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May 26, 2023

Tenants describe dismal conditions at Omaha apartment complex shut down by city

Christmas decorations are still up as the Legacy Crossing apartment complex at

Christmas decorations are still up as the Legacy Crossing apartment complex at 10535 Ellison Plaza is closed by the city and residents are being forced out after inspectors found the 17 buildings and more than 400 units to be unlivable. Photographed in Omaha on Monday.

Star Brown, 36, of Omaha helps a friend move from the Legacy Crossing Apartments. Family, friends and volunteers have been helping residents pack up and move.

Large water stains in an apartment kitchen at the Legacy Crossing apartment complex at 10535 Ellison Plaza. It has been closed by the city and residents are being forced out after inspectors found the 17 buildings and more than 400 units to be unlivable. Photographed in Omaha on Monday.

Ciera Martin, 34, has lived at the Legacy Crossing apartment complex at 10535 Ellison Plaza for 1 1/2 years with her children. It has been closed by the city and residents are being forced out after inspectors found the 17 buildings and more than 400 units to be unlivable. Photographed in Omaha on Monday.

A handrail into one of the buildings at the Legacy Crossing apartment complex at 10535 Ellison Plaza is broken as residents walk up the ice stairs. It has been closed by the city and residents are being forced out after inspectors found the 17 buildings and more than 400 units to be unlivable. Photographed in Omaha on Monday.

The Legacy Crossing apartment complex at 10535 Ellison Plaza has been closed by the city and residents are being forced out after inspectors found the 17 buildings and more than 400 units to be unlivable.

Black mold covering ceilings and floorboards. Raw sewage backed up into the kitchen sink. Broken stoves, dishwashers and dryers. Abandoned apartments left unlocked to be vandalized with graffiti and garbage. Maintenance calls gone unanswered for months on end.

Residents of Legacy Crossing, a 17-building complex near 105th and Fort Streets that has 408 units, were told Monday morning that the buildings where they lived were being condemned and they would have to evacuate immediately. City officials say 165 of the apartments were occupied.

As snow fell and ice formed on unsalted sidewalks Monday afternoon, hundreds of residents scrambled to fit their belongings in trash bags, load them into moving vans, trailers and their own vehicles and then figure out where they and their families would live.

Ciera Martin, who had lived in a two-bedroom apartment with her two children for about a year and a half, had experienced a host of issues with her place and was hoping to move out soon. Water damage coated the bathroom ceiling. Raw sewage backed up into her sink for more than a month. A vacant apartment below Martin's was covered in black mold around the floorboards.

Martin had just put up her Christmas tree, a small sparkly one adorned with tinsel and ornaments, days before. She has had to cancel online Christmas present orders for her children because the gifts no longer can be delivered to the complex.

"They just told us that they found a hotel for us for the next 14 days," she said of nonprofit workers who were helping relocate residents. "But after that, I don't know."

One woman who declined to give her name said she had been living at Legacy Crossing since August. It was the first apartment that had come available after a domestic situation forced her, her daughter and dogs to live in her car.

The first building she lived in caught fire in November, and she had just moved into a new one weeks ago. She said Heartland Family Service had paid the application fee and security deposit for a new apartment and set her up at a hotel for the time being.

"It's just disturbing," she said. "First the fire, and now this. I can't go to work this week because I have to find a place for me and my kid to go. It's just back to the drawing board."

Another couple, Alexander Sales and Alonzo Tapp, lived for about nine months in a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment at Legacy Crossing. They hadn't experienced the same issues as some other tenants — their apartment was recently renovated — but a vacant apartment below them had no glass in the window frames, causing frigid air to blow through the building and tripling their utility payments as they cranked up the heat to counter the cold.

Like other tenants, they said their calls for maintenance went unanswered.

"There's never any answers from the office," Sales said. "There's nothing. We keep to ourselves, we don't bother them unless it's an urgent issue. And still, nothing. It's just too much."

Workers from Heartland Family Service were on-site helping people line up hotels and submit apartment applications. A handful of moving companies volunteered to move furniture into trucks and provide free storage units for the affected families.

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