Memphis Towers residents are languishing while slumlords reap tax money
“We are stuck in-between negligence and malfeasance.” Norris Cansler, a veteran who recently celebrated his 86th birthday, is discussing issues he continues to face at his apartment.
Memphis Towers, a Section-8 apartment complex in the Medical District, is owned and managed by Millennia, a multi-million dollar corporation based in Cleveland, Ohio.
Cansler has lived with mold, broken elevators, inconsistent water, and unsecured entrances for years.
During the recent winter storm, he was without heat for two weeks. Cansler is frustrated that Millennia is “feeding at the public trough, but doing nothing for the public.”
Cansler’s problems are not uncommon. With out-of-town corporate behemoths buying up our neighborhoods and eviction rates on the rise, fewer Memphians can afford a roof over their head. As in many other cities, the wealthy few rake in profits while working-class people struggle to survive.
However, Cansler and his neighbors are not helpless. They’ve formed a union and have already had success, pressuring Millennia into installing a new hot water boiler last year. This year, Memphis Towers Tenants Union has taken their fight to the City of Memphis’ Health, Education, and Housing Facilities Board – a finance board appointed by the Mayor to “meet the health, educational and affordable housing needs of the greater Memphis area.” They are authorized by the state of Tennessee to promote “safe and sanitary housing” for low-income individuals.2
Property owners are getting tax breaks, but residents are left hanging
Cities across America have similar public corporations that often add local subsidies to affordable housing projects that already receive federal support.
Memphis Towers is project-based Section 8, meaning Millennia gets paid ⅔ of every tenant's rent through HUD. Millennia is one of the largest multi-family owners and operators in America, specializing in subsidized housing, and playing the same games with enforcement agencies at every level of government.
Organizations across the country have come together through the Millennia Resistance Campaign to call on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to stop these free rent payments to Millennia for their substandard housing.
Here in Memphis, HEHF sweetens the deals for slumlords like Millennia to the tune of over $400,000 each year – and that’s at Memphis Towers alone.
Millennia owns numerous properties across the city, all of which receive tax breaks. HEHF has given out over $25 million in tax breaks over the last three years. While these tax breaks are supposed to benefit tenants like Cansler, he and his neighbors have been telling them for months that the money has gone “straight into Millennia’s pocketbooks.”
MTTU’s interactions with the HEHF Board started in the spring when residents decided that they wanted a safer building. After conducting a comprehensive survey of their neighbors, MTTU distilled residents' responses into three demands around basic safety measures. When they delivered the demand letter to management in March 2023, management refused to accept it and instead responded with a wave of aggressive retaliation, including issuing MTTU leaders with falsified lease violations and illegal notices-to-vacate and illegally detaining an MTU organizer.
Tenants deserve a healthy living space -- that’s what the tax money is for
After Millennia’s hostile response to their demands for basic safety, MTTU turned its attention to the HEHF Board.
Since August 2023, tenants have given public comment at every monthly HEHF Board meeting, and each time HEHF has extended the deadline for Millennia to provide promised repairs and safety measures.
For too long, HEHF has kept Memphis Towers on its “watchlist” with zero repercussions when Millennia repeatedly fails to meet the safety, security, habitability, and “tenant benefits” standards clearly laid out by MTTU and HEHF itself.
The board’s failure to enforce these standards renders the tax-break an easy cash-grab for Millennia rather than an “incentive.” Millennia pockets millions in taxpayer dollars without providing tenants with safe and healthy living spaces. HEHF allows Millennia and other slumlords to indefinitely be “working on it” while tenants pay the price – chronic illness and risk of death/injury from a dangerously substandard building, and rampant harassment and abuse from a carceral management staff.
HEHF’s documented pattern of prolonging “status updates” for “troubled properties,” in lieu of any affirmative vote or recourse for slumlords who abuse tenants’ basic human rights, is unacceptable.
Cansler stated at the November HEHF Board meeting, “Giving support to marginalized tenants … is commendable but not at the expense of fair and equal accommodations.”
Mr. Cansler is right. We are calling on our fellow Memphians to join us in demanding that the HEHF Board stop giving slumlords like Millennia millions of dollars in tax breaks. Our money shouldn’t subsidize the exploitation of our neighbors.
This guest opinion column was written by members of Memphis Tenants Union, a community organization. Email them at memphistenantsunion@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: While landlords get richer, Memphis Towers residents suffer
