Housing and Human Welfare Committee - Regular Meeting

Meeting of the Housing and Human Welfare Committee to order on Tuesday, July 21st at 4.49 p.m. At this time, I will have a roll call. Alderman O'Neill, Alderman O'Neill?

Present.

Alderman Smith-Brown?

Present.

Alderman Conte? Present. Next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Next on the agenda is business and miscellaneous approval of the minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the regular minutes from the March 17th minute?

Okay, I'll move to approve those minutes.

And I'll second. All in favor? Next on the agenda is General Discussion Section ID-58-26, O'Berry Court Update. I would like to invite you all to come up to the table. Hi, thanks for joining us. Hello. I just want you all to introduce yourself and state your name and then your job title.

Yes, absolutely. First and foremost, Chair Conte and members of the Housing and Human Welfare Committee, we wanted to thank you for the opportunity to come before you today. In preparation for today's discussion, we have prepared some materials in advance. If it would please the committee, may I bring them forward?

I love it, I love it.

Okay.

Good evening. My name is Jason Newman. I am the Vice President of Asset Management for the Penrose Companies. I'm joined today by our Council, Avery Strachan from Silverman Thompson, our Vice President of Facilities, Kevin Hankins, our Vice President of Operations, Christina Cherepko, our Regional Maintenance Manager for Maryland, David Brooks, and also joining us in support are Brian Mohan, Chief Operating Officer of RestoreCorps, They are a 20 year relationship of us for restoration and environmental support, including operational and specialized assessment for remediation services across our portfolio. Also joining us in support is Matt Pipkin from the Maryland Multi Housing Association. I appreciate the committee's focus on the residents of Obery Court and Wilborn Estates, and I want to begin by acknowledging something very important. When residents bring concerns to elected officials, it means they feel their concerns have not been adequately addressed. Whether every allegation is accurate or not, that perception alone demands our attention. We are not here to argue with residents. We are here to listen, to be accountable, and to explain what we have learned and outline the proactive steps we are taking to address the ongoing issues. Over the past several weeks, Penrose has assembled a focused recovery effort around these communities. We have dedicated additional regional resources, added maintenance support, implemented a formal stabilization plan, increased executive level oversight, and begun addressing longstanding operational deficiencies. Our objective is simple, deliver safe, responsive housing, and restore confidence among our residents, the city, and the housing authority. We recognize there are legitimate concerns related to maintenance responsiveness, trash management, property conditions, communication, and moisture-related complaints. We are not minimizing those concerns. Instead, we are actively addressing them through specific corrective actions and measurable accountability. We also recognize concerns related to moisture intrusion and microbial growth. As we're all aware, Maryland adopted the Maryland Tenant Mold Protection Act last year to ensure these concerns are addressed through investigation, communication, remediation, and correction of the underlying moisture conditions. Penrose policies and procedures are designed around those same principles in compliance with all applicable laws. We remain committed to addressing all moisture-related issues promptly and responsibly. Today, I hope to provide the committee with a clear assessment of where we are, what we have found, what actions are underway, and how we intend to move forward.

Thanks for coming and joining us. I appreciate all the paper that you gave us. It's nice. Thank you. You want to say, okay.

Further to present or are you ready for our question?

Yeah, I can walk through each of the levels. I'll try not to speak verbatim what's on the sheet, but what we wanted to do is present to you a high level look at the actions that we're taking, the recognition of the issues and what we're doing about it. The first issue in question that was raised by the committee surrounds resident portal access and tenant access to property management. We believe the portal should be a convenience to our residents, not the only way that they can get in touch with us. We are increasing our resident communication and support for residents who are having difficulty accessing the portal, accessing property management, and giving them resources for more available responses, right? So we are considering implementing services such as Elise AI, which provides 24-7 support to residents. It is an AI platform. tasks for follow-up across our organization. So it's not just the property manager who can pick up those tasks and respond to resident needs. It also helps handle work orders. So if there are emergency work orders, if there are regular work orders, if there's a maintenance concern, it can take, log those, escalate it to our maintenance team, you know, either onsite or locally to handle or remediate an emergency.

We're also considering- Yes. In regards to that, is there a specific timeline that you have that that's going to be in place? And how can you assure our residents that this isn't a, as many would call it, some type of blockage to reaching directly a human being, as we know AI has often been seen as such?

Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think our approach here is to build that resident rapport and resident communication directly first. One of the great things about this site is we have a fantastic property manager who's been with us since April. She comes to us with a great wealth of experience as well as very well versed in resident communications and building that resident rapport. so yes we want to build that that personal relationship that personal rapport first before we start to pursue you know these alternative methods the second item that was that was raised by the committee was snow removal and winter weather response, right? We do not claim that every response was perfect. I think we can all agree and accept that this was an exceptional winter year in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic, and the response across the board was not great. We are evaluating what worked, what did not, what contractors were able to service our sites portfolio wide, which ones did not. And we are making those changes and improvements before the next winter season. The third item was trash collection and dumpster concerns. Our residents should not live with overflowing trash. We may identify contributing factors, be it neighborhood, be it surrounding, be it traveling, dropping of trash across our facilities, but management remains responsible for implementing a better solution, right? We are evaluating additional dumpster capacity, additional dumpster mechanisms across the sites to determine whether or not that can help alleviate the concerns for cleanliness and trash collection. We are also considering, and this would be a pilot program for us, but installing cameras around our dumpster facilities to ensure that You know, not only are we tracking and logging that activity, but camera systems now have license plate readers, right? And so the enforcement of that policy becomes a lot easier with the license plate reader and the connection to the local police department. Is there a timeline for that? There's not a current timeline for that. You know, we remain focused on the immediate issues at the site surrounding inspections, abatements, subsidy, things of that nature, and stabilizing the site. What we are doing right now though is increased maintenance rounds, right? We have multiple maintenance folks on site that are employed by the site. We are bringing in folks from all across Maryland and the Northeast to help assist with the situations at Obery. And we have temps. So there are currently seven people, three permanent maintenance positions, two traveling positions, and two maintenance temps who are overseeing the site now. So increasing the property rounds, walking the grounds, collecting the trash, ensuring that the trash bins are clean, that the trash bins are collected, is a major part of our plan in the short term. That brings us to the fourth item, which is maintenance response times. We acknowledge that there are response time concerns. The current answer that we have is added resources, clearer prioritization, backlog reduction, and weekly accountability. I can reference some hard data here. So over the period from April 15th to July 15th of this year, the Obery apartments had over 311 total work orders generated. 275 of those are completed at an 88% completion rate. The fifth and final item surrounds moisture-related concerns. Our process is not simply to clean a visible condition. It's to identify the moisture source, complete corrective maintenance, remediate the affected areas where warranted, and follow up with the resident. A part of the package that I provided the committee this evening is a 10-day letter that we prepared that is a part of our standard operating procedure across our portfolio will be used here with the addition of new property management oversight to follow up with residents within 10 days of moisture reporting, moisture remediation, moisture cleaning. Included in that letter are tips for our tenants to understand how to help prevent those issues and what to do if there is suspected microbial growth.

I have a couple questions for you as follow-up. My first question to you, sorry, I thought I had it pulled up, is in regards to the maintenance. If you could walk me through how a resident files a maintenance request, what their expectations should be for acknowledgement of that maintenance request and the timeline for that filing to come to completion. Can you walk me through that process?

Yes, absolutely. And I'm actually going to ask my colleague, David Brooks, who oversees the maintenance function for these sites, to address that question.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone. I'm David Brooks, RMM for Penrose. So they have multiple ways that they can do it. They can go in online and make a ticket, which then, at that point, it generates and it tells us if it debating on what the verbiage is. It will come off if it's an emergency or if it's a standard. At that point, our gentlemen and ladies that we have working for us, they will receive, at that point we receive the information, we put it onto their phones, and at that time they have their tickets. And then with their tickets, they follow through with that with the app that they use through Yardi, and which basically allows us to put photos and answer exactly, so then when we're finished and we complete, that will give them an email letting them know, plus photos showing what we had done for the day. Apologize, I hope that covered everything.

I hope that works. When you're doing maintenance, say I call you with, my toilet's not working.

tickets been in is there communication to the resident about will be there on friday between 12 and 2 or do you just go when you're able to um so it all it really all depends what it is i mean it's uh we we see our residents every single day uh we're not in the office we walk we're we're doing things we're keeping the grounds um taking care of the news um so on them that all depends on on on the residents i can't give you a real clear answer on that Because it just depends on the on what's going on at the time, but no ticket goes longer than 24 hours and that's something simple as a blind not working or something. But anything of a leak windows doors, we have so many things that we consider an emergency that doors not shutting correctly locks anything that deals with, like. our inspections and different like our hack inspections and our annapolis inspections those we make them even if it's not considered an emergency per se we we consider it because it's it's a part of what needs to be in working order for those residents right and then is there an indication to the resident that you've been in their units um is there something left for them yes ma'am so if they don't get what so not only do they they get what they put through the through there we also leave door hangers on that state um what we are what we have done and then most of them when we we look into their ticket it may say um it may say um uh something about um that they would like if uh them to be home when it comes time so we make sure we call and set up set up something like that we also um we also find out like um especially during summer when we have miners um home so on certain things we'll really make sure we make phone calls first to make sure that there's no miners in there or there's or someone's there to take care of them thank you what is your two questions uh the first is what is your trash collection schedule again david I'm sorry, I'm drawing a blank on that. Our trash company is, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit nervous.

We also have the property manager in the room.

Decola Dickerson. Own a friend. Apple.

Thank you. How can I forget that name? I apologize. It's Apple. Yes, ma'am.

Every Tuesday.

Every Tuesday. I think it's every Tuesday. It was the schedule. So the scheduling, yes. So what we did was we actually picked up a Sunday on top of that. We also met with them with other different options that we could do depending on, you know, with the size that we have. We also met with them too to try to understand what was going on, why was our trash filling up so fast, especially when we added a Sunday to it. Well, what we did was we figured out by when we were walking around with Annapolis with our inspectors and stuff, we saw residents from the outside putting trash in the dumpsters. So while that may not seem like that's that big of a deal, it actually is because when we sit down and we do our contracts, we do our contracts based off of how many people are living on the property and what the general idea of what they would have as refuge that they would get rid of. So that's, so when you have that issue of not only do you have your legal dumping but you also even though the residents are being making sure they're putting the trash in and not creating an issue they are actually creating an issue because what's happening is is we our dumpsters are not set to have that many people put that amount of trash in so to answer your question we added a sunday to it and it seems to be working very well Tuesdays and Sundays?

Yes, sir. Okay, great. The other question is, do you mind repeating the completion rate that you mentioned for the 311 work orders and the 275 completed? What was the completion rate that you mentioned? 88%. That's what I thought. All right.

That was everything. So thanks for coming and giving us an update. We appreciate it.

Maybe I'll ask, what do you find is the largest challenge being in leadership here at O'Berry Court and Wilburn Estates?

I think it's challenge?

Yeah, what are your largest challenges that you face?

I think over the past few years, our largest challenge, and it's not just O'Berry Court, it's industry-wide, it's staffing consistency, staffing vacancies, refilling positions with, well-trained, well-qualified, well-skilled individuals. We are in a business where so much depends on the capability and the quality of the folks sitting in the seats at the site. And there is so much reliance that we can backstop as much as we can from corporate, from other sites. But the success really hinges upon the people in that seat. And so we focus really heavily on onboarding. We focus really heavily on retention. We focus really heavily on ongoing training and continuing to adapt our training methodologies and our training protocols and our programs and expand our sphere of talent recruitment and try and bring more people into the industry.

Sorry, another question popped up. Do you have, since bringing on the new property manager in April, regular tenant meetings?

I would ask Decola, our property manager.

She's going to have to come to the microphone if she's going to answer. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Decola Dickerson. I'm the new property manager. As of right now, we do not have regular tenant meetings. There are other issues that need to be addressed, but we are moving forward to that. As far as the committee that was in place prior to me coming on board, they dismantled. So the president that we had, the vice president, those individuals dismantled. So once they come back with their board, then we're ready to move forward.

I think that's one of the number one complaints I have is the residents don't feel that they have a place where they can go to get information besides one-offs trying to visit during the office hours or whatnot, that it would be great if we can. And I can help you facilitate that in Obery Court in College Creek Terrace. Absolutely.

I welcome it. Thank you. You're welcome. Can you leave your contact information before?

We need all day contact.

Who would you like to give to you? Yes, okay. Thank you, you're welcome.

We appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you so much. The next item on the agenda is ID-59-26, Homes at the Glen update. You all can come up to the table.

Check that.

Um.

My name is Dana Johnson, and I am president of Homes for America. And we are the nonprofit owner of Homes at the Glen. With me is Danielle England, who is our vice president of asset management at Homes for America. Homes for America is a nonprofit headquartered here in Annapolis. We are a 32-year-old nonprofit, and we have owned, we developed, we are the original developers of Homes at the Glen. It is a lease purchase community, meaning it was developed as a rental community that residents would have the opportunity to purchase their homes after the initial tax credit compliance period expires. We have sold 22 of the 56 homes. to the residents. Habitat America is our property management company. We do not self-manage our properties. Habitat is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the property, and I'll let the Habitat folks introduce themselves, but I just want to share that we brought habitat in in march of 2023 after some poor performance of a prior management company and they have done a much better job than prior management i also just want to share that i think both homes for america and habitat are committed to providing quality housing and customer service And I also want to share that we have, through support from Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, Anne Arundel County, and a small grant from the City of Annapolis, and some investment by Homes for America, we have spent about a million dollars on the property in the last two years. We've replaced all the roofs. We've replaced all the HVAC, hot water heaters, and all kitchen appliances. And we have more work ongoing to address repairs to the parking lot and additional security. And we're hoping to have a little money left over to address finishes in the units. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Frank.

Good evening. My name is Frank Fudala. I'm the senior vice president at Habitat America.

I am Nakia Coleman, Regional Property Manager for Habitat America.

And Habitat just has a little history since Homes for America. Dana provided that. Habitat America has been managing properties, mostly affordable, in and around Annapolis. Our headquarters here is in Annapolis. We manage approximately 97 communities, all within a three-hour radius of Annapolis. And we have been doing this for just over 36 years. As Dana was saying we took over management of this particular property in March.

We were sent a set of questions, so we're happy to just go ahead and go through responses. Okay.

I do have one question. Thank you for coming today as well. The 1 question I do have is what is the process for getting because you said 22 out of 56 homes are sold. What is your process for providing support to the residents that are looking to own their homes? What does that look like?

So currently the program has expired. So the residents who were not able to purchase by July of last year, the homes returned to being affordable rental community. There will be a period in six to seven years from now and at the end of the extended use agreement that the home sales will reopen and residents will at that time have the opportunity to purchase their home. We partnered with Anne Arundel County ACVS to provide home ownership counseling and provide credit counseling to be able to prepare residents to be able to purchase their homes. And then we identified local banks in the community that were able to work closely with our residents to get them to home ownership. At a very reduced rate in Homes for America. second mortgage to make up the difference for the sales so at this time there is not ongoing home ownership counseling but as we get closer to that time when home ownership will reopen that will be offered at that time why is that why did the program no longer continue why hasn't it continued any longer our regulatory agreement with the state only allowed for a certain period of time for the homes to be able to be sold they gave us an extension But at some point, we had loans that needed to be repaid.

I'll let the man answer the question.

So from my understanding, there was a list of issues that were called. So let me just say, I'll summarize the issues and how we have addressed them or will address them. And we can have... Provide additional documentation after this meeting if you wanted to see invoices or contracts or work order detail, etc. Okay.

Those are to you, that'll catch your voice better.

Not a problem. Is that better for everyone? Okay, great. So the issues, I'll just list them. They were plumbing issues, we had outdated appliances, customer service, and we had how we handle maintenance work tickets and who can the residents at the community contact when they need assistance. One of the things we've always struggled with, and I heard the gentleman earlier talk about, is staffing. So we, in this industry, have a difficult time staffing managers, difficult time staffing maintenance. But it's even more difficult on a small community, where you have to share staff within other local communities. And we do manage a lot here in Annapolis, so we are able to share staff. But that is a unique issue for this particular community, because it is a smaller community. So one of the things I wanted to address was the plumbing issues that we have seen in early 2026. I think there was maybe an indication that this is a larger issue at the property, but it's not. In summary, in Unit 25, we had a major issue related to a pipe break. It wound up being a clogged toilet that wound up being an insurance claim. We spent about $20,000 in that particular claim repairing that, which we did immediately. And I can follow up with additional documentation on that. We also put the resident, I believe in that particular case, in a hotel while we took care of the situation. There was another situation that occurred in that same unit a little later on, which wound up being another toilet clog, which we then contracted out to have repaired. And I have the invoices for that. And Unit 28 was something else that occurred in late first quarter and early second quarter. That was another toilet clog that we immediately took care of. We wound up finding out that there was grease in the lines, et cetera, so we repaired that particular issue. And I only bring those two Just to let you know that we took care of them. We heard the residents' concerns. They are very one-off concerns. It's not something that we see throughout the community that we should be taking more proactive action on. We handle the situations as they come up. We hire the appropriate firms, legitimate vendors to come in and take care of some of the larger issues that we see. Related to appliances, etc., Dana did a good job of explaining what has gone on at this community with the replacement of appliances, with HVAC, with roof. when we see an older appliance we immediately replace it as we need to and that's on top of the grant that homes for america has received so i'm not really sure where that particular complaint comes from but we are open to listening to our residents and we have consistent meetings with them as suggested in the the previous presentation here um And we follow up with them as quickly as possible. And that leads me to my next situation here is in terms of how are we handling customer service and tenant complaints and unresolved maintenance issues. Related to staffing, we did have a community manager there that resigned in late 2025, but now the site has full-time coverage through temp agencies and through Habitat America corporate staff. And so the staff is now, we do have full-time staff there and actually have a list of the staff who are actually at the community that I can share with not only you, but of course the residents know this, but we can follow back up if the residents don't feel as though they know who to contact. so I have contact information as necessary. The residents know that they can contact us at any time. They can speak to our staff. They can go online and submit a maintenance through our portal. We have 24-hour maintenance. What I'm getting through some of this is that maybe the communication from our management office to the residents needs to be better so that they know exactly who to contact and how to submit their work orders. And so that's something we can work on, absolutely. In terms of work orders, oh. I got a comment. Oh, please, yeah.

So when we're talking about apartment 25, so the person that you're referring to actually came to me, so I was the one who got the report about everything that was going on. So the main thing wasn't that the plumbing thing happened, it was more of the responses that she got after the things happened. as far as we know that it happened, it wasn't her fault or your guy's fault, but they did not want to put her in a hotel. So they were refusing to do that until they knew that her mom was taking it to the next level. So I don't know how the communication went, but they did not initially wanna put her in a hotel. And even to give wraparound services to that person that's paying their rent and doing all the things that they should be doing, they didn't wanna provide that either. but they did it, but it was in the back end. It wasn't like, okay, we know that this issue is happening, so we're gonna take care of it. They did that after a lot of fighting and pulling and tugging.

Um, I'm not aware of those initial conversations as to what had occurred, but, um, I can follow up and find out exactly what happened there. Um, and I want to make sure that I get you the right answer and. To make sure you understand, and then we'll reach back out to the resident to make sure. You know, that they understand not only what had happened, but how we can avoid it in the future.

Thank you. Sure.

Related to. Work orders and follow-up, again, we will work with the residents there to make sure that they know how to submit a work order. Related to outstanding work orders or unresolved work orders, so since January, and I just picked a random piece of time, right? We've had 128 work orders at that particular community. Most of them were getting prepared for the rental license inspection that we had at the property. But of the 128, we only have seven that are outstanding, and most of those are just due to waiting for a contractor to fix a garage door, et cetera. So it just gives you a sense of the work orders that come through since January and how many we've completed, and there's only seven outstanding at this time. Right, sorry, and we were just talking about how we can get in front of the residents and make sure that we communicate that better to them. Last thing that was on the list was who to contact. So I do have a list here. And again, I can provide that to you. I can also just get back in front of the residents to make sure they know who they can contact. Nakia, who's a regional as a property, is always available, whether it's at night or on the weekends. I know she's been dealing with some city staff related to some issues that we've had at several properties in Annapolis. And it's good to have that relationship with the city and the fact that not only are we responsive, but we we're responsive to the residents as well. And again, we'll make sure that that is communicated back to them.

Can we get the names of the properties that you manage?

I can send that, sure. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we manage several in Anne Arundel County, several here in Annapolis.

What year again did you say that the purchasing program will begin? You said six to seven. What's an estimated year?

I think it's 2032. 2032.

I just have two questions for you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Do you currently have open units vacant units and do you have a wait list for your units give me an estimate of how many on the wait list and what the average wait list time is

I need you to speak into the microphone. Thank you. So we are fortunately, to be fortunately, we are 100% occupied. Obviously, we don't get a lot of vacancies. Right now, the wait list is about a year and a half long. So we are taking applicants and persons who are interested and they can call us or come to the office and do that.

Thank you.

So I'm going to ask everyone some of the questions of the challenges that you face in leadership.

So just to be clear, in leadership in this industry?

As you have served in leadership, what are the challenges that you have experienced and or witnessed or that you find to be of greatest need? Resolve.

So I may have mentioned this earlier, just in this particular industry, staffing is a huge concern. Another challenge, and maybe Dana can speak to this as well, is when we are developing affordable housing and managing affordable housing, when the underwriting is happening on the development side and we have to hit certain operating targets, from our side, we don't feel as though there's a lot of leeway in terms of how much we pay our staff. The salaries in property management right now have gone astronomically high in the past 10 to 15 years, and a lot of the deals aren't being underwritten for that. So we are not getting great talent in the maintenance and manager realms. So we have to meet our budget criteria or we need to push up upon original pro forma and the properties aren't cash flowing as much as they should so that we can take care of the properties as we need to. That's probably the largest concern that I see in this industry. And some of it was talked about earlier. we make sure that we grow from within that we provide the training that's necessary so that habitat america doesn't see some of the turnover that some of the other management companies have and when you're able to keep that consistent then you're able to you know manage more effectively so we try to focus on that at habitat

So I know staffing is always gonna be of concern. We lack staffing in the city of Annapolis, and there are ways that we're trying to resolve that. Let's put our minds in the perspective of the people that live within your housing communities. What do you think the challenges that they face that you all are consistently working to resolve?

uh... i think the a lot of the challenges that they would face would be something that we could support them through some of the resident services that i know homes for america uh... is extremely good at. Maybe Dana can speak to that. But from our perspective, we just want to make sure that we are managing good physical communities so that the seniors and the families can thrive physically in their own unit. Once that has been accomplished, they can then start thinking of how can I better myself through a computer program, or how can I get more involved in my community? And that's where we lean on Homes for America a lot from a resident service perspective.

I think one of the biggest challenges in the affordable housing industry today is preservation of housing. the properties and the units. What has happened since COVID is that our rents are quite low because that's who we're trying to serve and we're trying to make sure that we're keeping rents affordable, but our operating expenses have gone through the roof. And so those lines have crossed and we have a lot of properties that are not breaking even. And it's very challenging in those kinds of situations to make sure that we're continuing to maintain the units and the properties as the properties struggle for cash. And I think, you know, Just to get on my soapbox, I think at a state level and a national level, I don't think we really are paying attention to this incredibly looming problem. We have a lot of emphasis on the housing shortage and producing more, producing more, which is hugely important, but preserving what we have. We don't want water leaking out of the bucket while we're trying to fill it. And I think my concern is with our K-shaped economy and the residents that we serve, you know, just struggling more and more with inflation and retrenchment of supports and other kinds of things that help them stay housed, stay healthy, you know, maintain their jobs uh you know those things are impacting us too because as they struggle to pay rent it impacts our ability to serve them and keep them housed and i to me that's that's just a looming challenge that we are also not talking about when we say you know we're keeping residents we're keeping properties affordable well you know

you still have to be able to pay your rent um and it's just i think we're seeing it all over the place that people are really struggling to to pay their bills y'all got anything else all right thanks for coming thank you very much we appreciate your time thank you the next item on the agenda is d-20-26 annette was gardens update you all can come to the table

Hello, I am Leticia Rollins, the attorney for Annapolis Gardens. I have two individuals with me that work directly on the site, Melanie Holmes and Grayson Flynn. We don't have any fancy spreadsheets. We don't have any data for you, so we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. Your city attorney contacted us and said, these are the topics, so we're happy to answer any questions that you have regarding the property.

All right, well, the first topic here, thank you. I will say Melanie has been a phenomenal staffer at Annapolis Gardens, and I will continue to advocate for her to be in high leadership, and we need new management at Annapolis Gardens, and when she puts that application in, she needs to be approved, period.

We agree, we agree. Thank you.

Now, in light of all the issues that we're facing across our housing communities, one of them is unresponsiveness. And I know that that's one of the topics here. Can you just share with us really the process for our residents to not only get a response, but to have initiation of contacts from the office for events, et cetera?

Sure. Generally speaking, they can obviously contact via phone. They can come to the office and speak in person. They can email whomever. They can email the property email. There's a lot of paths that they can take as well as the AI that we've implemented. We've also implemented Elise AI. On top of that, we have our portal. so there there's a ton of different ways for them to reach us and for us to speak with them um i'd like if what you're speaking about like if there was better examples of unresponsiveness to like answer better if like just general inquiries or anything else

So there were two major issues that occurred, particularly during the snowstorm was one, cleaning off the sidewalks, cleaning out the driveways. You have a high elderly population there, they weren't able to do so. And so I, of course, had to work with them to try to find a way to get their shoveling. But they also told me that they got a letter on their door saying that it was their responsibility to do it. and they wanted to contact someone within the office and they didn't get a response. The other was a plumbing issue, multiple plumbing issues that occurred there. We still have yet to get much of the details, but there was a plumbing issue in one of my residents' home. I do represent Ward 3, which is Annapolis Gardens. i went out there one late night i had to stay on the phone for hours with the plumbing contractors that you all have that did get resolved but you're talking about an elderly woman above 70 years old having to deal with this and that was a huge concern to me and so we appreciate the the number that you all do offer there's this number that you give to the residents that they can call immediately there was an answer there but it took hours for her to get the support she needed and it lasted for more than two weeks This is plumbing, as you well know, how am I supposed to use the bathroom if it's clogged up and it's coming overflowing in my own personal toilet, it's disgusting.

Yes. So during the snowstorm, I was on site and we did have residents. Our elderly is like closer toward Bowman Drive, the bottom of Bowman Drive. And so when maybe she was told that you're responsible for just right in front of your house, but all common sidewalks are for us. During that snowstorm, our guys were out. The problem was once they shoveled, it came right back. We kept getting hit with several inches of snow. After that, we had issues with our contractors coming out because everyone in the community were using those same contractors. to come out and clean those ways. So our staff was working hard to try to get those ways clear for them. But as far as the residents, it's just directly in front of their house, not the common sidewalks. And so we did have issues with contractors coming out because they were stretched thin throughout the city.

Can you address the plumbing issue?

the plumbing issues in regards to?

Yeah, so there were, well there were actually two. Just remembered another plumbing issue that occurred. So there's two plumbing issues. One, which was actually the worst that I've received thus far being in office, and she had to move out of Annapolis Gardens due to this plumbing issue. Everything that came up from the toilet was all over her items and on her floor. So that was the one issue. The second one was the one that I was referring to earlier, which was a clogging of the pipes of some sorts. And she asked me, which I was going to get an answer hopefully from today, is how often do we clean the plumbing system or filter the plumbing system within these public housing communities? Because that's also of concern, infrastructure and plumbing. When you have multiple units using the same lines, you have to maybe so often go in there and clean it out. Even in our personal homes, we have to do that. Maybe getting an understanding of what that looks like, if y'all do that annually.

So in general for Wynn, what we typically set up is somewhat of a quarterly jetting line schedule. It can depend on the site after history if we acknowledge that there's an issue with it. For this site, I believe we would be following the quarterly cycle to have the lines jetted. But as far as it goes for more specifics to the plumbing issues and why there was a lack of response, Melanie would be able to speak with that a little bit.

So with the first plumbing issue where the lady had to leave the unit, what happened was there were growth—it was growth from a tree, like underneath the ground. And so it kind of backed up the system, so we had to move her out of her unit. Now, regarding Bowman Court, that is— an annual, sometimes twice every two years. What we have found was, and we had sent letters out, is we have to keep reminding our residents, you cannot put certain things, you can't flush wipes or certain things like that. What happens is it backs up up there, And that's what we have to constantly, at least once a year, unplug those pipes. And so, like Grayson said, we were working on something where it could be a quarterly thing or—just to make sure that that is being taken care of. But the first one, that was actually a natural occurrence that had never happened before.

I would highly encourage if we can, a quarterly, if you all have the funds to do it, of course, a quarterly, that would be huge. Thank you.

I'm going to ask similar questions. Can you walk me through how a resident goes about inputting a maintenance request, how long they should expect until they at least have an acknowledgement of that and how long a typical maintenance request lasts.

But when we put, our residents are able to call. We respond to them. If they cannot get to us, they can put it in online. They can put in a ticket online. They can, if it's an emergency, it's a prompt for them to press a certain number and that will alert our guys. They have a phone. It goes directly to their phone. They're more than welcome to walk in. They can come and walk in. So that's the process for them to put in their work order. And then the second question is within 24 hours, we typically handle any work orders. If it's a non-emergency work order and we have emergency work orders before, just maybe your blind broke or something like that, then we would take those emergencies first.

yeah and the piggyback off of that um in general when someone is calling and they make contact and they put something in as a ticket they will get immediate response from our system if they have an email that has been given to us at move-in they'll get an acknowledgement showing that that ticket has been put in what level it's been rated at and basically a general response time. It should say how long it would take for us to respond to that. But in general, we try and handle things within 24 hours.

Thank you. My second question for you is the total number of units you have and are any of the units market rate units or are they all voucher?

And there are 150 units on site and 75 are low income housing tax credit and then 75 are project based voucher and that's through the Housing Authority City of Annapolis.

And are there any vacancies at the moment? Yes.

Yes, currently we're at 93% occupancy.

Thank you.

So what is the, how many cameras do you have on site and which ones are active or how many of them are active?

I wouldn't be able to give you a number. I honestly off the top of my head don't know how many cameras are on site, but that camera system would be active through, was it Crimco? I could definitely answer how many cameras at a later date, if you'd like, but I wouldn't know off the top of my head.

Yeah, we would love to get that because Annapolis Gardens seems to have, not lately, but a history of crime. And when we have young people especially being hurt, it's especially important to put not only cameras, but lighting. And that's my second question. Have you taken a view of the lighting fixtures that you have?

in the community and identify the areas that are lacking and ones that should be in place um as i recall about last year when there was an incident that occurred um that was something that was being looked into as far as it goes for any lighting issues i'm not aware of any areas that are extremely in the playground specifically the playground the playground especially yes okay um

So we have been working with the city. There was issues on which street was the city, which street was Annapolis Gardens. This has been ongoing. And so I know we had talked about that. I do believe that the light around the playground area was fixed at one point. It looked like someone ran into that light.

um and so they were uh had to replace that and fix that but we will have to get an update on how that looks because i haven't been there at night yeah at least since a a recent security uh report that's the last time that we did a light audit so um we we we can definitely confirm that for the playground at any other uh future developments or redevelopments of the area that you're looking to have in place in naples gardens In general, with WINS takeover, because they are purchasing the property, there will be redevelopment with that. Currently, we're at a base level, so nothing official that we could speak to at this time, but there is intentions to redevelop.

I got one question. You were asking about specifics as far as like when they say about the unresponsiveness. So I had several people from Bay Bridge Gardens and Annapolis Gardens come and address them basically needing, getting these outrageous amounts for ledgers. amounts and when they were coming to try to communicate with you guys about why or how that their balances become that they were unresponsive and it was specifically them saying that they reached out to management and they didn't get response so I know that you have resident service coordinators but I don't think that the certain resident service coordinators should be handling rent stuff if they have property managers in place so that's a big thing for the residents for both of those communities having those concerns and they feel like the only responses that they're getting is when it's resident services that are those are two different things to deal with when it comes to rent

So to clarify for Annapolis Gardens and Bay Ridge, to hone in on Annapolis Gardens, I urge those tenants to come to the office to speak with us in reference to those issues. As far as I'm aware, a lot of the issues that come from ledgers actually speaks to some of the issues we've been dealing with with HACA for received subsidies, and as well as those people being told that they owe money back. And so we've had those reports come through Annapolis. As far as Bay Ridge, they do have the same setup for a lease AI. If they have an issue, they can bring that up. With that concern, it gets sent straight to me and we can address it that way.

So I know you can't give details on Wynn's purchase and the redevelopment. I was told, is this supposed to be in the next couple of years that we're looking?

The purchase should be within the next couple of years.

Okay, great. So you're going to get back to us with the two pieces of data that we asked about for the light audit that you mentioned, as well as cameras? Yes, sir. Yeah, please.

You good?

So recently we've had a lot of management shift at Annapolis Gardens. What is your vision for management in Annapolis Gardens?

Speaking in general, I've got a little bit of the vision sitting to my right, hopefully. As far as it goes for consistent management, it has been a struggle for keeping a manager there. as far as it goes i think the last manager who left it was just about them returning home that they wanted to move back to seattle so i i don't know that that was a specific issue that they had with the property so much but i do hope that we'll be able to get somebody consistently there as well and if melanie does get put there she'll be working closely with me over there as well

And me, and I'll also say, and I'll also say the last piece here, because it's quite a shame in Annapolis gardens. There's no summer program there currently. And there's been there has been organizations in and out and just to give a little background. 1 of the reasons why I do love Melanie so much is because when there wasn't a summer program there, we worked hand in hand and really. Structured a program there, and dozens of children would come there throughout that time period after a couple of years and new organizations in and out. It kind of fell through. What is your plan to ensure that that community center gets used? Because it's an iconic community center, Carolyn Butler Community Center, as well as. What is your plan to allow for the residents to have direct access to it? You often find that there's a high cost or fee to have access to a community center that they, a community that they live in. And that's a huge issue to me. So the cost should of course be reduced, especially if there can be an MOU in place or an agreement, a trusting agreement for insurance policy. I'm sure that's a one of the problems that we face in these communities or our communities. But what is your thoughts on that for ensuring that there is a program or programming throughout the year annually, as well as contacts to our residents about any other programming outside of just that community center?

In general, speaking on what they actually do have at this moment, so they do have two different programs actively every week. That's Monday through Thursday. One Monday, they actually specifically are there from 1 to 3, I believe, and that's for youth mentoring and mental health. and as far as it goes for tuesday through wednesday they do morning sessions with children for like just fun activities things like that so there is some utilization there but i do agree that the uh community center could be more utilized and we're currently looking into locking down a contract for a company to assist with those types of activities

As well as the usage for if a family wants to have a, because we would have Christmas events there, Thanksgiving events led by the community. And then they're told that they no longer can have access to that space. And when you're trusting of each other and you're having friends givings and things like that, it kind of isn't the best feeling to be told that you no longer can have access. You have to spend $300, $400, $500 to have access to a community center.

I love the idea personally of having the tenants able to go to the community center. I know that there is intention for making some type of key fob system where there would be access in the future. That is far out. So, you know, I want that to be the case and we're urging for that. But at this very moment, we're going to just do our best to provide the programs for the tenants and get them what they need.

All right, thanks for coming. Can we get your contact information?

If I'm assuming that's Miss Corey's yesterday, I wrote my notes to give the follow up items to your city attorney. That's okay. Yeah. Yep, I think you guys held us longer than everybody else because we didn't have a spreadsheet. Thank you so much.

Yes.

The next item on the agenda is ID-60-26, by-water update. Y'all can come to the table. By-water update.

What's going on?

Oh.

Good evening.

I'll introduce myself. My name is Stacy Ringgold. I'm the Regional Property Manager for Quantum Real Estate, managing Bywater Mutual Homes that's located in Annapolis. It consists of 308 multifamily units.

I'm Janice Hargrove, I'm the new property manager at Bywater Mutual Homes.

I'm Denise Fisher, resident and president of the board of directors at Bywater Mutual Homes.

So somewhat like the presentation that happened before us, we are, was invited. We're not really familiar with what the questions are, what's needed, so we will do our very best to answer what we can. And if we can't, we will provide you with the information.

There were three topics that were highlighted for Bywater. One was mold issues, which seems to be our common theme tonight, unresolved maintenance issues, which is also another common, and accounting procedures, as Alderwoman Conte referred to prior, as far as people receiving ledgers that didn't make sense. So if you wanna, those were three things. So if you wanna start with mold, that would be great. Let's start with the accounting, if you don't mind.

So what happened with the accounting at Bywater Mutual Homes? I'm not for sure if you all know that Bywater Mutual Homes is a co-op. And being a co-op, we were not required to get a rental license for many years. And back in 2000 and I believe 21, if I may be correct, they started requiring us to get rental license. And as a result of that rental license, the city was coming out putting on everyone's door this red notice that said, you don't have to pay rent. And they did not. So what until they were able to get their rental license. So what took place and what I've been working with personally myself is I'm the one that's issuing those resident ledgers and actually asking for residents to come in to meet with me to discuss. And in that letter, I also expressed that if they disputed that, then as long as they brought the supporting documents, then I would work with them to make sure that their ledger reflected correct balance. What we did as a result of them receiving that notice from the city up until we actually got the rental license, that balance was written off because legally we cannot claim that rent. So the balances that were reflected are true and accurate as of today, unless that resident came in to challenge that and providing supporting documents showing that rent was paid or any supporting information that would. Challenge the balance that was old. um i have met with everybody we also offered repayment agreements we have not filed in rent court despite us having the rental license and can proceed until we went with each and every resident to discuss their delinquent balance to confirm that it's owed giving them an opportunity to enter into a repayment agreement and honor that repayment agreement to avoid filing in rent court or evicting someone so that's what we've been doing

After the specific residents came to you about the letter that they received, how long does it take before they get information on a repayment agreement or if you resolved it on your own or whatever came about from the ledger?

Sure. So what has happened is the first thing I need is for them to provide me with the supporting documents. And reviewing a ledger is not something that we could just review. It does take us some time to coincide with the money order payments, check payments, to make sure that they were all accounted for. And in addition to looking at when they received the rental license to make sure that we took off everything that was charged for them. so it's not a process that i'm going to say it's going to take me two days it's not you know and and taking that in consideration we had quite a number of people that owe balances so we're still working through it um i have been notifying each resident entering that want to enter into repayment agreement making sure i'm not trying to offer them a repayment agreement that they can't afford to set them up for failure we're offering reasonable repayment agreements making sure that sign before we issue any updated ledger or any correspondence that coincide with that so we're investigating it fully and then the final documentation will be provided to them thank you thank you um unresolved maintenance issues or mold We'll do the unresolved maintenance issues. So another challenge that we face along with every other property management company, it's a revolving door at times. We've had some challenges with getting a maintenance supervisor. We've had challenges with property managers, office staff, period. Luckily, I think that I can confirm that we are fully staffed today. Well, the maintenance supervisor starts next week, so we will be fully staffed. And taking all of that in consideration, having people walk in and out, sure, did things slip through the cracks? I would say most definitely they did. Have we taken it upon ourselves with the new staff to ensure that we are responding and responding timely to our residents? We are. Are we backlogged? Sure. Are we working towards getting all of those things corrected? Absolutely.

I'm going to add to that my question that I've asked before. Can you walk me through the process of how somebody submits maintenance?

Sure. We kind of have the same process. You can call in. You can walk in. You can report it on a portal. And we have emergency after hours as well.

What are your walk-in hours? Walk-in hours?

830 to 430.

Monday through Friday? Monday through Friday, yes. That's fantastic. And then last but not least is the mold. So we have been having some challenges with mold. And I honestly think that we have been responding really efficiently with that. The mold is coming from the condensation line backing up. What we do is we send a certified moisture tester that goes in, it's not somebody from our office that goes in as ESI. We contract them, they go out and they confirm the condition. If that condition is from that report, if it says that we need to relocate, we relocate. The relocation can be the option of either moving to another unit on the property and or staying in a hotel until we're able to abate that situation. we have properly documented everyone who has reported moisture. And we provide the city of Annapolis, because they get involved as well, we provide them with all of our reports showing that we have abated it and cleared the unit for residents to be able to return.

They let y'all get off easy. All right. I think that's it.

Fantastic. If you have anything else, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Can you provide my contact information? Please. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, Stacy.

The next item on the agenda is ID slash 57 dash 26 Amarok's update. You guys can come up to the table.

The phone? Did someone make the phone? Hello, I'm Elizabeth Hawley, Director of Asset Management with Enterprise Community Development. Hello. And we'll go down the line, introduce yourselves.

I am Princess Robinson, the Regional Manager for Enterprise Residential.

Sherry Condie, Vice President of Operations for Enterprise Residential.

Jamila Palmer, Property Manager for Admiral Oates.

Thanks for coming. Do you want to start or what?

All right. Hello. I'm also in Ward 3, Admiral Oaks, where I grew up, by the way. And I'll tell you, the conditions now are worse than when I grew up. It's actually one of the worst, I would say, out of all of them across our city. And it's a shame and a disappointment. I'll say a little positive. I see two floral outfits here and I see two tannish black outfits here. So it's good team coordination today. Regarding the issues in Admiral Oaks, the first one here out of the two, we have molded and unresolved maintenance orders. I'm not certain if you all have taken a walk throughout the units. So that's the first question I have. Have you all taken a walk throughout the units at Admiral Oaks, the apartment complexes?

Yes, so Admiral Oaks is currently, it's 100% occupied. We've maintained 100% occupancy for the last four, maybe five months. We do inspections, preventative maintenance inspections. Internally, we do twice a year where the property manager, maintenance supervisor, and maintenance staff inspect 100% of the units, and we also have a 100% unit inspection from the city of Annapolis. We just had that inspection in January of 2026. That inspection was completed in just two days, and that's significantly ahead of schedule when normally they schedule for a week, but they finished a 100% unit inspection in two days. We had very minimal findings, things like caulking around the bathtub or caulking around the sink or something like that. um so that that was really good and right now admiral oaks is currently 100 licensed and and we are in full compliance with the city of annapolis

Hey, do you mind sharing with us? There was a case in Admiral Oaks where a woman had sewage coming from her toilet as well as mold on her walls and moisture in her carpets. She shared with me and there are images to show she, a 70 plus year old lady, having to urinate in a bucket. That's one of the most disgusting things as well. And I'm tired of saying that word with our public housing, because public housing should be a housing that's equitable and affordable for all people. And so do you mind just sharing with us a little bit about the largest issues or concerns that you've faced thus far with mold and plumbing, seeing that it is near a swamp or it was once near a swamp. And I think that's one of the concerns that was brought to my attention, at least from management, with the moisture issue that you face.

Okay, so I want to start with what you said initially as far as that particular resident. So just because pictures are provided, that does not mean that is a current issue. I am fully aware of the person that you are speaking of, and this happened maybe, I guess, about a month or so ago. And with this particular person, things are, you know, things are occurring that are not, you know, as a result of mismanagement or non-maintenance. So with this particular person, we called out a plumbing company and when they snaked the line, they pulled back two wigs and wipes. So this resident, put in this is all in the report which i can provide to you guys at a later date this resident put two hair pieces down the toilet and some wipes which caused the backup we had the plumbing company to come out immediately they snaked the drain they pulled it back they took you know notes of everything of you know what occurred and While they were doing that, there was some water, but the maintenance was unseen. They wet-vac-ed everything, made sure they sanitized everything, pulled her carpet back, put a fan there. The very next morning, this particular resident took another picture where she had filled the bathtub up, and there was brown water in the bathtub, but it wasn't like that the day before. So and this same resident earlier, maybe mid last year, had stuffed incense and some things down the drain in the kitchen to cause a backup and took photos of it. At that time, you know, all of this is documented. At that time, we cleared the line. One of the inspectors from the city of Annapolis, she came out and she just recommended that we pull the kitchen floor and replace, you know, replace the vinyl just as a courtesy, which we did. And we did the same thing in the bathroom this year, although this is the residents doing and that's all documented there. So what was the second half?

I kind of just redirect the conversation to the walls that are chipping and the flooring and tiles that are stripped up. Is there a plan long term to renovate or to overhaul Admiral Oaks? Because I will say that it should be done. It should be done.

Right. And I do agree. And we are discussing re-syndication. But I can get back to you with more detail on like year, what year we're going to be doing that. But I do want to just make you aware that we do understand that we did have some issues in 2022. But we do not currently have any units that have been condemned. We don't have any violations from the city of Annapolis. I have worked very, very hard over the years to build a rapport with the inspectors, with the Department of Permitting, Zoning, and things like that. And like I said, every year, year over year, we have improved when we have the 100% annual inspections. In the beginning, it took a week or a week and a half to get through 100% units, and it's 159 units at the property. And now we're down to, like I said, two days, but these were two half days where they started at 9, they were done by noon. The second day, they started at 9, and they were done by 11. So that says a lot. um and like i said the findings were very minimal some caulk and some smoke detectors that were beeping at a low decibel but other than that the property has come a long way we have stabilized as far as staffing our administrative staff is stabilized we have a full we have a property manager assistant manager and a leasing consultant and the maintenance staff is fully fully staffed there um so we're doing very very well like today i just i don't have a spreadsheet um like the first company but just like as of today as far as work orders we currently have four work orders that are open and those work orders were called in one on july 20th and three on july 21st all of them are very minimal things like mailbox key smoke detector alarm a window screen and to charge an ac So those things will be done immediately. And I do have a little bit of stats as far as our maintenance performance and stuff like that. So from April 1st through July 16th, the maintenance team completed 306 work orders. That's averaging 2.9 work orders called in per day. And the completion time is less than one day. So, of course, if there is any emergencies like leaks, backups, anything like that, that's addressed immediately. Smaller things, blinds, screens, light bulbs, those we still get done in less than one day.

Thank you very much for that. I do have a couple questions for you. As far as it sounds like you've got maintenance under control, residents contacting you, do they do that? How do they do that for maintenance issues and or billing questions or rent questions? What's the process for that?

So, Admiral Oaks is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. With the exception of Wednesdays, we open at 11 a.m. from 11 to 5 because we have training, but the site's team is still on staff from 8 a.m. The residents can walk in, they can call, they can send emails, they can go through the portal on Rent Cafe. to put in work orders to pay rent. They can also do all those things by walking in. And as far as maintenance, we do have 24-hour maintenance. After the office closes, that goes into emergency maintenance, and the residents can call a number, and the maintenance team will come out. They'll call them to acknowledge, and then they come right out to the property. The tenants can also put in maintenance requests in the resident portal on Rent Cafe as well.

Thank you.

Oh, and we also have a lease AI, but I didn't want you to, we're not using it in a way for it to be the front, you know, the front, you know, we're still very much engaged with the residents.

And did you say your units are fully occupied?

100%, yes. And do you have a wait list there, too? We do, actually, and it is extensive. It is like at least two years.

Mm-hmm.

I know you have a lot of families, because I see the bus pick up the kids.

Yeah, yeah, we do, we do, we do. Thank you.

So, a few questions. So, we have here, the first one I'll ask about is crime activity. What is your. plan, maybe cameras installed. Do you have cameras installed? If so, are they in working condition? I know there's been some concerns with gang-related activity in the community. Have you all been familiar or in the know about that? As you well know too, seeing that it is a high immigrant population, that's also been some of the fright from our residents there. So do you mind just giving us maybe a little thought on what that's been like from your perspective and how you're helping to resolve those?

So as far as community safety, we do have a camera system there. I am very pleased to say that we just upgraded that camera system in 2025. So the entire system is brand new. We have 42 cameras throughout the community. Admiral Oaks is a community that has six garden-style buildings, and the rest of them are townhouses. So within the garden-style buildings, we have cameras on every single floor, terrace first and second. We do also have a license plate reader, which has helped us to cut down on some of the illegal dumping because there were people coming in dumping mattresses in the corrals and stuff. So now that we've done that, that has kind of really just shut that down. But as far as the camera systems up and running, it is state of the art. It is just as clear as me looking at you, and I have 20-20 vision. So the camera system is definitely doing what we needed it to do. As far as gang activity, I am not aware of that. We do have a security company that is there five days a week. She's very hands-on. She knows a lot of the residents. We did have an incident a few months ago, but that was not gang-related. personal. This was a former resident. It was a domestic issue between his sons. So that wasn't gang related. So other than that, I've not heard of any gang activity. And outside of the camera system, the on-site security guard, we also—our cameras are monitored 24-7.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Were you gonna say something, ma'am?

Yeah, I was just going to add on from the corporate level on the asset management team, we do have a director of security and a senior manager of security that does walk, they walk the sites at least annually and provide security plans and recommendations.

I didn't say I cased about him because they did reach out to me and they wondered why were they forced to leave their home. So do you mind sharing that? Is there a process in place that requires when there's a domestic dispute that person to be let go from the property?

We can talk offline if you would like. I can give you more clarity on that. But it wasn't just the incident because the incident involved a knife and a gun. And then it also involved some individual hiding certain things. So when police presence shows up and then someone is removed, it creates a whole different thing. So we can talk about that one-on-one.

Thank you. How often do you pick up the trash there? Because I have a resident and I've worked with the manager. I worked with the management there to make sure that they did come out there. But how often do you collect trash?

Trash is picked up six days a week. We use waste management. And not only are we picking up regular trash and recycling six days a week, we are doing bulk trash pickups twice a month. And like I said, the license plate reader has helped us to cut down on people illegally dumping as well.

What was your plan for snow removal? I had many residents calling me and sharing that the sidewalks were not shoveled from the snow. Do you all require the residents to shovel their own snow? Do you have a contractor for snow removal? What is that process?

So I would say it's a combination of all three. Because of the townhouses, yes, of course, they would have to shovel right out in front of their door. But as far as the sidewalks, we had maintenance to be on site the entire time. And they continuously cleared the sidewalks and salted and everything. And we also have a contracted snow removal company that came through on several occasions to clear the parking lot. But it's Quickly, as they cleared the snow fell again, but we maintained that same process throughout the storm.

And some also share that there has been an issue we talked about about ledgers and documentation and they felt that, um. there was a mishandling of their records uh do you mind sharing with us for ledger the ledger process how does that look are you all all of our residents in good standing um yeah do you mind just sharing a little bit about the majority of the residents at admiral oaks are in good standing and they do pay rent on time um we do have a handful of residents um from the pandemic where um

Maybe some had gotten used to certain types of rental assistance and sort of failed to pay their rent for six months, eight months, 10 months, 12 months until they were able to get assistance from ACDS or United Way or other agencies within the state of Maryland. Um, so with those people, yes, we've had some issues and there has been some ledger disputes, but we handled it in the proper way by filing through the court system and going through those stages. So it's either if, if they owe the rent, they would pay it. If they don't have it, we would try to get them some assistance. If they have exhausted all of those avenues, then we have to move to, we have to move on from there basically. but we don't have a lot of ledger cleanup at the property or anything like that it's just a handful of people that had maybe gotten a little bit used to that assistance and assistance wasn't available anymore one last piece here um you know i gotta represent my people you know what i'm saying um so i have uh one of the questions is

There isn't, is there consistent, I mean, I know we have the Boys and Girls Club out there, but is there consistent communication with the residents, like for residence meetings and things that I do receive from flyer or what have you for them, it was canceled, rescheduled, but they feel that oftentimes they don't, have the management in their face to have some of the staffers there instead. And so my question to you is how often, if at all, do you have the community meetings? And what is your plan moving forward to ensure that there is community voice and input? And what's the direction for prayerfully of redevelopment along the years of Admiral Oaks?

Okay, so as far as the community meetings, I want to just say that Jamila Palmer, the property manager, has been with us since September, late September, October of last year.

And a lot of turnover, yeah.

So you are probably speaking of maybe a former manager or whatever as far as visibility. But since Jamila has been there, she is there every single day. We have resident meetings quarterly. She attends those meetings. We provide beverages and snacks for those meetings. We do get a pretty good turnout. And a lot of what the residents are coming to us with, they want more access to the community room. But right now, that is a little bit difficult because of the Boys and Girls Club program there. And you and I have been in meetings before with the people at the Boys and Girls Club, because we have to try to schedule time to use the room for our residents. So the Boys and Girls Club operates out of our community room, but the majority of the children that are in that program are not our residents. They are from other places. So what I've tried to do over the years is partner with the Boys and Girls Club when they have events. I try to help them out with certain things, providing beverages and snacks and assisting with decorating the room and those kind of things. But it has been a little bit difficult for our residents to use the room because of when the Boys and Girls Club is occupying the room. but i think we are working with that i'm working with our resident services department on that to see what the long-term goal is for the boys and girls club to continue to occupy but as far as just resident services as a whole we've been doing amazing with that we just had a summertime cookout or whatever there we have different resident events that you know we do all throughout the year with back to school time we do book bag giveaways and all that types of stuff so

Definitely make sure to send that over to the emails if you can. I'm sure any of us on the council would love to be a part of that.

Our notifications are sent to the door as well as we do an email blast throughout the community. So if they don't have an email address registered, then they would also receive a flyer on the door of what's going on. And normally it's between two weeks to three weeks beforehand that we send out those notifications.

And definitely share them with myself and others on the Council. I know I'll definitely do my best to be there. So there was the last thing that came up. There was an issue during this summer where we were shared myself and the chair Alderman Conti. heard that there wasn't support to the Boys and Girls Club this year because there wasn't a line item in the budget to provide that support for the summer services. And our question to you all per the Boys and Girls Club is, Will you all reinforce or bring back funding for the summer programming for the student, the families, or the children that do not have the funds to provide them with a admission to the summer program? Do you know anything about that?

that is a question for the boys and girls club of annapolis because that is who runs the program and that is who they you know they are occupying the room so i've been you know advocating for our residents for a long time to be able to be a part of the program but the the process that the the the families have to go through which you know, Admiral Oaks is about 85% Latino. So there is a language barrier there. And I've been advocating for years for them to help the residents to sign their kids up for the program. So a number of those kids that are in the room are not our residents. They are from other sites. So we don't have anything to do with that type of funding. When we partner with them for programs, we use the money that is in our operations budget for resident services.

That's what I'm referring to. There is a line item that you all do provide services for this program at the Boys and Girls Club for the residents?

No, it's not a program. It's not a program. We just put money in our resident services budget to do things for the residents like cookouts and Labor Day events and things like that, but we don't have anything to do with funding their programs per se. These are just regular resident services events that we're doing as Enterprise Residential.

questions right now that's okay i think that's it can we get y'all contact information if we don't already have it everybody up there has my contact information you kind of break my heart when you say that it's the worst it's ever been because that's not what we're seeing um i mean we have these regular regular resident meetings we have our work orders that are all closed out and good to go and we don't receive these complaints on any kind of regular basis. And they're one-offs that you're discussing today. And we address them timely. The one issue brought up was a mental health issue we're trying to work with. We don't like to jump straight to eviction. And it may end up coming to that, but we're trying to work with that. So that even could happen again while we work through those resources with her. But we're not getting these complaints that you're telling me you're hearing. So when you receive them, do you have a process where you can email us or bring it to our attention? Because I don't want to wait until these meetings to hear about it. and fix it a month later. I want to fix it when it happens, which is what we're doing with what we receive. But if we're not hearing about it, we can't fix it. So it would be really, really great if you could, and I'm going to leave my card here. You have her contact information. If you get those complaints, please direct them back to us and let them know we're here to help.

Oh, yeah, and I surely have and will, as you just heard, the turnover rate has been quite a poor there. And the last that we've spoken with management, I'm not certain if it was December, January, early this year when you first came into your position. I don't believe we've ever met. And I was there at the last community meeting. And there were two, yeah, your assistant was there and that's where the frustration came that the management don't ever want to show up to these meetings. They always put their assistants there. So, as you all know too, residents won't always go to management to say these issues. They'll come to those who they can trust or who represent them to share these issues. I've called, sometimes don't get answers. I actually, for the trash issue, I call for weeks.

Let's fix that site level and previously, but I'm going to give you our information and we haven't gone anywhere. We're not going anywhere. So you'll have a direct line. We also have a corporate number that the residents can call that they've all received. And that goes straight to my phone straight to her phone. And it's a general number, but what I'm going to give you my part, I'll leave it here and let's plan a data to have a conversation.

Look forward to that. Yes, absolutely.

More than, you know, so let's fix that. Okay. That's not okay.

Okay. Thank you. Have a best friend.

That's all we got for you guys.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Can we just leave the card?

You can give it to Jessica.

Okay. Yes.

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.

What's the phone call?

Hello. At this time, we're gonna allow some public comments. Everybody is gonna get, whoever is gonna speak will get two minutes to be able to come up. We need you to say your name and where you're representing and your address too. You could line up over here at the podium.

Hello. Hey.

My name is Shalonda Shepherd. I live at 9 Ben's Drive, but I'm not here for Ben's Drive. I'm here for my mom who just recently moved to 922 Newtown Drive. I think that's Penrose. I'm going to try to be two minutes. Anyway... In the end of November, my mother fell in her unit. Water was leaking from over top of her stove. She was cooking and the water came down and I guess from the heat splashing, she jumped back and fell. Her foot is broken so bad. She has rods and everything. She has a special boot on to keep her foot like this. She almost lost her foot, by the way. She didn't know she had an infection. Penrose was very negligent with this whole situation. They didn't ask how she was. The property manager and Marie that they fired came to her unit and witnessed the leak, but the property manager now that they just got rid of and the one before her was telling her it was no leak. She has pictures of the water everywhere. Anyway, she was in nursing home because of this. She was in the hospital because of this for months. Every two weeks I had to take her to University of Maryland. That's how bad it is. When she got released from the hospital, they were supposed to transfer her to 922 then. But the unit, they told her because she didn't move in by June 1st, it was nothing that they could do. So she had to go and stay with my daughter where she had to urinate on herself or go bathroom on herself because it wasn't a clear way for her to get to the bathroom. So I had to go clean her. They wouldn't put her in a hotel. Until I emailed, called Miss Toni Pratt, Dyesha, the news, They called and said she could come to the community center, fill out her lease, and then the next day the place was available to her. My issue is this. I'm from Annapolis. My mother... took a bad fall, 2019, she worked for Anne Arundel Medical Hospital for 30 years. Her doctor took her out of work, considered her disabled, and the low-income communities in Annapolis have treated her like crap. unacceptable it's a shame I think you guys should make them stay here and listen instead of letting them come up here dress nicely speaking professionally already know what they're gonna say making up because we from Annapolis we know the low-income communities a mess and they have to treat us better it's not okay like my mother mentally it kind of screwed her up now I have to go down there every day changing her diaper and I think it's wrong. And the property manager looked me in my face and told me that she told me I had to come down there by June the 1st or she couldn't be transferred. And she never told me that. And I was upset because you look me in my face and tell me something that you know you didn't say to me, that's not okay. And then I'm going between HACA and Penrose. Oh, that's not our fault, that's they fault, they fault. melissa maddox that's not a hacker issue i don't care can somebody help me fix it so it's like everybody is throwing everything around nobody's supporting nobody and all the communities are a mess if you ask me all of them needs to be fixed so we'll definitely get that can you we really need to get two minutes for everybody and i know that you have a lot to say i appreciate that you can give i know i might have it but the other people on the council will probably want to get your information you could give it to either jessica or caitlyn

Hi, I just wanted to piggyback real quick. I'm Chantella. There's actually a line. I know. I'm going to get in line, but so we don't get too far away from the point that she was making. I was actually working there at the time. June 1st was on the Yardi calendar, but that was just because that's what the property manager, Ashley Jackson, chose to put on there. The unit was actually not even ready. And they were getting the runaround. Ms. Coach should have been transferred long before. So I just wanted to make sure that I added to that in this moment while she was speaking, and I'll add to the line later. But I did want to put that on record. The unit was not ready June 1st, and that was a ploy to hold them off even longer. Okay.

I'm going to try to be real quick.

Please state your name and address.

My name is Natalie Chapman. I'm a longstanding resident of Bay Forest in Annapolis, Maryland. And the president of In The Know. Our community senior social club, I have been formally tapped by the residents of Bay Forest to convey our collective and pressing concerns regarding property management and upkeep. Our community is characterized by a significant number of long-term residents, many of whom have proudly called Bay Forest home for over a decade. This deep-rooted connection to the property provides us with a unique perspective on its historical maintenance and current operational needs. A recent resident assembly was convened specifically to discuss and consolidate our observations regarding the performance of our current management company, Habitat America. It has become unequivocally clear that Habitat America has exhibited a consistent pattern of insufficient service delivery and a troubling lack of engagement concerning essential repair requests. Residents have repeatedly reported instances where their maintenance concerns are not only unaddressed for extended periods, but are also met with a perceived lack of professional courtesy, leading to a prevalent sentiment of being unheard and undervalued. Compounding these issues is the noticeable and frequent turnover among maintenance staff, which strongly suggests underlying systemic challenges within Habitat America's operational structure, potentially related to inadequate resource provision or equipment thereby directly impacting the quality and consistency of resident services. While Bay Forest is not officially classified as a senior living facility, its demographic composition is predominantly senior. In the absence of protective community engagement initiatives from the management, critical social and cognitive enrichment opportunities for our older residents would be severely lacking. The In the Know Club, which I initiated, actively strives to bridge the gaps fostering wellbeing, community, cohesion and mental stimulation. The primary objective of this communication is to urgently address deteriorating state of property maintenance and the extensive backlog of unresolved repairs. Numerous critical issues have persisted for several months and their continued neglect now represents significant potential health and safety risk to our residents. We are prepared to furnish a detailed account of each specific repair and maintenance concern that necessitates immediate attention and resolution. We earnestly seek a constructive dialogue and a clear time-bound action plan to rectify these long-standing deficiencies. thereby restoring Bay Falls to a standard that ensures the comfort, safety, and respect of all its residents. Neglected repairs, and I have those lists for you. Also, at this present time, we are dealing with no hot water. We have two buildings there. The 930 building was out without water for three months. and the 940 building just became without water last friday and it's still ongoing he's going to address that um for the record can you give your name and your address my name is natalie chapman 940 bay forest court apartment 122 annapolis maryland thank you okay Also, I would just like to add, we had a resident, and you probably saw it in the newspaper, Iris Cormier, that passed away recently, that lived in Bay Forest. He had four sewage backups. And he was in hospice and his request was to come back home to sleep in his bed one last time. And Habitat refused to make the repairs and clean up for his apartment for him to be able to do so. I had asked his family to come here tonight, but I don't see them, maybe they couldn't make it. But I just wanted to bring that up. Thank you.

Can you give me your name, your address, and- The wind out of my sails, but she did good. That's my neighbor down the street. I'm here, my name is Art Walters. I live in Bay Forest Apartments, Senior Apartments, and Natalie- Can you give me your address, please? Okay, I'm sorry. I'm here for one reason, okay, because this morning when I got up, I didn't have hot water again. This started Friday the 17th of this month. We're five days now without hot water. If we go home tonight, it's probably gonna be six days. So what I did this morning is after I had my breakfast, I took my laptop and I decided enough's enough. So I'm gonna read to you what I wrote to management and copied and also copied Homestead of America who is our landlord. So let me read this to you as soon as I find my glasses, all right. Okay, this is to Jackie Mills, our property manager at 930 and 940 Bay Forest Court. We have two apartments. We have a 930 and a 940. Each apartment contains 60 residents, senior citizens. Subject. formal notice of material breach of lease, lack of hot water. This letter serves as a formal written notice that the residents at Bay Forest Senior Apartments have been completely without hot water for five days, consecutive days, beginning on or about the evening of Friday, July 17th, 2026, when the hot water stopped. Under Maryland Real Property Code 8-211, parentheses, the warranty of habitat, a lack of hot water is a severe life-threatening defect that poses an immediate threat to health, safety, and welfare of the occupants. This is especially critical given that this is a senior apartment community housing vulnerable individuals. While verbal slash written complaints have already been made, the issue remains unsolved. Please be advised that if hot water is not fully and permanently restored within 24 hours of this notice, residents will take up legal action. This includes, but is not limited to, number one, reporting this ongoing violation to the City of Annapolis Department of Planning and Zoning and the Anne Arundel County of Health. Number two, filing a petition for rent escrow in the District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County, requesting that rent will be paid into a court escrow account and seeks a retroactive reduction in the rent of the days spent without essential utilities.

Excuse me, Mr. Walker. You have gone over your two minutes. We have another 10 people in line.

I'm at the end. I'm at the end. This is also gonna go into, ow, I'm sorry. This is also gonna go into two newspapers, okay? And I propose the title. This is the title that they should put at the top of the article. 60 Seniors Left Without Hot Water for Five Days at Annapolis Apartment Complex. Residents Mobilizing Legal Action. I stand corrected, okay? And thank you for listening to it.

Thank you very much.

And I hope you can do something about it.

I just want to put in two cents here. This is a committee meeting. There are three council members on the committee meeting. Normally, public testimony doesn't happen at committee meetings, and it's up to the chair if... The chair wants public testimony. It's important that we stick to the two minutes. I know all of you have a lot to say and it's very important. At a council meeting, we can have unlimited numbers of people come and give public testimony. We were supposed to be finished at 6.30. Please keep it to two minutes so that everybody can be heard.

Good evening. My name is Debbie Wright. I live at 940 Bay Forest Court. I'm going to keep this real quick. I was one of the ones that took a cold plunge because I don't have hot water. But my thing that I want on the record is that Bay Forest, I've been there five years. I moved back from Ohio here. Bay Forest seems to be a dumping ground now. And I'm saying that with all due respect, I'm for everyone being housed, but I am in a legal matter because Bay Forest chose to bring people in and didn't check backgrounds. So I have to, I was supposed to go to court July the 24th, this Friday, but I have a court date, August the 17th, because I went and got a peace order from my neighbor under me and who called the police. I've been there five years, called police three times. I came and got a peace order, because there was a meeting, we got into a verbal confrontation, She started it, I finished it. I went and got a peace order. That peace order turns around, I have criminal charges against me and I have to go to court. Bay Forest is telling me, well, we can't ask questions. Anybody knowing who this person is and if they had done a thorough check on the background, they would have seen that this person already had six peace orders. and had things going against them. So now I'm in a legal matter. If this isn't resolved, I'm going to sue them on top of everything else, dips in my floor, no hot water, balcony with nails coming up. They checked the balconies two years ago, said they were gonna repair. They didn't repair. So this is gonna be a legal matter. I'm one to go to the paper and to the news. So someone needs to check them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, how you doing? Hello, my name is LaKyra Smith.

William Bridges.

And we are at residents of Penrose, Wilborn Estates, 1000 Newtown Drive. It's been an ongoing battle with us with Penrose for the last three years with them, with complaining about mold, other appliance issues, and basically everything of the norm with them. We were told, well, we found that we had mold in our unit on April the 24th. They kept us in our home the entire weekend. They knew that it was outrageously grown over with the mold. We had hired our own mold inspectors to come out and they rushed over to stop the mold inspector to come in to do their checking. So the only thing we were able to get was just him doing swabs and not a whole testing. And they basically did some underhanded stuff by giving outside information of residents to other people to look up someone's background, which was his background, to see if he had any legal issues.

Ashley Jackson.

Which was Ashley Jackson, the old property manager. They gave us the entire runaround for two months in a hotel. First week, we was in a hotel with a kitchen. Then for about three weeks to a month, we was in a hotel with no kitchen.

And spending money.

And spending money every day because they didn't provide the stuff that we needed. And I have two children as well. The mold testing that we got back was found that the mold in the home was very dangerous to our health. And I have two kids that already have enough health issues as well as myself. And I had to send them off with my dad for a while.

Yeah, but they refused to also, but with all that, they refused to give us the air quality test before and after. They're saying they never did an air quality test, but we had one tested for everything else, came back with that, and they're saying that what they got, they didn't get. So, but they unplugged our in-home cameras. Yeah, they unplugged our camera in our home.

I have videos before they unplugged my camera that they also changed our locks without giving us notice that they were changing our locks. And we were told that from the city that we were told that we could still go in the home to get things, our personal things, but they wouldn't let us. They changed the locks to our house on May the 5th and didn't provide us a key until June the 13th.

Pretty much all food-related stuff as far as the fridge, freezer stuff was all damaged. They even unplugged our deep freezer, had no clue for that one. Came into a house smelling like just unpleasant.

They ran through everything in the house. They went through all of our personal stuff that was never supposed to be touched.

They went through our closets. They went through our drawers. They went through our kids' rooms. Trying to figure that out.

Thank you. Thank you. I went to the house and seen it.

Hello. My name is Veronica Grant. I live at 23 Bates Street. And I'm going to tell you, Primrose got a real problem. I actually drew up a petition and I added you, Alderwoman Calma O'Neill and Alderwoman Daisha Conti. So my problem is for the last year, over a year, this property has been charging me late fees because they failed to adjust my rent. Now, on June the 1st of 2025, my rent went down. They didn't adjust it June, they didn't adjust it July. And I kept calling, you go down there, you can't get in the door to talk to a property manager. Finally, in August, I adjusted it myself and I paid what I was supposed to pay. And I deducted the overpayments that I made. These people been charging me. I pay my rent between the 28th and the 30th. Rent due on the 1st is late on the 6th. They been giving me a late fee every single month. when I pay my rent between the 28th and the 30th. They put it on there on the first. On the sixth, they charged me a late fee because I adjusted my own rent. They just starting to fix, you know, Red Cafe or whatever. So then there was an issue. I had some things going on. I have a brain disease. I've suffered several strokes. I'm sorry. I know it's two minutes. Just give me one more second. These people put a notice on my door. to say I owe them 400 and some dollars. First it was 700 some dollars. I overpaid my rent. I paid my rent twice at Walmart because I forgot I paid it. So they gave me a credit, but they took that credit and put it on late fees that I don't even owe. And I'm glad y'all had this meeting and I hope somebody do something because a lot of residents that had that same issue.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Reginald Sims. I live at 114 Oldbury Court. So my issue is with Penrose. Just this past Friday, they had an inspection at my unit. When I got back to my unit, I had a orange sticker on my door saying that my unit was unlicensed and I have mold back in my unit for the third time. Carmela, I will email you so you will have pictures of this.

thank you hello my name is katora i live at 183 bertina a nickway i am the president that she was talking about i did resign um just to let y'all know trash pickup is friday and tuesday um the tickets It's not 24 hours. My bed from downstairs was stopped up for two weeks before they came out. I fixed my own bed from toilet. When he came out, he came to my unit, told my son that he was there for our stove. I have a brand new stove. My stove ain't messed up. Went to my neighbor's house and told her he was there for the toilet. He possibly been at my house for the toilet and her house for the stove. Make that make sense?

Thank you. Hi, my name is Lakia Sims. I'm at 185 Bertina A. Nickway. I moved in last July. It's been raining ever since. It's mowed back in that unit. It's just too much because I have a Section 8 voucher. They're basically trying to tell me that, okay, just move away. And then when I try to move away, it's even I got a credit. My credit goes back to OUOA. So it's like they're trying to make me stay there. My daughter got sick in the wintertime. Snow was coming in my house. She had to be in the hospital for two and a half weeks. It's just too much. My toilet leaked also with my stove not working. I had to buy my own deep fryers and everything to cook because I put blue tablets in my toilet. They say I destroyed their toilet by keeping my toilet bowl clean. i transferred from 124 new vernon street i went through the backup in the thing i did reach out to karma she did make the city come they came out they looked they seen everything that was going on i was told because it's too cold that they couldn't fix the cracks in my walls right now or whatever the case may be i do want to move with me and my children that's it thank you

Hello, everyone. My name is Renitra Anderson. I live at 51 Clay Street, and I will be reading on behalf of a resident who lives in Penrose. Her name is Courtney McAuliffe. She has been a resident of O'Berry Court and College Creek Terrace Apartments for the past six years. She is sharing her family's experience but also wanted to bring attention to some serious issues involving housing conditions, tenant safety, and accountability. During her time as a resident, she has consistently fulfilled her responsibilities as a tenant. She has paid her rent, reported maintenance issues promptly, and followed the terms of her lease. In return, her family has endured years of living in conditions that she believes no residents should have to experience. When her HVAC system failed while she had a newborn child, she was told air conditioning was not a necessity. Rather than replacing a failing system, as recommended by HVAC technician, temporary fixes were made that never addressed the underlying issue. Over the years, she's experienced repeated water leaks from the apartment above her. Those leaks damaged her ceiling furniture and carpeting. Water entered her air vents and created conditions where black mold, orange mold, and even mushrooms began growing inside of her apartment. Every time she discovered a new issue, she immediately notified management. She made phone calls, sent emails, and even took time away from work to visit the leasing office in person because she often received little or no response. Her children and herself lived in these conditions while experiencing ongoing respiratory concerns and frequent illnesses. Despite repeatedly reporting the mold and water damages, meaningful action was delayed for months. She also experienced a severe pest infestation that she reported immediately. Instead of receiving timely assistance, she received a lease violation notice despite doing exactly what the lease required by notifying management as soon as the problem arose. She spent hundreds of dollars trying to control the infestation on her own before the property management finally intervened. In 2025, a new property manager acknowledged that her apartment was no longer habitable and relocated her family to a temporary unit. Unfortunately, the temporary apartment also had mold, electrical issues, and other maintenance concerns. Within the first month, her family was forced to stay in a hotel after the electricity was disconnected. She paid the hotel expenses out of pocket because the property management payments method failed, and she still has not been reimbursed. Since then, she has been living in the temporary unit while being repeatedly told that repairs to the original apartment are almost complete. For months, management has attempted to move her family back into that apartment, yet the work has still not been completed. At the same time, she has been told that someone else wants the temporary unit that she's currently living in, creating additional pressure for her family to move back into a unit that is still not ready or safe for occupancy. She has nearly spent $10,000. She has lost approximately $10,000 worth of personal property due to water damage and mold. And she just wanted to express her concerns regarding the issues that she has dealt with in living in Penrose properties. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Shakira Arnold. I'm coming today on behalf of my sister. She's at 907 G Royal Street. My mother also lives in the Bywater community. She does not want her address disclosed. And I also have a sister-in-law with two nephews and a niece that also live in Bywater, specifically for 907 . I want to say it's been about two years. My sister hired a lawyer and set up an escrow account because of the mice infestation. Someone just reported last night that the mice are actually coming through the drainage, so they are outside. They're in the parking lot. They are in the grass. I myself saw the owner of a maintenance company, of the pest control company, and asked, why can't we get boxes? Because we have now, it is now a rat infestation. There are rats running through the parking lot. The trash is not being picked up in Bywaters. I was also, the office, it was stated that the Bywaters office is open Monday through Friday. It actually is not, they are not open at all on Wednesdays. And I guess the biggest thing is the mold and the mice. My sister reported last night of catching three and four mice on one sticky trap at a time, like under her sink. So when she's moving her stove, they're getting three and four, you know, rodents at a time. I have gone to my mother's house and seen two mice on a trap. You put it down last night and when I go over there in the morning, there's two and three mice on a trap. My mom is getting older. She's been in the same unit since we moved to Annapolis. They just redid her floors last summer and they still have not even put the baseboards down. There is literally a hole by her front door where you can see a dead mouse or rat that was there that they never moved. It is really bad. Bywaters is in the worst condition that it's been in years. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Chantel Seatrum, and I'm not a resident, but I'm a former employee of Penrose Management at Wilborn Estates. And I did want to, I came on my own because the things that I'm hearing the residents speak on is actually, in fact, things that have been going on, from maintenance orders not being addressed. I was actually advised June 1st to delete all the work orders in the system. And I refused to do so and lost my job June 1st. There's been a lot of mishandling of records. So when it comes to the ledgers, that in fact is truly happening with Wilborn Estates residents as well. So the ledgers are not being updated. So when we get a... When we get the rent adjustment from HACA, it's not being put into the system, and then it's being backed up, and then no one in the office or Penrose management, upper management, wants to deal with it. So there are a lot of residents that are getting, every month, late notices for balances that are truly not what they owe in actuality. I know that It has been a true statement that they really don't want to deal with the residents' concerns. So therefore, there are unanswered phone calls. There are closed offices on days that it's supposed to be open. They really pick and choose when they answer. I know that One of the main things, they don't value the residents. I tried, while in my time there, to try my best for residents' concerns to be heard. But I know that there's a lot of cracks, molds, leaks, sewage drains. Based on from what the vendors had advised me, it's trapped sewage. But I have all the paperwork and a lot to write on, so you can follow up with me at another time I'm here. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. Good evening, my name is William Pratt, 32 Juliana Circle, East Annapolis, Maryland. First, I want to thank y'all for your time and even opening this up to be a public testimony and comment. At the end of the day, these listening sessions need to stop, right? Over and over and over and over for many years, I've been coming here, hearing the same complaints. Coming here, letting these guys dress up pretty, make their jobs look like they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do. At the end of the day, I put the blame on the city for not keeping these management companies accountable. You have the power to do so and has done nothing for years and it continues to go on. So we can't just put the blame and say the management companies has a problem. You guys have a problem as well. and a duty as a responsibility as these people voted you guys into office. It's time to do something.

Could you please stop yelling? We're right here. And you're talking into a microphone.

It feels like you're yelling at us. You're just feeling that way because I'm putting the blame on this city at this point.

And I'll take the blame.

And it's time for things to change. Year after year, We come down here, the same residents. This place would be filled up if you guys really did your, do justice. But because they believe that we live in a city that is not willing to do anything also, they refuse to come down because they don't have your support. We need to do something. We got lawsuits. and continued lawsuits. And it's not gonna be just management company with lawsuits. The city will continue to have lawsuits as well under this administration and the past administrations. Get busy and do something.

Thank you. Tony Strong-Pratt, 32, Juliana Circle East, Annapolis, Maryland. First of all, I want to thank you residents for coming out and using your voices to speak up. I want to thank you for opening the platform up for them to come out and have a chance to open their voice, being that this committee doesn't even have public testimony. But what I would have wished is that the property management companies would have had to sit and listen to this These are their residents. These are your constituents. This is not an isolated issue. Listening to those management companies, I felt like I was in an ozone layer because I work with all of them. I see the issues that are going on, and everything these residents said is accurate. These property managers sat here like it's not a problem. If it wasn't a problem, they wouldn't be called here. They wouldn't be. But we continue to turn a blind eye to certain parts of our city. And I'm going to say it. If we were in downtown Annapolis and West Street, we wouldn't be going through this. Your city code for health and safety, I think it's 1740. Hot water, first of all, they can get fined, they can get their license revoked, mice, rodents, it's all in your city code in the charter. Why aren't we enforcing it? If you don't know, read it. We are tired of coming here time after time, time after time, and our voices aren't being heard. And as far as my husband, I think that was very disrespectful to ask him to lower his voice. Because if we know culturally, certain cultures raise their voices when they get passionate. I come to plenty of city council meetings and people who don't look like me raise their voices a whole lot of times and they don't get asked to lower their voices. No, he was not being disrespectful. He is upset just as I am upset because we have city members, we have property managers who continue to do the same thing and nothing's being done. We need to get to work else we're gonna have another $15 million lawsuit settled.

Thank you.

Thank you. Can I say just 1 little thing real quick, but you have to come to the microphone.

So, madam assistant city manager, are we. Will you assist us in getting some information data on the fines that we've placed on the public housing communities, kind of tracking how much money we've received, which fines that have been in placed? Yeah, the fines that we have enforced, because this is something I think has been in the works for a long time anyways, I'm just seeing which housing complexes have received those fines, what the fines were for, the total amounts of those fines, and... Oh, yes, ma'am.

You have to come to the microphone.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Please, you need to come to the microphone.

The red light is lit up. Can I just email you?

Are you talking about to the resident for the fine? I'm referring to the properties. Okay, so these orange side, right. okay so you can't have this conversation without her being on the mic because this is being recorded and nobody can hear her okay either way that was an additional amount but i heard it and if you don't mind just just including that in the conversation um for the fines

The next item on the agenda, the agenda is complete. Is there anything else with a good order?

Go for coming. All right. Okay. Blessings.