SALT LAKE CITY — Living in the Pauline Downs Apartments on 300 East in downtown Salt Lake City for ten years, Darrin Peery has seen and endured a lot.
“There was a female that was running down the hall, screaming her head off,” he said. “This is like four o'clock in the morning. You got people camping out, you've got garbage going on in the back and people out in the front.”
He often feels neglected by management, he said.
“They get tax benefits, they get this, they get that,” said Peery. “Are you just about the bucks or do you actually care about your properties and the people that live there?”
Pauline Downs is made up of four buildings that run from 200 South to 136 South on the west side of 300 East. The buildings have gained publicity after the Central City Neighborhood Council shared photos and videos showing one of the buildings with apparent feces on property grounds and open drug use and needles throughout the property's vicinity.
“Currently, because of the current conditions of the property we are inspecting, we're sending our property inspectors out on a monthly basis," said Claudia O’Grady, vice president of Utah Housing Corporation's (UHC) multi-family finance and development department.
The buildings are part of a low-income housing tax credit program from the Utah Housing Corporation. The agency is tasked with issuing federal tax credits that help create and maintain affordable housing throughout Utah.
"We will continue our monthly inspections of the property to make sure that the problems don't manifest again,” she said. “This is truly an anomaly. We just don't see this in the 500 plus units that we have financed across the state. It's fewer than 1 percent that is problematic like this.”
According to O’Grady, the project was awarded low income housing tax credits back in 1993. UHC placed a 99-year deed restriction on the property, which will allow it to remain as affordable housing for many years to come.
THE POSSIBLE CAUSES OF THE PROPERTY'S DECLINE
Cory Waddoups, one of the buildings’ owners, has seen what’s been going on and is working hard to make these buildings safer for the people living here, he said.
“We've been working with the neighbors on the street and have pulled together resources to hire an armed guard security service that is there between nine and five, and then they also come in the evenings to check the street and the building,” said Waddoups.
Things have improved since those images were shared, he said.
“It's not indicative of the condition of the property,” said Waddoups. “We've really struggled with a homeless population in the area all along the street and they have been continuously breaking into the building and in the common area."
But while Waddoups points to the homeless population in the area as major cause of the building's decline, residents like Peery said accessibilty to managment is also a concern that residents like him encounter.
While O'Grady says that UHC is not aware of what the property's internal management issues are, she says that owners do have the ability to change the property management company dealing with the day to day functions of maintaining the property.
THE BUILDINGS ARE FOR SALE
Currently the four buildings are listed for sale online.
'I understand that the owner is trying to sell the property and I think that addressing some of these physical issues will help with marketability," O'Grady said. "So they are responding a little bit more timely now.
"But, it's our hope that a new buyer can come in, maybe use another round of tax credits, or another source of financing to recapitalize the property and add security features like fencing and locking doors and card key access."
Waddoups did not mention selling the property in his interview with FOX 13, but he says he’s been working with the city and UHC to bring the buildings to compliance. And O’Grady confirmed that.
“They're not fully back in compliance, but the owner is working to get back into compliance," O'Grady said.
A GREATER PROBLEM
The issues Pauline Downs faces are the product of a greater problem that major cities like Salt Lake are dealing with, Waddoups said.
“With the help of the city, we could get this under control with the homeless population, and combining resources with the city and the armed guard service, to just increase the safety and the quality of the property.”
Peery also hopes the owners, management and the city can figure out a solution, so that he doesn't have to police his own home.
"There's only so much you can do," Peery said. "Because I don't want to get involved in something that's bigger and badder."
