June 7, 2024 – The nonprofit Columbus Property Management, part of the larger housing nonprofit Mission First Housing Group, manages 34 apartment complexes in Philadelphia, primarily serving low-income tenants and tenants with disabilities. In a city with a dearth of affordable housing, Columbus plays a critical role: Supported by public subsidies, Columbus allegedly provides “decent, safe and permanent independent housing” for Philadelphia’s vulnerable residents.
However, tenants say their apartments are anything but decent and safe. They face security failures, leaks that persist for months and turn to mold, rampant pest infestations, useless appliances, and many other serious habitability issues. These issues routinely go unaddressed for months or years, despite repeated complaints.
On Friday, June 7, nine tenants in three Columbus apartment complexes sued their landlord in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The widespread unsafe, uninhabitable and unfit conditions of their apartments and buildings—and Columbus’s failure to respond to repeated requests to repair them, all while continuing to collect rent—violate the terms of their leases, tenants say, along with Pennsylvania laws protecting tenants and consumers. Tenants are represented by the Public Interest Law Center and Holland & Knight.
Read the complaint here, including photos of housing conditions faced by residents. The Philadelphia Inquirer covered the case on June 10.
Keith Bailey is a resident of the Powelton Heights apartment complex. He has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair or forearm crutches to move around. Around 2019 or 2020, the floor in the hallway outside his apartment fell into disrepair, creating an uneven surface with missing floorboards and exposed tile. The hallway lights outside his apartment stopped working around then as well.
Mr. Bailey asked Columbus to fix these issues repeatedly. These requests were ignored. Columbus repaired the hallway only after attorneys visited to take photos earlier in January and February 2024—four years later.
“People with disabilities shouldn’t be treated like this,” Keith Bailey, one of the tenants suing Columbus, said. “I have cerebral palsy and use forearm crutches to move around, yet for years Columbus made it so the only way for me to get in and out of my apartment was to walk down a dark hallway, with a pitted floor. This meant simply trying to leave my apartment put me at risk of hurting myself.”
Columbus is part of a larger family of organization controlled by Mission First, a large nonprofit whose stated mission is to “develop and manage affordable, equitable, safe, sustainable homes that support residents and strengthen communities.” Columbus provides property management services to Mission First, and including its 34 complexes in Philadelphia, it oversees over 4,500 apartments throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
“Columbus claims to provide decent housing for vulnerable Philadelphians, but that’s not the reality for the people who live there.”
“Columbus claims to provide decent housing for vulnerable Philadelphians, but that’s not the reality for the people who live there,” said Caroline Ramsey, staff attorney at the Public Interest Law Center. “Philadelphia needs Columbus to do its job, and do it well. But it is clear that they will continue to fail to perform their basic responsibilities—maintaining units in a safe and sanitary condition, with necessary repairs made promptly and completely—until they are compelled to do so.”
The nine tenants who filed the complaint live in three Columbus apartment buildings: Freedom Village in Francisville, MPB School in Strawberry Mansion, and Powelton Heights in West Powelton.
Tenant Marie Reese, a low-income tenant with multiple disabilities, lives in Freedom Village along with four other plaintiffs. Her bathroom tub frequently leaks and was improperly repaired by Columbus. The ceiling in her daughter’s bedroom has leaked every time it rains for the past year, and in April, it collapsed, forcing her and her daughter to share a room. In Ms. Reese’s room, the central ceiling vent is leaking, and appears to be surrounded by black mold, leaving a stain on the carpet below.
“I thank God every day that I have a roof over my head, but I shouldn’t have to live this way because I’m in low-income housing,” Ms. Reese told a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I’ve been through so much trauma …and nobody seems to care.”
