HOUSTON — Several dozen Harvey evacuees who were given apartments after the storm are now facing eviction for failing to pay rent since December.
Two of them gave statements to Houston city council members Tuesday afternoon asking for the City to intervene.
Funding for the 11 units at the Spanish Village Apartments off of Griggs and Scott had come from the non-profit organization the Berryman House.
“I didn’t even know the storm was coming,” said evacuee John Grant. “[I] didn’t even have an inclination the storm was coming in at all; I think the bus driver told me Harvey was coming. I said well who’s Harvey?”
Grant says he had been living with a friend at a townhouse in the Galleria area when the storm arrived.
“Where the water came in it messed up everything, Grant said. “She had mold and you can’t stay in there with all that mold, people die from that.”
Grant was sent to the emergency shelter at NRG and then later to the Red Cross shelter at the Greenspoint Mall. He says he is disabled and cannot work and does not receive social security income.
“At Spanish Village alone there’s 50 people,” said Berryman House CEO Sam Harris. “We just filed appeals this morning so they would not have to move.”
Harris says the residents owe close to $40,000 in back rent for 2018. He says FEMA has not helped because the victims living at the Spanish Village complex did not own homes at the time of the storm and most of them lived with family or friends.
Harris says he believes the residents should now move from Spanish Village to a new complex and claims the landlord has raised the rent for the flood victims. He says eviction appeals filed today should allow them a few more weeks for now.
“I don’t want to be homeless my friend,” Grant said. “That’s not what anybody chooses.”