We've been spoiled

Tweet

I've had this little discussion that I wanted to write about, but I decided to calm down a bit before I started this topic. I live in a senior/disabled building. We have the worst landlords that we have ever had. We've had to push to get ourselves heard, get things done or just fight for minimal living standards, but the blizzards that the east coast was hit with was the straw that broke the camel's back for us. First, everyone that lives here is here because of a HUD grant. HUD grants are for the senior, senior/disabled or disabled that can not afford housing because of income or illness and qualify for HUD housing due to these two things. Now, we are a very tight community. We look out for each other and before the current landlords, we had a workable relationship with the old owners. The did what they had to do by law without being forced to do it and we were very appreciative of that fact. For the past few winters, we who live here, have had to shovel the sidewalks and parking lots ourselves because the current owners didn't see the need to get to it right away. Rather then complain about it and risking someone falling on the ice or emergency equipment not being to get in on the property, we've gone ahead and shoveled ourselves. Complaints were still filed. With the blizzard we all knew that things were at an emergency state and Maryland was at a stand still, so we didn't expect anyone to get out right away. So, we waited. The first storm hit. After 3 days and word of a second storm coming in we still had not had any of the snowed cleared from the first storm. During the second storm we still heard nothing or saw nothing being done. When the second storm ended many of the people that lived here were going out in shifts to shovel snow. We even had a man, who was out in his wheelchair trying to clear snow. I was trapped in the building because I couldn't get anywhere with my scooter and the man in a wheelchair couldn't even get out to the curb. No one could get their cars out to get to the store or a pharmacy. Well, to make a long story short, after 2 weeks from the last blizzard still the owners never even sent any of the maintenance out to clear the drifts away from the parking lots. We had friends and family that called the owners, and the local government was called and complaints were called in on the owners. We had the property management's rep. come for a meeting. He first tried to remind us that Maryland had been in a state of emergency, like we hadn't noticed, and said that in the past we had been spoiled and our feeling of entitlement was just too much for someone like us to expect. So, what are we left to do? We are not entitled to our rights because we just don't deserve so. We are too old and disabled to be afforded our rights. We are basically the bottom of the barrel.....or are we?