When a group of healthcare workers raised concerns about the safety of babies at a subsidized housing complex, NowKalamazoo and WMUK began to investigate. We found companies and governments that say they’re doing what they can — and a continuation of questionable living conditions.

When Darendo Rouse moved into Fox Ridge Apartments about six years ago, she said the carpet smelled and the faucet spewed brown water, but the biggest problem was the mice.

“They were on counters, on top of the beds, in pack-and-plays,” she said. One was so bold as to scurry up her arm when she tried to pick something up from the travel crib, which was soon chewed up, filled with mouse feces, and unusable.

For more than a year, NowKalamazoo/WMUK have investigated tenant experiences first hand, researched and accessed documents that go back a decade or more, to try to understand what is preventing improvement at Fox Ridge.

In an interview in September, officials from Fenton, Michigan-based Independent Management Services (IMS), which manages Fox Ridge and more than 100 other low-income housing properties in a dozen states, said the issues raising concerns were isolated, not the entire complex, and that they meet or exceed regulatory requirements to keep units up to date. They also say that beyond the issues of an aging building, problems related to pests or security are created or exacerbated by tenants or their guests faster than they can fix them, and that all new tenants are provided a clean apartment.

Read the full article at nowkalamazoo.org

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