Angela Blackmon refuses to turn on her air conditioner, worried that it could start “another fire in the fuse box.” Her neighbor’s A/C doesn’t work at all, despite repeated requests for repairs. The temperature in their apartments crept up toward 90 degrees on Sunday afternoon — and Atlanta’s heat wave will only worsen this week.
The climate-control problems represent just a fraction of the widespread dangerous conditions hundreds of residents face at the Westside’s Woodland Heights apartment complex, a Section 8 community located just inside the I-285 Perimeter. Other tenants there live with mold and mildew, rats and roaches, crumbling drywall, leaky pipes, and exposed wires.
But an activist campaign is ramping up to pressure the property owner — a California-based LLC called Rolling Bends | Preservation Limited Partners — to make long-overdue repairs. The company, whose website is offline, could not be reached for comment.
The small grassroots group that’s for years lobbied public officials and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for help is now Neighbors Against Neglect — and it just got a new national ally: the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) Advocacy Foundation.
ADOS dispatched a small army on Sunday to join a squad of local housing advocates at Woodland Heights. Together they went door-to-door through one of the complex’s four buildings, logging complaints from residents that could evolve into enforceable code violations.
Their goal: Give the Atlanta Solicitor’s Office enough ammunition to prosecute Preservation Partners for so many housing-code violations that it no longer makes business sense for the landlord to keep paying the fines instead of making repairs — or making shoddy, occasional repairs — while it keeps collecting HUD checks.
“That’s just the cost of doing business for these companies,” Atlanta City Councilmember Dustin Hillis said on Sunday, before knocking on the door to a basement unit. He walked inside to see a big hole in the wall, a thermostat dangling from it precariously.
Crowdsourcing code-enforcement complaints, he added in text messages, forces the city to inspect issues it might otherwise overlook.
“The city of Atlanta needs to be inspecting and citing the grounds and every unit at this property daily, issuing ‘per-day’ citations,” Hillis said. “Only then will the continued violations perhaps become more than just the cost of doing business, so we can begin to see improvements.”
HUD, which subsidizes rent payments for Woodland Heights tenants, most recently inspected the complex in April 2024 and again in December. It awarded the two properties, located at 2500 Center St. and 2591 Etheridge Dr., high scores — 96 and 81, respectively, out of 100.
Residents and city officials say those scores do not accurately reflect the harsh reality of life at Woodland Heights.
“It’s always tough for a local government to go up against the feds and those it supports through HUD programs, especially under the current federal leadership,” Hillis said in a text. “However, I have been pushing APD Code Enforcement, the mayor’s housing team, and others to put the hammer down on the out-of-state corporation that is derelict in its ownership and care of Woodland Heights.”
And as the campaign to chronicle Woodland Heights’ many problems accelerates, politicians who might otherwise see the complex as just one of a long list of distressed properties could actually take note — and take action — says ADOS liaison Ray Jones.
“It’s hard to be optimistic about this,” he said. “But when you have organizations applying pressure like this, politicians respond.”
The outreach team logged concerns from about a dozen residents on Sunday — many weren’t home — but intends to hit all of the nearly 400 doors over the next few months, potentially filing hundreds of prosecutable complaints. It’s high time someone held Preservation Partners’ feet to the fire, said Yolanda Shorthouse, who leads the Almond Carey Park Neighborhood Association.
“This complex has so much blight,” she said. “There’s a total disregard for humanity, and these people are not just able to pack up and move. Where would they even go? We just want a place where people can live in cleanliness and be able to walk into their apartment, have working air conditioning, and not have to worry about mold or mildew or their stovetop not working.”
They Have other properties like the Commons that someone need to take a Visit as well.
Putting pressure will just force it to be sold or closed and the city loses more affordable housing as a result. Im not saying this is okay, but unfortunately that seems to be where we are.
Can someone please give me a call it’s a emergency please call me 4048390974
Woodland Heights Infestation is outta control HUD Receive Payments for these units & money is being stolen Something needs to be done immediately…..Investigation Towards HUD Funding For This Property Need To Be Done ……