Mobile apartment residents with disabilities say they have been left with no caretaker for years

MOBILE, Ala. ( WKRG ) — Disabled residents at the Anderson-Fischer Apartments in Mobile said they have been left to fend for themselves after not having an on-site caretaker for years.

Mobile Fire-Rescue has issued the apartment, located on Jeff Hamilton Road Extension, with violations that they could not disclose. MFRD said the apartment is within the period where it can take corrective action.

According to the apartment’s website, Minnesota-based Accessible Space Inc. and the Alabama Head Injury Foundation partnered to offer an “accessible, affordable independent living opportunity to adults with qualifying disabilities.”

Residents said the two-story building is far from that.

“You can call them, man, you don’t get no answer,” Milton Dunning, a resident at Anderson-Fischer Apartments, said. “It just takes so long to get stuff done in here.”

When WKRG called the Mobile branch of Accessible Living Inc., a voicemail message said we called outside of their Monday through Friday business hours. It was noon on a Tuesday.

“When we call maintenance, we have to call Minnesota,” Dunning said.

Everyone who lives in the building has some sort of disability. Joshua Rushing, who is bound to a mechanical wheelchair, moved out of the building in June 2023.

“They had me in a wheelchair upstairs,” Rushing said.

Oftentimes, Rushing would be stuck upstairs for hours on end as the elevator would break with no warning.

“The only way we could get down is if the fire department came and took us down personally,” Rushing said. “Usually, we’d call the non-emergency hotline or just dial 911. At one point, some of us would just pull the alarm.”

Rushing said he was also left without a stove for six months, unable to cook. He said he placed calls to maintenance daily.

Rushing, along with many other residents, said they use inhalers to battle what they called a mold issue in vents that they said haven’t been cleaned regularly.

“You can sit there in your apartment during the day with the air blowing, and your eyes get caked with dirt,” Herbert Said, a 17-year resident, said.

All of the residents WKRG spoke with complained that homeless people have found a way inside the building, often bringing drugs with them.

In the middle of WKRG’s interview with Dunning, a woman seen in a picture sleeping in the community room came out to a truck that had picked her up, hiding her face and running from the cameras.

“That’s one right there,” Dunning said. “That is her. See? She’s getting out of here.”

Dunning said the woman’s name is Brittany, and she does not pay rent, often sleeping in the community room, under the stairs or in a tenant’s apartment unit. The door near the stairs Brittany sleeps under doesn’t shut all the way and the alarm on top of the door doesn’t sound off when the door is open like it’s supposed to.

A complaint filed on Aug. 8 claimed that a homeless man named Scott has been living in his truck in the parking lot, using the lobby bathroom and laundry room to “clean up.” The complaint said Scott had recently been released from jail.

“When are we going to get some help?” Dunning said. “How long does it take to get a caretaker?”

WKRG called the manager of the building, who was not in the office when we visited. She said she is not authorized to speak with the media.

The City of Mobile said they plan to do a site inspection soon in response to numerous resident complaints. The initial inspection would be limited to the publicly accessible lobby area because it is open to the general public. The city would only be allowed to inspect the residential units when permitted by the owner or the tenant occupying those units.

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