LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Mold, mice, bed bugs and roaches.

Those were the complaints were the top complaints mentioned by tenants at a Louisville Metro Housing Authority meeting on Tuesday. People who live at Dosker Manor and other LMHA properties came to the meeting with signs and chants.

They packed a room to voice their concerns and frustrations. Many left outraged with the lack of progress.

Dosker Manor apartments are subsidized housing with low-rent costs intended for seniors and disabled community members. Samantha Morris is a resident at the apartment tower in the Phoenix Hill neighborhood.

"For me, I can say it's been an adventure," Morris said. "The mice took over. I've never seen so many mice in my life."

Morris said lower rent prices shouldn't mean poorer living conditions. For nearly four years, she's experienced problems with rodents and roaches.

"They'll beat you to your meal if you don't get there first," Morris said.

When WDRB News went inside apartments at Dosker Manor in August, dehydrated feces was clearly visible in one of the stairwells and residents say both feces and urine are normal occurrences. Additionally, maggots were visible in a mechanical room on the first floor.

Mary Morris moved into the complex 11 years ago. She said the apartments used to be nicer.

"It wasn't always like this. It went down," Mary Morris said. "They're trying to clean it up, but in six months, they're not going to have it ready."

Dozens of residents of the apartments attended the meeting on Tuesday, but only about eight people were given time to voice their complaints.

"Bad plumbing. No stove working," a man said at the meeting.

"The roaches, the rats, the mice, the bed bugs, the garbage," Samantha Morris said.

LMHA board members took notes of complaints to follow-up on, but residents had solutions of their own.

"Don't make sense how we're living in that facility, we need to be moved up out of there," Mary Morris said.

Rosalind Smith, a resident of Dosker Manor, said the apartment's management is bad.

RAW RK DOSKER MANOR FOLO

Louisville Metro Housing Authority board meeting was held on Sept. 19, 2023.

"It needs to be torn down, fixed over, rebuilt and let us live how we're supposed to live," Smith said. "We are living very poorly, unfairly, we shouldn't have to live like this."

Some attendees left the meeting outraged and called for LMHA board members to step down.

"We're coming for your seats because we're tired of living in squalor," Shameka Shaw, an impacted resident, said.

Louisville Metro Councilwoman Tammy Hawkins, District 1, said she is a product of what Section 8 housing can look like when the program is successful. She asked the LMHA board to come up with solutions.

"You can't tell me the Section 8 program cannot be successful because I'm a product of it," Hawkins said. "If you haven't experienced anything about this program, you need to get off the board. Dosker Manor is unacceptable."

While Lisa Osanka announced her retirement, she won't step down until her replacement is appointed. Osanka has been with LMHA for two decades, and was named executive director in 2018.

A national search is underway, but it could take months to find a new director for LMHA.

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