AR Advocate: “Apartment management hasn’t fulfilled her requests for maintenance and repairs, but stress would worsen her heart condition, she said.
“I try to stay calm and think positive and be in an upbeat spirit,” she said.
She is far from the only elderly Arkansan who says those in charge of low-income housing complexes don’t pay enough attention to residents’ needs.
Price lives at Cumberland Manor, one of seven Little Rock apartment complexes once managed by the city’s public housing agency but now run by private companies as part of the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program. RAD is aimed at improving living conditions in deteriorating public housing stock. The program has seen mixed success nationally.
Arkansas tenants say they’re often ignored by private management and the apparent revolving door of building staff. Tenants and housing experts say bringing in outside management decreases tenants’ well-being instead of increasing it, especially since older people have greater health needs.
“Big property management [companies] that are out of state are only interested in one thing, and that’s the money,” said state Rep. Richard McGrew, R-Hot Springs, a landlord and property manager who at one point owned and oversaw about 400 rental units. “They’re not interested in the tenants.””