored lower than 60.

That means a failing property rate of 4.76 percent. Thats actually better than the nation as a whole - the national rate is 4.86 percent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Developments Real Estate Assessment Center.

However, those at the bottom, such as Central Plaza in Mobile, were noted to have serious problems.

Public housing properties in the United States are subject to physical inspections by HUD, and these inspections come with REAC inspection scores, a 0-100 score that determines whether a facility is fit to live in.

These inspections - and the scores that go with them - are looking to make sure [housing units] are decent, safe, sanitary and in good repair, said Joe Phillips, with the HUD Atlanta regional office of public affairs.

Any property that scores below a 60 in a REAC inspection is considered failing, Phillips said. A number of things can happen when a property receives a failing score. They can be fined, their Section 8 funding can be terminated or abated, or they can be put under new management, among other things. But a property manager or owner is given time to address the problems if they score between 31 and 59.

Any score 30 or below is a different story. Those properties are automatically reported to the Departmental Enforcement Center, which takes over the responsibility of handling their case from that point forward.

Only one property in Alabama scored 30 or below, as listed in the data thats publicly available from HUD. That property was Central Plaza Towers in Mobile, a low income housing project for senior citizens. It scored a 30 on its REAC inspection on May 29th, 2018, according to data from HUD.

A copy of the REAC inspection summary acquired by AL.com showed bed bugs were reported in 61 percent of inspected units at Central Plaza, and that 24 of 26 inspected units had inoperable call-for-aid stations.

Michael Pierce, executive director of the Mobile Housing Board, said he had taken office in late March 2019 - nearly a year after the REAC inspection in question - and could only address the report in general terms.

What had transpired in the previous administration, Im not certain of everything that transpired, but what I can tell you is that progress is being made in terms of the overall physical conditions out at Central Plaza Towers, he said.

The May 2018 inspection would have taken place during the short tenure of MHB Executive Director Akinola Popoola, who was fired in September 2018 after less than a year on the job. Popoola has filed suit over his dismissal, which the board attributed largely to a lack of responsiveness and failures of financial oversight.

Pierce said hed been working to straighten out problems that had damaged the Mobile Housing Authoritys relationship with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development even before Popoolas hiring. That has taken precedence over everything else, literally to get our house in order, thats where weve been expending all our energy and time, making certain that we are a sound, well-run organization, he said. I have worked extremely hard to improve our relationship with our regulatory authority, meaning HUD.

Another property, Joseph Loveman Village in Birmingham, showed a 33 in the HUD dataset, but a 30 on the REAC inspection summary. Loveman Village was in the process of vacating its residents for a complete demolition and redevelopment at the time of the inspection - August 2018.

Some of the violations reported there included bed bugs, refrigerators and stoves in some units either missing or not working and windows that couldnt be locked.

You can explore the inspections scores of the single-family housing units in your area and around the state in the map below. Search for the header Inspection_score once you click on a map marker.

And here is a map showing the scores of multifamily units.

Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at rarchibald@al.com, and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald.

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Bed bugs, fire hazards and mold: Inside Alabamas worst public housing - AL.com