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City still waiting on emergency HUD money for Jones-Walker

Posted at 11:18 PM, Sep 17, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-17 23:18:20-04

Residents living in filthy conditions in low income housing will have to wait to get vouchers.

Councilman Johnny Streets say the city is awaiting the results of a HUD inspection of the Jones-Walker apartments. 

Residents there showed 4-In-Your-Corner moldy conditions, rodents and flooding in several units earlier this month.

"A lot of realtors and land lords do not accept Section 8, that kind of makes me wonder too," resident Ebony Lee told us at the time.

City Council is seeking assistance from the government to permanently or temporarily relocate these residents while major repairs are made.

"There's a lot of places to go, it takes a little work to find them," said Streets.

His colleague on council, Terolyn Watson, says she wants the owners of another public housing complex Sunrise Towers, to put residents in hotels while repairs are made to correct similar issues.

A person living at Sunrise lived in her car for a few days before building management turned her power back on.

Councilman streets says years of neglect by the city, and the people running these apartments have snowballed into major problems, and he says there's plenty of blame to go around.

"You got to blame the property owners, but you got to blame the people that live there, why would you allow it to get that way," said Streets.

The Ft. Myers code enforcement board is meeting Thursday to discuss violations found at Jones-Walker with the company hired to run the complex.