Investigation probes public housing evictions

DEC. 23, 2020 — We’ve all heard the story before – about how a poor, single mother with children is tossed out of her apartment because she couldn’t pay the rent. She and her babies are left homeless on the street, bouncing from shelter to shelter.

But what most of us didn’t know until The Blade published its PAST DUE housing investigation on Dec. 7, 2020, was that one of the biggest evicters of poor families in Toledo is Lucas Metropolitan Housing (LMH), the largest landlord in Toledo managing 2633 public housing units and receiving $40 million a year in federal money to house poor people in Toledo and Lucas County. Here are some of the newspaper’s findings:

• LMH filed more than 2,200 evictions against its tenants in the past five years, making it one of Lucas County’s most litigious landlords.
• An analysis of housing court data revealed 91 percent of those cases were for past-due rent, with more than a third filed for less than $100 owed.

“This is a problem that the Toledo Community Coalition can help with, but we need help from the community,” said Reverend Otis Gordon, TCC co-chairman and pastor of Warren AME Church.

Lucas Metropolitan Housing (LMH) evicted Kytrell Brown, 40, and Adryin, her 6-year-old son, The Blade reported in its PAST DUE housing investigation, “after the public housing authority said she failed to maintain the utilities, owed $46.50 in maintenance costs, and failed to fill out paperwork recertifying her for public housing.

She had tried in court to fight her eviction from public housing, but she couldn’t gather all the documents she needed in time to prove the lights and gas were back in her name.

Ms. Brown told The Blade she waited until the last minute to move out of the two-bedroom John Holland Estates townhome because she didn’t have a new place to move to. She didn’t want to have to start all over once she found an apartment, so she spent the last of her cash on a truck and a storage unit.

“I was embarrassed. I was hurt. I was scared because I didn’t have really nowhere to go. I was angry. I was afraid for my baby’s life. I was afraid for my life,” Ms. Brown told a reporter. “Like, how can you put me out right in the middle of this? We could have settled this. We didn’t have to go this far.”

Bishop Robert Culp, co-chairman of the Toledo Community Coalition (TCC) and senior pastor of First Church of God in Toledo, said TCC plans to establish a fund dedicated to helping public housing tenants stay in their homes.

“Sometimes for less than $100 families can be kept in their homes. The Toledo Community Coalition can and will help these people,” Bishop Culp said.

Blade reporters Sarah Elms, Brooks Sutherland, and Danielle Gamble teamed up with the Investigative Editing Corps, founded in 2017 by Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Rose Ciotta, to investigate LMH evictions during this pandemic. Their stories were published by The Blade on Dec. 6, Dec. 13, and Dec. 20, and can be read at toledoblade.com.