Past and present residents at Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (ARHA) properties are continuing to speak out against years of neglect and unsafe living conditions at their homes.
Chronic mold and cockroach infestations, ignored maintenance tickets and denied rehousing requests are just some of the many grievances ARHA tenants described in conversations to ALXnow this month and during a protest last Wednesday.
“We’re protesting because ARHA has failed to protect and respect its tenants,” said organizer Loren Depina, a former ARHA resident and employee. “Families are living in unsafe conditions. Rent ledgers are a mess, and leadership continues to ignore the people they’re supposed to serve. So, today we’re demanding accountability, dignity and real change.”
Last week’s protest happened outside ARHA’s Old Town headquarters, where only blocks away, city leaders, ARHA staff and development partners broke ground on the multimillion-dollar Samuel Madden Homes apartment complex, which aims to develop 207 units of affordable and mixed-income housing by fall 2027.
The promise showed by such an ambitious development deeply contrasted the frustration exhibited by the protesters, who called for staff changes and accountability.
The housing authority is currently in the midst of a restructuring since former CEO Erik Johnson was fired in September for living in an ARHA property, followed by the resignation of the nine-member ARHA Board of Commissioners. Last Thursday, Johnson filed a lawsuit against ARHA seeking millions in damages and alleging defamation.
‘We had to throw all of the furniture away’
After nearly two years living in a mold-infested home, Bianca Rivera, her husband and four children have finally been rehoused.
They resided at an ARHA property on S. 28th Street, where Rivera said she repeatedly complained about mold issues. She said ARHA was too slow to respond.
Rivera and her husband experience fatigue, and all of their children suffer from asthma. She told ALXnow she once had to rush her son, Dominic, to the hospital when his lips turned blue from his asthma.
Blood work later revealed that he had “dangerously high levels of mold and carcinogens in his body.”
Only after testifying before City Council in September did ARHA move her family to a new apartment.
“The city manager got involved, and it was like a fire was lit under ARHA,” she said.
They recently moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Alexandria’s West End on N. Armistead Street. Mold had destroyed most of the family’s furniture and clothing, and ARHA cut them a check for $7,500, Rivera said.
The family was assembling new furniture when they spoke with ALXnow.
“We had to throw all of the furniture away,” Rivera said. “I had clothes that were growing mold. The whole side of my sofa was growing mold. My daughter’s bed frame — the whole back of it had mold.”
As a result, Rivera is considering taking legal action against the public housing authority.
“They had my children living in unhealthy living conditions for years,” she said.
The Riveras are not the only ARHA residents to experience rampant mold infestations in their homes. Alfreda Tyding, a six-year resident of another ARHA unit on S. 28th Street, was so concerned about it that she bought a testing kit on Amazon.
She showed ALXnow over a dozen petri dishes filled with multi-colored spores she said grew from sampling her residence.
Every year Tyding has lived at the property, she has observed a wall near the front door of her two-level home being replaced.
“See how you can just push it, and it moves,” Tyding said, poking the wall with her finger. “There’s mold by the front door.”
In October, ARHA moved Tyding into a hotel for a month while making repairs on her unit. She said the building is infested with mold and needs to be razed.
“I’ve had so many sinus infections,” Tyding said. “I’ve had to get so many prescriptions for steroids because I didn’t know what was keeping me so stuffed up. I have nosebleeds and everything. On my doctor’s paperwork, it shows I’m allergic to mold.”
Tyding wants to leave the home, but told ALXnow she is not able to, due to limited unit availability. ARHA owns and operates more than 1,100 public housing properties in the city, and administers housing choice vouchers to more than 1,600 Alexandria residents in private properties.
As of February, there were more than 8,700 people on the waitlist for public housing, and 10,600 people on the Housing Choice Voucher waitlist, according to an ARHA presentation.
‘My house looks like a construction zone’
On Nov. 6, Asia Ford said she returned to her three-level home on Madison Street to find it had been burglarized.
Not much was stolen, but several walls were left destroyed by huge holes, she said. Ford represented herself and her eight children at Wednesday’s protest.
From cockroach infestations and electrical socket fires, to a flooded kitchen and malfunctioning water heater, Ford said she has reported numerous property issues to ARHA throughout the past five years of her residence on Madison Street.
“There is so much that I’ve been complaining about for years, and nothing has been done about it,” Ford said. “We have squirrels nesting in the walls. They scratched through the walls of my daughter’s room.”
Following the burglary, Ford felt unsafe. She requested to be rehoused.
Her request was denied.
Ford said she can’t get ARHA to rehouse her because of a legal dispute that she had with a neighbor. She’s currently commuting with her kids from her mother’s home in Temple Hills, Maryland, to drop them off at school every morning.
“My house looks like a construction zone,” Ford said. “It’s not my fault that this house was broken into, and we need to be immediately rehoused.”
‘We’re taking accountability,’ interim CEO says
Rickie Maddox said she has started a unit-by-unit inspection of ARHA properties.
“We’re taking accountability for it, and we’re doing what we have to do to make it right,” the interim CEO said. “As an agency, we can always do better. We’re not always going to be perfect, and we’ve implemented a lot of changes since September, since I started. I think over time you will see the changes that we implement.”
ARHA’s next Board of Commissioners meeting is on Monday, Nov. 24. Mayor Alyia Gaskins said that the organization needs a fresh start, and that she’s connected residents who have reached out to her to new ARHA board members.
“I think our commitment as a Council is that everyone should not just have housing — they should have housing that is decent, housing that is safe, housing that is high quality and housing that they can afford,” Gaskins said. “They should also have answers to their questions and have timely and relevant responses provided so that they are in safe living situations.”
Councilmember Canek Aguirre said that the new board has a lot of work to do.
“The tenants have all the right to protest and to continue to bring awareness, and hopefully with this new board, we’re going to be able to resolve some of these issues,” Aguirre said.
Depina said that she is looking into legal action for the residents she’s working with.
“People’s health has been compromised,” Depina said. “Their civil rights have been compromised. These are criminal actions. When you neglect a household that has this much damage, that’s criminal. I think these tenants have a class action lawsuit against the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority.”
