If it’s raining outside, it’s raining inside many Himbola Manor apartments. If it’s cold outside, it’s cold in the apartments. And in Louisiana’s sweltering heat, the complex is, according to residents, uninhabitable.
“It’s no different than living outside,” says Joy Johnson, a resident of Himbola for the past five years.
Himbola, a 136-unit complex located on Martin Luther King Drive, is the housing of last resort for many low-income Lafayette residents who qualify for federal housing assistance. Despite unbearable living conditions, many residents say they have nowhere to go should the complex be condemned or closed for repairs by the owners.
Residents claim the management company has been ignoring requests for repairs even when residents have gone directly to the property manager’s office to complain. And what repairs are done are superficial, they say.
Black mold, insects, water-logged walls and ceilings are some of the issues residents have suffered through for years and that have only now drawn attention from local authorities, who have yet to offer a solution.
Meanwhile, some residents are trying to get out with few routes of escape available.
Johnson says she and her five kids would have to try to find a rental property for under $1,000 a month, and even that would be a large increase from what she is currently paying.
Lafayette has virtually no other affordable housing available should they be forced to leave.
Himbola has been on notice from Lafayette Consolidated Government since March. Complaints about the conditions prompted an inspection of the complex earlier this year by Lafayette’s Community Development and Planning department, and Himbola’s owner, a nonprofit called American Agape Foundation, was given until June 27 to rectify numerous property maintenance code violations. “The photographs taken by our inspection team reflect living conditions that are absolutely deplorable,” City-Parish Attorney Pat Ottinger wrote June 13 to complex owner David Starr of American Agape Foundation.
Jim Condit, director of operations for the San Antonio, Texas-based company that runs Himbola, claims residents didn’t properly notify management of the issues, pushing back on the characterization of the facility as unlivable.
“We’re not slumlords, we’re not going to go and not fix stuff,” Condit tells The Current.
Problems at Himbola have persisted for years, residents say, but the heat and constant rain have further exacerbated the poor living conditions in recent months.
Himbola resident Ashanti Dugas says part of her bathroom floor collapsed beneath her mother as she was getting out of the shower. The hole was still visible in her bathroom on July 19.
Dugas says she no longer uses the bathroom because of the floor and black mold. Multiple residents also reported backed-up plumbing in their tubs and toilets.
In a July 19 follow-up letter to Starr’s lawyer, Ottinger said the company had not acted swiftly enough to address the problems. “[T]he concern is that the need for immediate action addressing the 100 or so apartments is much greater than the existing crew can accomplish in the unrelenting heat of South Louisiana,” he wrote.
Ottinger told the lawyer the city was evaluating all available remedies, including the involvement of federal and state resources, and pursuing judicial or administrative relief.
District 1 City Councilman Elroy Broussard has been leading political efforts at the city level to bring attention to the complex. He and the city, however, are at a loss for what to do with the residents of Himbola should they be displaced while their units are repaired.
Complaints about Himbola reached Broussard when he was still on the school board — Broussard termed out in 2023 — and he says addressing the issue has been a top priority since he won a seat on the council. He knows the problem of Himbola will take considerable time and effort to fix.
“It is not just a paint job and walk away from it job,” Broussard says.
Broussard has been working with Ottinger to set a meeting with Himbola Manor’s San Antonio-based representatives, possibly early next month, a gathering Lafayette Fire Chief Robert Benoit hopes will lead to what he calls a “full inspection” of the complex. Benoit says the complex was last inspected by his department, in conjunction with the city’s codes department, in 2019. Nothing in the report at that time included the type of fire code violations that would cause a shutdown, he says.
“Once we meet, I want to [ask] them for permission first to go in there and let us do our thorough inspection of the place and write up the violations and then ask them what their plans are to resolve it and how much time they need,” says Benoit. “If there’s something in there that we know we can’t tolerate, then the power would have to be turned off until they fix it,” he adds, noting that the Himbola Manor situation has led to a new policy within his department.
More on Housing
Catholic Charities of Acadiana is scrambling to fund its emergency shelter after a recent decision by Gov. Jeff Landry to cut $1M in state funds to operate it.
The Lafayette Housing Authority, once a hotbed for local political scandal, has largely slipped under the radar in recent efforts to address the need for affordable housing locally.
Gov. Jeff Landry’s veto of funds for Catholic Charities of Acadiana put into sharp focus the lack of emergency shelter in Lafayette and the funding needed to sustain it long term.
The fallout at Himbola has spurred LFD to assign its fire prevention arm to seek out “high target” apartment complexes that generate high volumes of complaints or pose fire safety hazards for quarterly inspections.
“Any issues they have at Himbola, even if it’s just a nuisance call, I want to know about it when they get there. I want fire prevention to follow up immediately until we resolve this thing,” Benoit says.
The chief also says his department’s operating guidelines will soon include annual fire inspections of every apartment complex in the city.
Lafayette has long had an affordable housing shortage with a current Section 8 voucher waiting list and a need for low-cost housing that is overloading both the local housing authority and nonprofits.
Himbola has the potential to strain this shortage even more as it could remove from the market more than 130 units low-income families rely on. Many of these families get reduced rates from Himbola’s nonprofit owner, who receives direct payments from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and would be in immediate need of shelter.
Jovontia Solomon and her daughter are in the process of moving out of Himbola Manor. Most of her living room ceiling is missing, and the exposed underside is covered in black mold. When it rains, she says, water pours into the living room.
Even with the hole in the ceiling, Solomon’s walls seem to have been freshly painted with bubbles and streaks of mold already peeking through.
Solomon found another place to live, but others won’t be as lucky, housing advocates say.
Brittney Leon lived in Himbola with her 8-year-old son for several years but recently moved out of her apartment due to the conditions.
Her kitchen ceiling caved two weeks ago, and black mold was beginning to sprout again on her freshly painted vents and walls. White paint bubbled where it was slathered on as a cover-over for the mold.
Leon and her son are now living temporarily with her mother Rachel Alfred at another location, but she is still paying more than $400 a month for her apartment while she awaits repairs.
Finding housing in that price range will be difficult. And as local officials weigh what to do with Himbola, and other complexes like it, they’re left with few options. Councilman Broussard and fellow Northside Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux have called on Mayor-President Monique Boulet to create a rental property inspection program. Monitoring substandard housing is one thing; finding replacements for it is another.
“We are not prepared to relocate the residents,” says Broussard. “If it is condemned we are in bad shape.” — Additional reporting by Leslie Turk