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My name is Robert, I’m the Dad to a 5 year old mentally disabled boy and a newborn little girl. I’ve lived in the apartment we are currently in for 5 years, my partner 2 years. My partner Lucii and I work hard to create a home that is safe and filled with love and stability for our children. It’s been impossible to feel like we are being successful because of the negligence of Springfield Garden Apartments. Since they took over 2 years ago, they have done nothing to maintain the basic level of safety and sanitation in our building.

Starting at the front door and back doors that never lock, we have had homeless folks living in the hallways and the basement. We are dealing with needles being left behind and urine and feces in the hallways from the squatters. Our hot water and heat have been turned off multiple times from homeless people touching the systems in the basement. We are constantly in fear of fire, even more now since the fire on main street, because the homeless folks need to stay warm and will do that anyway they can. I don’t blame them, I blame Springfield Gardens. If we had doors that locked, it would be one less thing for us to worry about. We have gone without heat and hot water for days and weeks at a time. Do you know how difficult it is to layer a mentally disabled child in clothes because it's so cold inside? Do you have to boil water to bathe your children? That is something you’d expect in a third world country, not Springfield Massachusetts. That is something Robert and I have dealt with the last two winters.

Our home has been overrun by the infestation of rats and cockroaches. We do everything we can to keep them out of our home. Our food in the pantry, clothes, and my sons books and toys have been eaten by the rats and mice that enter our home. I have been rained on while using the bathroom from water leaking from the roof, or the small outlet fire we had in the kitchen because of the water leaking in. Other neighbors in our building are dealing with water issues as well. Everytime the person upstairs showers it rains in my neighbors unit. We have had to throw a fridge of food out numerous times because it doesn’t work properly. Do you know what it’s like to not be able to make food for your child when they are hungry because the food in the fridge is no longer safe?
These are not one time occurrences, that happen because of a freak accident, we have dealt with these issues for 2 years. This is because Springfield Gardens has not taken their responsibility of maintaining safe units seriously. I have lost count of the maintenance requests we have put in, the amount of times we have called code enforcement, the amount of times we have showed up at the office to get results. All of our attempts have fallen on deaf ears, they don’t care. When our building got condemned last fall, they needed to be taken to court to put us in a safe place for the issues to be resolved. We had to spend the whole day in court just to be put up in a dirty hotel, but at least it had heat and hot water. Even while we were in court they tried telling the city attorney that code enforcement said it wasn’t condemned, it was a lie.

The saddest thing about sharing all this information with you, is that I’m not the only one experiencing this. Everyone I talk to who lives in their units experiences the same thing, everyone across the city, all dealing with the same issues. This company doesn’t care about the residents living in their units. Because all their buildings are the same we need to start implementing fines sooner. It shouldn’t be taking months upon months for them to have consequences for their neglect.