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Low-income tenants of subsidized housing in Georgia shared harrowing stories of horrendous living conditions ignored by landlords with a U.S. Senate subcommittee Monday at a hearing in Roswell.
“My unit flooded constantly with raw sewage … floating pieces of fecal matter, eaten food and toilet-paper debris,” Miracle Fletcher, a former tenant at Trestletree Village Apartments in Atlanta, told the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee meeting at Roswell City Hall.
“The everyday smell of the foul odor of feces that would normally cause one to cringe after smelling it became the dreadful smell we endured daily.”
The subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., launched inquiries last fall with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) into alleged mistreatment of tenants by landlords in Georgia and nationwide.
“We’ve heard from families who live in apartments plagued by severe mold and pest infestation, who lack basic plumbing, or whose floors were so rotten they collapsed,” Ossoff said at the start of Monday’s hearing.
“When many of these tenants asked their landlords for help, that help never came. And worse, they sometimes reported facing retaliation or eviction.”
Fletcher and other Georgia tenants of subsidized housing talked about similar experiences they have had when they complained to landlords.
Latysha Odom said she moved into Heritage Heights Apartments in Griffin in 2019 and soon discovered , her bedroom ceiling was leaking every few days.
“Each time, the management company told me it wasn’t a leak,” she said. “They blamed my upstairs neighbor, saying she was letting the toilet overflow or didn’t have a shower curtain.
“After consistent leaks, my ceiling actually collapsed. … The only…
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