"Basically once the units are built there is almost no budget set aside to maintain them, they are…read moreleft to rot and the inhabitants with them."
My personal opinion is affordable housing in general is a sham.
The unit I was in was amazing and large and about $40/month cheaper than the market rate option I'd considered without a roommate. However no one at the complex knew anything about managing, and there were so many issues here I really wish I had moved out sooner.
How could the management do a good job though? They were blamed for all the problems the complex had and fired at least every year. There were numerous comfort and health problems at the complex despite how nice and new the units looked.
Inadequate parking, roach infestation, bed bugs in some units, A.C. out for weeks at a time over the summer while some part came from Asia, two different floods from sprinklers or broken pipes that flooded units that weren't dried out properly. Vehicle break ins, torched vehicles and shot up vehicles, but we were on the border of gentrified Austin, only cameras or better lighting or security could prevent that.
One thing that could have been prevented and changed my life profoundly: A dark mold was growing in the A.C. vents of my unit, I was very sick for over a year. I lost my funding for grad school, my daughter's academic performance plummeted, finally my unit flooded and it dawned on me as a civil engineer that maybe the first flood in my neighbors units had caused mold growth. I asked for an inspection and was ignored, I asked again and was ignored, finally I demanded a pen and paper and wrote a request, they finally sent someone who cleaned the vents. No mold inspection report, nothing done by the book. I went to the office to thank them since I wasn't choking on food while inside from my throat swelling shut, the guy who was fired a week later said that the manager had been let go and it was strange that I felt better because nothing was found. My neighbors showed me mold growing from their A.C. that was connected to the same centralized system, and mold growing through wood and paint on their floorboards.
Basically once the units are built there is almost no budget set aside to maintain them, they are left to rot and the inhabitants with them. We weren't even told where the subsidies came from and never knew if our housing would be stable from year to year. If someone complained too much they received lease violations over nonsense so that they could be removed. That's what happened with me, I was told to file an illegal tow hearing by mgmt, I did and my lease was not eligible for renewal at the last minute over that case.
I also believe in retrospect my income figures were intentionally altered to put me in a higher rental program instead of CHI which I was eligible for but didn't know existed. They used my student loans and grants that went straight to UT to say I made 20k a year when I made less than 9. Mgmt knew when I moved in that it was my only viable option for school while caring for a daughter who couldn't move into traditional low income student housing.
When I moved out I bought an RV with my savings. I pay much less for housing, I could even live in a parking lot without electric and it would be free. Because I am able to perform all repairs and maintenance myself I'm in control of my housing. I'm healthy and able to focus on school again.
Public tax dollars for housing the way it stands currently is largely a waste of money. The org is supposed to provide a lot of services to their residents as part of their funding, they either pawn off all the labor on volunteers and other non profits, or just don't provide the service, case in point, free high speed internet that was supposed to be provided at M Station, yeah I paid over 2.4k in the 4 years I lived there for the privledge of downloading my assignments and checking my email from home. I was even referred to AT&T (the only option) by their office staff, as I was moving I saw the TDHCA pamphlet that stated we were supposed to have free high speed internet. There's also a poster that claims we are supposed to have better quality indoor air by design. Yeah, try ventilating the apartments so that the indoor relative humidity isn't so high that mold thrives in the units.
