Apartment City

Kansas City firefighters now take two simple safety steps that might have saved the lives of two colleagues in a 2015 building collapse . The steps were among the recommendations in a federal report released Thursday . Emergency tones are sounded, as they were two years ago, when firefighters are ordered out of a collapse zone. But now heads are counted to make sure everyone got the message — which was not done before. Fire Chief Paul Berardi acknowledged those steps might have saved the lives of John Mesh and Larry Leggio, who perished at a fire scene on Independence Boulevard. The federal report cites a series of operational failures that contributed to the firefighters’ deaths. The report said the two men should not have been in an alley next to the three-story building after all personnel were directed to pull back because of fears the walls would collapse. Six minutes after that order was given, they died in an avalanche of bricks. Poor communication and the failure to establi...

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - A Channel 4 I- Team investigation found the out-of-state landlord of a Nashville apartment complex earned $1,023,126 despite repeated code violations , including a caved-in ceiling and sewage leaks. Sheree McLaurin showed the Channel 4 I-Team photos of her ceiling caving in and the ripped-up kitchen floor in her apartment at the Riverchase Apartments complex in east Nashville . "It was horrible. It was horrible," McLaurin said. Danielle Nix also showed us photos of her old apartment at Riverchase, including how her ceiling was peeling apart and damage in her bathtub. "It was very deplorable conditions," Nix said. A Channel 4 I- Team investigation found the Riverchase complex received 18 code violations in the last five years. Among the violations city inspectors cited were sewage leaks, holes in the roof and a caved-in ceiling. And a city investigation is still ongoing into a suspected electrical fire in December 2013, which started w...

Federal investigators said they found a disconnected vent pipe in the basement room where natural gas built up before a lethal explosion last year at a Silver Spring apartment complex . They have not determined when the pipe was disconnected, why or who did it, but the disconnect would have bypassed a safety feature meant to vent gas from the basement room of the building to the exterior, investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wrote in a preliminary report on the Aug. 10, 2016, explosion that killed seven people, injured more than 30 and left more than 100 homeless. “The person who disconnected the vent pipe, as well as his/her intentions in doing so, are as of yet to be determined,” investigators wrote in a preliminary report that was made public Tuesday . ATF investigators, who are working with the National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation of the incident, said that the cause of the explosion and fire that followed are undete...

WASHINGTON — A vent pipe was found disconnected in the meter room where federal investigators believe the natural gas explosion that killed seven people last summer originated. Although the cause of the Aug. 1, 2016 Silver Spring explosion remains undetermined , a Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives report states that the origin of the blast was a basement room that housed a water heater and gas meters in one of the Flower Branch Apartments buildings . Inside that meter room, investigators found a three- part union vent pipe that had been disconnected before the blast. Investigators said the purpose of the pipe was to release gas outside the building in the event a gas regulator failed . But because the pipe was disconnected, if the regulator had failed, gas would have leaked into the meter room and could have been ignited by the flame on the hot water heater . In the report, investigators say they are certain that the disaster was caused by an explosion followed b...

Last Updated Aug 19, 2017 4:54 PM EDT Maryland Democrats are demanding a slew of records from Kushner Companies LLC after reports that its subsidiaries' apartment complexes receiving public housing payments are getting judges to order the arrest of delinquent renters and making rent payments unnecessarily difficult for tenants.  President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner stepped down as CEO of Kushner Companies when he joined the White House, but retains a significant financial stake in the business. The firm has received $6.1 million in federal rental subsidies through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for three apartment complexes in Maryland since January 2015, according to a recent Baltimore Sun report .  Those subsidies help tenants pay their rent. But the Sun reported Kushner Companies is "the most aggressive [firm] in Maryland" in using a debt collection tactic that urges judges to arrest people who fail to appe...

RIO DE JANEIRO ― Seven years ago, Vila Autódromo was little more than a tranquil fishing village on the edge of Jacarepagua Lagoon, next to the racetrack for which it was named. Like the hundreds of other favelas that dot Rio de Janeiro ’s landscape, it had long been neglected by the city government , and it lacked many basic public services that are standard in the fast- growing wealthier neighborhoods just across the water. But to the more than 600 families that lived there, it was home. “This was a paradise,” said Luiz Cláudio Silva, who lived in Autódromo for more than 20 years. “I thought that I would live here for the rest of my life.” By the time the Rio Olympics are over, just 20 of the families who lived in Autódromo in 2009, the year the International Olympic Committee chose the city to host the games, will remain. The community, which sits less than a mile away from Rio’s Olympic Park, was crushed so that the city could build new access roads to connect Olympic venues . ...

Rent-burdened tenants with a household income of less than $125,000 will be eligible for tax credits, if a new federal bill proposed by Joseph Crowley, chairman of the Democratic Caucus and Queens County Democratic Party , is signed into law. The Rent Relief Act would make individuals across the country with a household income of less than $125,000 whose primary residence is rental housing, and who pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent, eligible for one of two kinds of tax credits. The first would be a refundable tax credit for those living in non-subsidized housing within the fair market value for rentals. The size of the credit would be determined by taking into account the household’s annual income, the total amount spent annually on rent, and a stimulated rate of the federal government’s established fair market annual rent caps . The second would be available for individuals who live in government- subsidized rental housing like Section 8 or NYCHA, and allow them ...

Plans to renovate Lassiter Courts , a public housing complex in the city’s Southeast Community, will move forward after getting state approval this summer for an important piece of funding. But the state’s rejection of similar funding at Spratley House will delay plans there until at least next year. The Newport News Redevelopment and Housing Authority plans to do the same kind of work at Lassiter — about $5.9 million worth — that it has done at Oyster Point, Cypress and Brighton apartment complexes : renovating kitchens, fixing up roofs and floors, and working on HVAC systems, to name a few plans. public housing complex es get step closer to renovation" class="trb_em_ic_img" title="Two Newport News public housing complex es get step closer to renovation" src="src" /> Those properties have been or will be renovated under a program called Rental Assistance Demonstration , or RAD, which is operated under the Department of Housing and Urban Develop...