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Friend,
It had seemed like such a blessing.
A single parent living in a homeless shelter, eight months pregnant with her second child, Ayran Tucker was ecstatic when a townhouse opened up in Forest Cove, a public affordable housing complex in Southeast Atlanta.
At the 296-unit development on a main bus line, Tucker, now 33, hoped she could build a stable home for her children. Despite her community college degree, Tucker was making just $13 per hour, the demands of parenthood and poverty making it hard for her to find better pay. Public housing seemed to offer her and her kids a chance.
But within months of her move to Forest Cove in 2017, Tucker’s hopes began to unravel. At first, it was what was happening outside her three-bedroom apartment that terrified her – the tat-tat-tat of bullets, the fighting, the shouting between people at the breaking point that had her sleeping fearfully in the same bed with her kids.
Then, the nightmare came into her home.
First, water started seeping in from broken pipes. Soon, black mold began to bloom from behind paint slapped on by the property manager to hide it.
As Tucker’s family grew – she has four children now – so did the obstacles to keeping them healthy in Forest Cove. Her baby son inhaled the mold. There were trips to the emergency room and nights with him struggling to breathe.
No matter how hard she scrubbed, roaches would creep out of seams in the wall and holes in the floor of her kitchen. And the rats. Chewing through the ceiling. Scampering across the bed. So many rats Tucker said she couldn’t keep up with them even by changing three traps twice every day.
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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