Just over six months ago, we gave an overview of the conditions in which tenants at The Willows and Rue Parc Fontaine are living and the systems that trap them there. The two complexes are neglected by the same out-of-state owner and together account for 10% of all City eviction filings.
As of June 6, Hancock Whitney Bank filed for foreclosure against The Willows, asserting that the owners haven’t paid back over $11 million in bonds that they received to finance their purchase of the property. On June 18, the courts granted a motion to appoint a receiver, meaning a third party should be assigned to take control of the property.
Whatever continues to unfold between the courts, the owners, and the banks, one thing is certain: It is the tenants who are being denied justice, as they pay hundreds of dollars every month to live in life-threatening conditions. They are unable to withhold their rent as doing so for lack of habitability is not legal in Louisiana. Tenants are also not being given procedural, legal, or financial information about what the foreclosure will mean for their tenancies, and many are worried about entering or re-entering homelessness. Just before the foreclosure was filed, the property management at the complex also changed, and tenants have received mixed messages about rent balances and illegal notices to vacate since.
On Juneteenth, the day after the court issued its order to appoint a receiver of the property, we visited The Willows to speak to some newer tenants so that we could share their stories with a wider audience.
Rachelle
“Rachelle,” who shared their story on the condition their name and identifying details be changed, moved into The Willows fewer than three months ago from a trailer, where they’d been living just two miles away for the prior three years. Upon viewing and applying to The Willows, they were told it was a safe building with active management and maintenance. Eager to relocate their two children from the trailer park and get more space, they signed a lease.
From the moment of Rachelle’s move-in, living at The Willows has turned out to become a financial trap that has kept them and their two children—a teen and a preteen, the former of whom has significant developmental disabilities and a previous gunshot injury—stuck in an unsafe, unhealthy home.
Rachelle moved into their apartment this spring to find no kitchen appliances. The two days it took for these appliances to arrive were two extra days Rachelle had to pay for a moving truck, because they couldn’t afford to replace the food that had been in their trailer. A $75 credit they were told they’d receive from the complex as a result has never materialized.
Supporting their household solely on their and their teen’s disability checks, Rachelle, a veteran with a seizure disorder, has struggled to keep their family afloat while keeping up with their apartment’s untended repairs. After being told that their A/C was unfixable, Rachelle provided their own portable A/C unit, which they run in addition to the broken window unit and several fans, which brings their small apartment’s electricity bill to over $200. Because their seizure disorder worsens significantly in the heat and they are unable to leave their windows open at night due to safety concerns, Rachelle feels there is no other option. Laundry costs are constant because of frequent leaks and the apartment’s permanently damp air. Hearing regular gunfire at the complex has led Rachelle to move their younger child’s mattress into the living room so that it can be further from a window where they previously witnessed a shooting.
Amidst these challenges, on the seventh week of their family’s tenancy, Rachelle’s child was presented with a notice to vacate the property while playing outside. The notice, which Rachelle showed us during our visit, was dated for mid-May and stated that Rachelle’s family would have to vacate the premises within 30 days for rent unpaid from mid-May through mid-June. The entire cited period of unpaid rent had not yet begun by the date of the notice, and its ending date has still not yet passed at the time of this writing. It is not possible to evict tenants for unpaid future rent, and Rachelle showed us receipts confirming they’ve always paid their rent on time. They have not heard from management further about the notice since its issuance and are uncertain what will happen to their family.
When we visited, Rachelle’s apartment was very tidy and many of their possessions were packed into boxes and bags. Rachelle referred to the packing as a hopeful step that they’ll be able to leave, even though they do not know how they would get the money together to do so, stating: “I don’t know where the hell I’m going, but I’m trying to get out of here.”
Dijon
Dijon Terricks, who asked that her full name be included in this story in the hopes it could bring her and her family some assistance, is a 32-year-old native New Orleanian who has been living in a two-bedroom apartment at The Willows with her mother Sandra and two young children for just over half a year, before which they were briefly living in a family shelter in New Orleans.
While Dijon says the split-level apartment appeared fine upon her brief, initial viewing (she says it was the only apartment she was shown by her shelter case manager), the conditions deteriorated rapidly (or rather, rapidly revealed themselves as deteriorated) after her family moved in. When we visited, multiple rooms had significant, visible mold, with large patches of the ceiling either peeling away or missing entirely. The hot apartment smelled so strongly of dampness that its odor was detectable from the level below. The apartment itself was almost entirely empty, with Dijon reporting that she’s been forced to get rid of nearly all clothing and furniture due to the prevalence of mildew, gnats, termites, and maggots in the apartment. After showing us a colony of insects that have built significant nests along the ceiling of one of her upstairs rooms, Dijon noted she has moved all four family members into the front room due to the greater amounts of mold in the unit’s other rooms.
Dijon worries about her two young children, her older mother, and herself. She has a pacemaker that needs attention, but she reports that until she can be sure they are no longer exposed to the unit’s mold and mildew, she cannot effectively address her or her family’s health concerns. Due to her concerns about the episodic gunfire outside of her apartment, she tries not to have her two young children play outside, which means they’re stuck inside the hot, deteriorating apartment until they can move. Dijon and her mother are able to pool their fixed incomes to just be able to afford the unit’s rent, but are now facing having to replace all their possessions due to mold, in addition to finding a security deposit and first month’s rent they can use elsewhere. Dijon is hoping for any intervention that would allow her to move her family somewhere else in the city, stating, “I feel like somebody has to help, because I just can’t be in this place,” with her mother Sandra chiming in, “We can’t live here like this much longer.”
Any individuals who would like to become involved in advocating alongside and/or otherwise supporting Willows tenants, who hold monthly organizing meetings and many of whom have significant and immediate material needs, please reach out to us at Jane Place: angela@jpnsi.org.
This space is provided to Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative as a community service and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or editorial policies of ANTIGRAVITY.
Top photo (courtesy Jane Place): Dijon Terricks in her kitchen at The Willows Apartments on June 19. Behind her is visible mold and a missing, leaking portion of the ceiling.
