FAYETTEVILLE – Tenants at a local senior living facility are facing significant rent increases they say they cannot afford.
Rosa Floyd, whose parents live in the Wedington Place senior housing on Telluride Drive, and her husband Michael organized a hearing Thursday attended by about 50 tenants. Several tenants held signs they had made in protest of the rent increases.
In addition, numerous city and state officials and representatives from nonprofit organizations were on site to help tenants obtain resources such as food and transportation assistance and to recommend possible courses of action.
The Floyds introduced several bills, including rent caps and annual rent increases for seniors, which they hope the state legislature will consider in its next session.
According to online advertisements, tenants at Wedington Place must be at least 55 years old. Some tenants have income-based housing certificates to subsidize rent, while others, such as Rosa Floyd’s parents, pay rent out of their own pockets.
Rent will rise from $520 to $900 for one-bedroom apartments and from $750 to $1,150 for two-bedroom apartments, Floyd said. Tenants confirmed the rent increases at Thursday’s meeting.
“This is outrageous for a 30-year-old property where elderly people live,” Floyd said.
The property is included in the list of developments that are eligible for the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. Under this program, property owners must keep rent below a certain amount and receive tax credits in return. The credits are tied to the property and can be transferred to new owners.
“As much as we would like to intervene, we must make clear that our ability to regulate is limited as long as rents remain within the LIHTC rent caps, which include both the rent paid by the tenant and the utility fee,” said Derrick Rose, spokesman for the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, which oversees the program.
Under the program, Wedington Place must have 57 housing units at 60% of the area’s federally defined median income, Rose said, with the remaining 15 units at market rate.
That means the rent cap for public housing is $1,073 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,287 for a two-bedroom apartment, according to figures from Rose.
“While we have no influence on the rents set by the new owners, we encourage tenants to have open communication with property management to address these concerns,” he said.
According to Washington County online records, the property was sold in July for $5.2 million to Ace Telluride-AR LLC. The company is registered to Ravi Mereddy of Alpharetta, Georgia, and Little Rock attorney J. Cliff McKinney is listed as the registered agent.
Questions emailed to McKinney this week were not responded to.
Most tenants in Wedington Place learned about the change of ownership and the rent increase through word of mouth, says Debbie George, 58, who has lived in the complex for five years.
The purchase was completed in July and the first tenants whose leases were expiring received notice of a rent increase, George said.
George said tenants learned a few days ago that they could get out of their leases and get their security deposits back if they wanted to. Even if tenants find another place to live, many don’t know how to pack up their belongings and move them, George said.
“There are a lot of people here who never leave this complex or their apartment, so it’s a big challenge for everyone here,” she said. “They’re losing their community. When you’re older, it’s hard to change.”
Mary Grady, 75, said the quality of property management has declined sharply since the new owner took over. She wished someone from management or the owners’ association had been present at the meeting to listen to tenants’ problems.
“Suddenly I have a cockroach infestation,” Grady said, showing pictures on her cellphone of cockroaches and droppings in her apartment.
If the new owner wants to charge the same prices as a luxury apartment complex, that has to be reflected in the quality of the housing, Grady said. Typically, if someone pays more for a service, they get more, she said.
“It’s the complete opposite situation,” Grady said.
Most of the tenants at Wedington Place are on fixed incomes, Grady said, and moving to another rental property typically requires a security deposit and a few months’ rent, she said.
“Nobody here has that much money,” Grady said.
Debra Lopez, 66, has lived in Wedington Place for five years and said a new owner has taken over the apartment a few times during her stay. The rent had previously gone up slightly, she said.
Now her rent will likely go up by about $400 a month when her lease ends in November, Lopez said. She receives a tax credit that subsidizes part of her rent, but she won’t know how much of it is covered and how much she’ll have to pay out of pocket until she sees her new lease, she said.
Lopez works part-time as a registered nurse, working three-hour shifts four days a week. Her earnings alone are not enough to pay the rent, she says.
“Either I pay or I leave,” Lopez said. “I can’t really afford to go anywhere else.”
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