By SHELDON KRAUSE
Capital News Service
LANSING — Imagine waking up in a bathtub padded with extra blankets.
Imagine having to seek medical attention and being left with scars up and down your arms after nonstop bedbug bites.
Imagine doing everything in your power to get out of the situation, but the organizations designed to help you ignore your pleas.
These experiences are commonplace for tenants with disabilities in Detroit’s federally subsidized housing, says Shea Campbell.
Campbell, who uses a cane and walker, has been dealing with government agencies for her housing problems since 2016. She said her building in the Central Southwest neighborhood is so heavily infested with bedbugs that buying furniture to sleep on isn’t reasonable.
She said that after buying a cot, “I had to get rid of it after I had to go to the hospital for bedbug bites in January of 2020. What I’ve discovered is when you sleep in your bathtub, it kind of cuts down on that (cost).”
“I’ve thought about buying another one, but I don’t want to take a chance on that becoming infested,” she said.
Campbell, who is in her late 40s, says the property’s owner refuses to fully exterminate the pests in the building.
Shea Campbell
The ceiling of Shea Campbell’s apartment in Detroit.“Out of 32 apartments, he might do on a good day 10, not over 24 max. He never does the hallways,” she said.
Campbell also claims the property owner, whom she calls a “slumlord,” receives preferential treatment from local agencies because he is a former professional baseball player. David Nick Marcon, the owner of Marcon Properties LLC in Livonia and the property at which Campbell lives, was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1990 and played for minor league teams in subsequent years.
Campbell detailed a scenario in recent days where a fire marshal came to the complex to investigate complaints about emergency exits being left open — Campbell says that instead of writing Marcon up and making him start closing the doors, the fire marshal stayed in the complex for nearly two hours just chatting with him.
Marcon did not respond to multiple phone calls, voicemails and messages via Facebook.
Agencies continue to perform routine inspections and approve the property for certificates of compliance, certifications from the city indicating that properties meet standards of quality and safety, despite serious safety and sanitation concerns, Campbell said.
Campbell provided pictures of health and safety concerns in the complex, including windows that wouldn’t close fully during the winter, unsanitary hallways and a giant hole that’s been in her ceiling for years.
Campbell said that she believes Marcon is violating several laws, including the Michigan Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act of 1976, which requires property owners to accommodate tenants with disabilities, unless the accommodation would impose undue hardship on the owner.
Despite constant contact with organizations like the state Department of Civil Rights, Michigan State Housing Development Authority and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campbell said she’s been dealing with subpar, and often dangerous, conditions for the last five years.
She also said that she’s been dealing with retaliatory behavior and veiled threats from government employees who haven’t helped her find housing that’s affordable and of reasonably adequate quality. She lives on the third floor and has to take the stairs when she wants to go out.
HUD Detroit, based in Chicago, said the property isn’t in its portfolio, despite Campbell detailing how HUD inspectors frequently performed quality checks. The State Housing Development Authority did not respond as to whether it is involved with the property or not.
Campbell isn’t the only disabled tenant in Detroit who says that she’s experiencing problems and neglect from housing agencies.
Andress Bohannon, who also has disabilities, lived in the same complex as Campbell but moved recently when the bedbug infestation got too bad for her and her daughter to handle.
“I had to stop (my daughter) from spending the night because I would wake up and she would have bite marks on her legs and arms,” she said.
Bohannon also said that she suspected exterminators of spraying water instead of chemicals intended to kill the bedbugs.
Bohannon, who is living in a shelter, said she left her apartment mainly due to safety concerns.
“I never felt safe there, but I just dealt with it because that’s all I had,” she said. Bohannon cited high drug activity and frequent break-ins in the area.
Timmie Roberts, the associate director and former housing specialist at the Disability Network of Wayne County-Detroit, said such experiences are often common for people seeking housing assistance.
“I would say the biggest thing is availability, availability to adequate federally funded housing,” Roberts said.
“A lot of them get booked up so fast and you don’t get people moving out of those situations all the time, so with individuals moving into those situations all the time, adequate housing is hard to find.”
“Because once you get in you’re not trying to leave especially until your situation has been bettered and people bettering their situations isn’t moving along as fast as one might think,” Roberts said.
Roberts said he sympathizes with the government agencies that Campbell and other tenants have had problems with, but also said the agencies could often do a better job.
“Some of these organizations — it can get tedious, and I guess, aggravating, listening to the same issues over time, but I think a lot of these organizations forget that they’ve been established and put here to help people,” he said.
“That should be their No. 1 thing, so they need to keep that in mind, with trying to find them a house, even if you’re not getting them the result they want right now, still understanding and displaying that empathy and that passion.”
Campbell is asking local elected officials to draw attention to the struggles with housing that she and other disabled people in Detroit are going through.
“Because when you’re disabled, you are treated any kind of way.”