City officials are investigating “unacceptable” conditions at an affordable senior living facility in the Fifth Ward.
On Thursday evening, the first floor of the Lyons Avenue community, Pleasant Hill Village, was flooded with raw sewage.
Tonya Ashley told ABC13 that her mother’s apartment was impacted. While picking up her mother, Ashley said she noticed several neighboring units were filled with black mold.
Ashley shared photos of the conditions with ABC13 and Houston City Council on Thursday. She requested that the council help facilitate relocations for impacted residents, including her mother, and asked that they investigate the facility’s owner.
The facility is owned by Pleasant Hill Baptist Church’s Community Development Corporation, also known as a “CDC.” Reverend Harvey Clemons Jr. leads Pleasant Hill’s CDC as the church’s head.
The property was built in the late 1990s with an affordable housing tax credit.
Ashley said she was concerned Pleasant Hill’s CDC had been given an additional $3.4 million in taxpayer dollars in 2018 to make repairs on the building.