Cohen Attends Senate Hearing on GMF Properties

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today attended the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development’s hearing on the Oversight of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Inspection Process. This hearing was inspired by the deplorable living conditions at Global Ministries Foundation properties in Memphis, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Florida, and elsewhere across the country.

“I would like to thank the Senate Housing Committee for organizing this important hearing and Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson of Florida for providing their testimony,” said Congressman Cohen. “It is clear that Congress must step in to prevent this from happening again in Memphis or anywhere else. I had the opportunity to speak with Senator Bob Corker, who sits on the Subcommittee, after the hearing. We have been very disturbed by the deplorable living conditions many in Memphis and around the country have experienced at GMF properties. This is not a partisan issue. No one should be allowed to live in these conditions.”

Yesterday, Congressman Cohen introduced the bipartisan Housing Accountability Act. This legislation would require HUD to survey tenants living in subsidized housing twice a year about property conditions and management performance and create new penalties for property owners who repeatedly fail the tenant surveys.

Global Ministries Foundation (GMF), a faith-based non-profit organization located in Memphis, Tennessee, receives Section 8 project-based rental assistance payments from the HUD. The non-profit has over 40 properties in its portfolio in Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina and New York.

Last year, numerous media outlets reported on deplorable living conditions at GMF owned properties in Memphis. Apartment units in Memphis had holes in the walls made by rats, exposed electrical wiring, broken windows, no working light, a moldy bathroom and leaky roof. In Jacksonville, Florida, the residents at Eureka Garden, another property owned by GMF, were forced to live in uninhabitable units plagued by mold, gas leaks, water damage, and crumbling staircases.

In addition, GMF-owned properties in Memphis had a combined evaluation of 38, a failing score, but GMF continued to collect $2.3 million in rent subsidies from HUD for those buildings in 2014 and $6.3 million from its six Jacksonville properties.