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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Rats, black mold and leaking ceilings are just some of the problems some families living in the Gadsden Green neighborhood said they are facing every day.

For some background, Gadsden Green is a property of the Charleston Housing Authority. The Charleston Housing Authority is an independent nonprofit that seeks to provide housing to citizens on low to moderate incomes.

Gadsden Green resident Brittany Muckelvaney said their living conditions are unsafe and unacceptable.

She said three of her daughters have asthma and are constantly sick because of conditions like mold, dirty air filters and a leaking roof. Muckelvaney said they’re also dealing with electrical problems, holes in the air ducts, rats and rat feces.

“If you could see the fecal matter I have to sweep up on the daily. I have children with asthma, there are rats coming in and out,” Muckelvaney said.

Another resident, Vanessa Brown, said their living conditions have been horrendous, catching over 30 rats in just over two years.

“Just because we live in public housing doesn’t mean we are uneducated, it doesn’t mean we are ignorant,” Brown said.

Brown’s daughter, Ericka Perez, said this is their first experience in public housing, and it’s worse than they thought it would be.

“We don’t matter, not to them,” Perez said. “We’re not living here because we’re dirty, or lazy, or uneducated, we live here because we have children. And the income that we have is not enough sometimes.”

The President and CEO of the Charleston Housing Authority, Arthur Milligan, said they’re aware some of the units need to be worked on.

He said they are in the process of implementing the Rental Assistance Demonstration program that will allow them to go in and do some major work in the next two to four years.

“It goes along with the fact that the building is 83 years old and has not had any major rehab in that period of time,” Milligan said. “We understand the residents here are having some hard times and we continue to try to make sure they’re being taken care of.”

In the meantime, he said he recommends residents let their property managers know about problems they are having, and if no progress is made, he suggests they continue to complain up the food chain.

“If the units are in bad shape they have to let us know, and we are going to be doing more inspections than we have been doing in the past,” Milligan said.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The fight for better living conditions in the Gadsden Green neighborhood continues.

Gadsden Green is a property of the Charleston Housing Authority, a nonprofit that provides housing to citizens on low to moderate incomes.

State Representatives, Community Leaders and Gadsden Green Residents gathered Friday to talk about the plan to improve living conditions in the neighborhood.

Rats, black mold and leaking ceilings are just a few of the problems some families living in the Gadsden Green neighborhood said they are facing every day.

An attorney representing several of the residents, Vanisa Brown, said she has seen these conditions first-hand.

“It appears that, at a minimum, property management has adopted indifference and hostility toward the residents of Gadsden Green,” Brown said.

State Representative Wendell Gilliard, who called Friday’s meeting, said the Gadsden Green neighborhood has been neglected for far too long.

“Our responsibility as leaders in the community is to make sure that these children, these women, these men, have a quality of life,” Gilliard said.

Some of the actionable items presented at Friday’s meeting included inviting the Charleston Public Housing Director and representatives from DHEC and HUD to a walkthrough of the units on Monday at 5:30 p.m.

The Community Resource Center will be onsite at Monday’s walkthrough to hand out food, hygiene products and baby supplies to residents.

“We cannot have third-world conditions in Charleston, South Carolina,” Louis Smith, the executive director of the Community Resource Center, said. “At this point, it becomes a humanitarian issue.”

Gilliard said he’s also reached out to MUSC to get residents tested for impacts of mold and rat feces, and suggested Gadsden merges with the Westside Neighborhood Association to keep elected officials engaged.

“I feel a lot more hopeful, hopeful that, seeing so many people get involved and take the time out of their day to be here with us, hopefully, they can get something done,” Gadsden Green resident Brittany Muckelvaney said.

The Chairman of the board that oversees the Charleston Housing Authority, Herb Partlow, said it’s important to note that not every unit in the neighborhood is in disrepair.

He said since Live 5′s story aired last week staff initiated a “maintenance blitz” where they accessed all 264 units. They completed quick repairs and submitted work orders for more long-term projects. Partlow said he also took a tour of the units himself and wrote to city leaders.

“While looking at the story, I’ll be the first to say the conditions are unacceptable. The camera doesn’t lie. What I’ve told our team and the rest of our staff is we have to own it, first and foremost, make no excuses, and do something about it,” Partlow said.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

GADSDEN CREEK S.C. (WCBD)- Residents who live near Gadsden are concerned about potential development on unmarked grave sites.

Community members and city leaders are working to protect the potential burial sites of enslaved people and migrants from the 18^th and 19^th century.

Charleston is known for its history and national landmarks, but residents are working to preserve some of the hidden history in the Lowcountry. An unmarked burial site from the 18^th and 19^th century could be found near the Gadsden community.

Robert Summerfield, Director of planning and preservation for the City id Charleston said this is just one of many unmarked areas in the Lowcountry.

“Being in an area in the country that has been populated not just by the Native Americans, our forefathers, here for more than 350 years we do have locations here in the city of Charleston where folks have been buried and those burials were never recorded. They were not marked, so there’s no headstones,” said Summerfield.

City Leaders say some of these areas date all the way back to colonial times, meaning there’s a chance that there could be over hundreds of unmarked locations in the Lowcountry.

Audrey Libson, president of The Westside neighborhood association, said its important we never forget the past generations and protect the sites from development.

“Before it used to be called tower hill cemeteries and a lot of people don’t know where their ancestors are buried. I very well have ancestors back there and i don’t know where there buried at, but they are there,” said Libson.

Summerfield said the city has plans to continue finding these historical areas.

“The Reservation Society is currently working on a project that were very excited about were there working to actually take oral histories and other things to try and locate and map where some of these gravesites may be so that we can have this information for when development request come in,” said Summerfield.

Charleston city leaders said the research and work to protect these unmarked graves is ongoing.