Himbola’s owner has long history of housing controversy

Falling plywood, collapsed ceilings, mold — these are all hazards of living in apartments managed by the Texas-based developer who runs Himbola Manor in Lafayette. 

The developer, David Starr, has faced penalties and litigation related to low-income housing complexes owned by a web of nonprofits in his portfolio. And earlier this month, federal housing officials found Starr in default of a Section 8 contract for failing to provide liveable housing at the complex, which is owned by a nonprofit he oversees. Starr’s representatives met with local officials Monday as authorities demand he fix what residents say are hazardous conditions at Himbola. 

“Representatives of LCG made it abundantly clear that significant action should be immediately taken to address the identified deficiencies, particularly those that pertain to the health and welfare of the residents,” LCG City-Parish Attorney Pat Ottinger says. 

Starr now is on the clock to come up with a plan to address the conditions at Himbola. It’s a pattern that’s followed Starr’s career in development. 

Who is David Starr?

Starr has a long history in low-income housing, according to public filings and reports. He is well-connected politically in Texas, the main locus of his real estate empire, and operates many of his companies out of a complex in San Antonio.

Many of Starr’s HUD-overseen and private projects are in San Antonio.

Through two nonprofits, American Opportunity for Housing Inc., and American Agape Foundation Inc., the umbrella that owns Himbola, Starr manages more than 15,000 units of affordable housing across the South. Organizing the complexes as nonprofits allows Starr to avoid property taxes and gain access to tax credit financing. 

According to IRS Form 990 filings from 2022, American Opportunity, founded in 1999, holds roughly $17 million in assets and owns several tax-exempt multifamily housing complexes in Texas. 

American Agape, founded in 1989, holds another $23.4 million in assets as the main nonprofit, tax records show. However, American Agape sets up separate nonprofits for certain assets. Himbola, for example, is under Agape Himbola Manor Inc., which holds $8.4 million in assets separately. 

Himbola avoided nearly $350,000 in local property taxes from 2016 to 2023. 

Along with his nonprofit affiliates, Starr is also involved in many for-profit multifamily housing complexes and claims to be an innovator in financing such projects. 

Starr also heads Ameri-link Capital, an investment group that focuses on foreign national routes to citizenship through property investment. The investment is called an EB-5 program. Ameri-link has regional offices and land holdings across the U.S.  

He is the principal of Clermont LLC, a firm that advises an extensive portfolio of for-profit and nonprofit housing complexes across the South, and the president of Vantage Communities, which develops market-rate apartments around the U.S. Many of these complexes are managed by Foresight Asset Management, Himbola’s property manager and a company connected to Starr through his son. 

Matthew Starr founded Foresight in 2018, and it now operates in seven states and has more than 200 employees. Foresight manages Shreveport’s Canaan Towers, also owned by American Agape, and Lafayette’s Himbola.

David Starr’s nonprofits make regular payments to companies owned by his family, according to public tax filings. The transactions are listed in Agape’s IRS Form 990, a required filing for nonprofits that may have a conflict of interest. According to American Agape Himbola’s 990, it paid Foresight $58,190 for management and compliance fees in 2023. 

Problems in Texas

Residents in David Starr’s development have long alleged poor and sometimes dangerous living conditions, according to a 2017 investigative report by the San Antonio Express-News. 

Citing court filings, complaints filed with the City of San Antonio and interviews with more than a dozen current and former residents of Starr’s properties, the Express-News documented a pattern of conditions similar to those found at Himbola. 

The Texas Department of Housing and Communities Affairs banned Starr from its low-income housing tax credit program for five years in 2011 because of poor conditions at an apartment complex in the state. This cut Starr’s access to tax credit programs sponsored by that agency, but the developer could still leverage tax credit programs in other states, along with an array of HUD programs. 

Starr acquired Himbola in 2015, four years after the ban in Texas. 

Despite the track record, Starr’s representatives have denied mismanagement. 

“We’re not slumlords, we’re not going to go and not fix stuff,” Jim Condit, Foresight Asset Management’s operations director, told The Current in July. 

Condit defended the company’s record as complaints out of Himbola went public, arguing that the cost of labor and goods had squeezed multifamily developers everywhere. 

In July, Foresight notified Himbola residents of upcoming inspections, warning that tenants would be responsible for covering the cost of repairing damage that had not been properly reported.  

Himbola: A troubled asset

Himbola receives funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of a Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance contract.

Through Project-Based Section 8, Starr provides rental aid to tenants while receiving funds based on a contract with the Housing Assistance Program through HUD. This is different from the most common form of Section 8, which gives rental assistance vouchers directly to those in need of housing. 

Himbola is currently listed as a “troubled” asset by HUD and is currently assigned to a troubled asset manager charged with overseeing both Foresight and the property itself, according to regulations. Assignment of a troubled asset manager indicates HUD views Himbola as one of its riskiest properties. 

However, Foresight and the American Agape Foundation are still responsible for Himbola staying up to health and safety standards. 

“The property owner is required to maintain safe, decent, and sanitary living conditions at Himbola Apartments. HUD has multiple enforcement options; however, the first step is to identify any issues of noncompliance and provide the owner an opportunity to cooperate and resolve the issues,” Maricel Esquillin, public affairs officer for HUD’s Southwest Region, told The Current earlier this month.  

Last week the Starr family’s Texas-based attorney, Eric Pullen, confirmed in an email that he represents both Himbola’s owner and property manager and planned to attend Monday’s walk-through of the complex with LCG and HUD officials. 

Pullen did not respond to a request for comment for this story. 

“While the contractor has been making repairs, there is much work left to be done,” attorney Ottinger tells The Current, noting that a decision was made to move the issue to enforcement. 

Ottinger says a final inspection report that set an Aug. 28 date for a hearing with LCG’s Administrative Adjudication Bureau was delivered to the owner’s representative Monday. The AAB adjudicates enforcement actions of violations of LCG’s code of ordinances. The hearing officer can take a range of actions, including forcing the owner to pay for LCG’s cost of investigation, enforcement, and/or remediation or abatement of the code violation; and pay for any monitoring programs. The officer can also impose a fine of not more than $500 for each offense.  

LCG’s action comes on the heels of an Aug. 5 letter from HUD giving Starr and his nonprofit until Aug. 19 to present a comprehensive plan to improve Himbola and another letter giving Starr 30 days to address a host of deficiencies or risk losing its rental assistance contract. The Current first reported HUD’s enforcement intervention last week. 

This will involve a plan from a licensed contractor to spend a significant sum of money on mold remediation and fixes to structural roofing problems, money that had not been spent on what should have been routine maintenance. 

LCG’s attorney, like HUD, says Himbola’s owner is responsible for finding temporary housing for potentially displaced tenants. “[T]he owner was advised of the need to make arrangements for alternative lodging for certain tenants of the property,” Ottinger says. — Additional reporting by Leslie Turk