lucia,
something similar happened in milwaukee only in this case tenants were evicted because the landlord did not pay their property taxes. they were given very short notice and were expected to leave immediately.
i happen to live in section 8 housing that is designed for the elderly and disabled only. i've lived in this apartment complex for almost 15 years and have been quite happy here. the only complaint i have is that we sometimes have problems with revolving landlords. in the 14 and a half years i've been here, we average one new landlord every 1-2 years.
that being said, my apartment complex happens to be the "creme de la creme" when it comes to section 8 housing (so i've been told). some section 8 housing is better than others. there's another section 8 housing property on the other side of town, but i refused to live there based on the fact that the landlord was negligent when it came to building repairs and keeping the property presentable and clean.
Yeah...I sure as hell wouldn't live in the tall high-rise section 8 buildings on the east side. I've seen them, and I did NOT like them. Plus, when I visited a friend and it was on garbage day or something, the entire fucking building would stink like high hell!
I had wanted to live at this nice place on the south side, but then I heard that the waiting list were miles long....so I said forget it. I found plenty of cheap places to live in Milwaukee on my own. I ended up leaving Milwaukee after living in two different places anyway. I've seen many section 8 housings in Milwaukee, and I have liked only a few, but most were too far like in East Deer or something like that...near Mill Road? I forgot. Not enough buses on Mill Road at night, anyway. I prefer the east side....the east side is my favorite area of Milwaukee. It's more my type of crowd, etc. Artsy, punk, etc. It was where I first lived when I first got out of foster care, and I loved living on the east side. I liked the Farwell/Brady/Odgen area.
The old owners of this complex that I am living in, they let this place go to hell over the past 3 years that I have lived here. When I first moved here, everything was nice and well kept and presentable. Now...it's so "ghetto". But, we just got bought out by new owners last summer, and we are almost done remodeling this place. It's getting a LOT better. I can't wait til they finish painting all the buildings in a nice color. There are 20 buildings in all. Also, All the wood in this place has been replaced...they were rotting. Now we have new wood everything. The pools are being repainted, we are almost done rebuilding the management building that burnt down last year (I have a gut feeling that it was arson), we got new mailboxes, another new fitness room (it was part of the old management building), and a lot of nice new stuff. We are even getting stricter on littering and stuff. You cannot even have trash outside your door, or you are fined $25 per item. I am glad because neighbors kept putting their trash cans outside their door, and it makes the complex look so ghetto, and it stinks up the place. I wish they would do something about people smoking in their apartments, because their smoke comes into my apartment and makes me cough a lot. Oh, and we got a new name too, which I do not like, though...it sounds...so california-ish.
Oh, I almost forgot. Last summer, all of the tenants living in a trailer park had to live without any POWER for about TWO WEEKS (I think). And I gotta remind you...this is TEXAS in the summer time with temperatures in the 100s to 120s! Their landlord refused to have the electric company come out to fix their ANCIENT power lines. He didn't want to pay the repair bills or something like that. The tenants had to go and get a court order to get the power fixed, and even that took FOUR DAYS. They had no choice but to stay because they could not afford to move their trailers out of the park and into another and then having to rent new lots in other trailer parks. They were stuck. I felt so sorry for them.
And a couple of months ago, the landlord of one apartment building near downtown San Antonio wouldn't or could not pay the water bill, and ALL the tenants had to live without water. He refused to have the water turned back on, wouldn't do a damn thing. He decided he didn't want to deal with the tenants, so he just told them that they could move out and not have to pay any costs for breaking their leases. But many of them simply did not have the money for first, last, and security deposit for a NEW apartment so they were simply stuck there, and now it's pretty much defunct (I think that's the right word?) I am not sure what have happened since then, though. I am just pretty glad I didn't choose to live in that building.