Forty-seven Days Without Running Water After the Winter Storm—and Counting
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/houston-third-ward-running-water/April 3, 2021
...The Middletons’ pipes froze, and eventually burst, during the storm, and for the past six weeks the family hasn’t had running water. Their toilet works only from time to time, and faucets in the home offer little more than a drip. They subsist on bottled water for drinking, cleaning, cooking, and, occasionally, bathing. Middleton, who lost his job during the pandemic and remains on a limited budget, estimates that every week he spends about $50 on water and $250 on hotel rooms so his family can take hot showers. In an effort to save as much money as possible, he rations his children’s water usage, making sure nobody drinks more than six 16.9-ounce bottles per day. “My kids ask me every day, ‘Daddy, is the water coming back?’†Middleton, said, shaking his head. “I say, ‘Yeah it’s coming back, we just have to wait.’ As a dad, it’s hard when you feel like you’re lying to your kids.â€
The truth is that the 34-year-old father has no idea when water will be restored. Many neighbors living in a dozen or so households on surrounding blocks in the heart of Houston’s historically Black Third Ward are also without it. This week, Texas Monthly met with five of them, all of whom continue to battle the aftereffects of February’s storm, including broken pipes and water-damaged rooms, black mold, badly needed home repairs that might cost thousands of dollars, power outages—and now threats of eviction. The residents all have something else in common: a landlord, J. Brad Batteau, who, they say, refuses to fix their homes in a timely manner. They now find themselves in an increasingly bitter dispute—involving allegations by Batteau that his tenants have committed arson on his property—that Houston mayor Sylvester Turner has gotten involved in.
Some tenants say Batteau, who has run for city council multiple times, isn’t a “bad guy,†but that he’s unable to manage the dozen or so homes that he owns in the area. But other residents have lost all trust in him and believe he’s unwilling to spend the money required to maintain his properties. Humi Jackson, a program coordinator with the Black United Fund of Texas, a nonprofit that does philanthropic work in Black communities, has been working closely with Batteau’s tenants to get their homes fixed. She said the landlord has refused to pay for repairs, claiming that his tenants are responsible for them while also refusing to sign off on the contractors they have attempted to hire. A copy of the tenants’ lease agreement obtained by Texas Monthly states that “major maintenance and repairs†are the landlord’s responsibility.
Reached by phone, Batteau justified the lack of repairs, saying all who had gone long periods without water were behind on their rent, and denied that he had stopped anyone from hiring plumbers....