by JC Hallman, Oklahoma Watch
May 14, 2025

In November, Ashanti Nunoo, 22, received a Section 8 voucher and moved into the 5560 Medical Center Apartments, a mixed-income complex on North Portland Avenue in Oklahoma City. She had a baby boy, and she was studying to become a nurse.

On January 24, Nunoo’s kitchen sink backed up. Bits of food bobbed in dirty water among flecks of a nasty black material.

Nunoo called the complex’s 24-hour emergency number; no one answered. Maintenance requests on the resident app received no response by the end of the day.

The problem grew worse. Raw sewage rose up into Nunoo’s dishwasher, and water began leaking from behind a sink and into a bedroom closet.

“It was literally just everywhere,” Nunoo said.

She escaped to her mother’s house that night. In the morning, the leasing office told her a pipe had burst. But the problem was worse than that. Nunoo’s uncle came over with a Shop-Vac, but the dirty water kept coming.

“It was unlivable,” Nunoo said. “At the time, my baby was only three months. He couldn’t live in there. I couldn’t live in there.”

Nunoo didn’t meet her upstairs neighbor, Nichelle Watson, until she returned a couple of weeks later to salvage her belongings. Watson, 55, made a video of Nunoo’s unit, a frenzied tour of pools of standing water, stained baseboards, gathered mold, and sinks and floors spattered with fetid streaks of brown and black.

“This is feces,” Watson said. “You gotta have a hazmat suit to come through here. This is all backed-up sewage. This is the conditions we are living under. This is what your tax dollars are paying for. This is what Section 8 voucher holders have to deal with.”

Watson had already called the Oklahoma City Housing Authority. She, too, had sewage in her dishwasher and sinks. So did her neighbors, and she had photos of all of it. An inspector was sent and the leasing manager at 5560 Medical Center Apartments was served with a 24-hour notice to make repairs.

When the repairs weren’t made, Nunoo was given a new voucher.

That was about all that could be done, explained OCHA Executive Director Mark Gillett, adding that between public housing and vouchers, OCHA monitors 9,000 apartments.

“We are well beyond capacity,” he said wearily. “We spend the full amount of money granted us by Congress every year. We would like to have more units. We could fill more.”

Gillett said that OCHA went after a few landlords per year to remove Section 8 subsidies, but when it came to moving costs and the clothes and furniture that Nunoo had lost to sewage flowing into her apartment, she was on her own.

“Her recourse would be with the landlord,” Gillett said.

Watson called others as well, including Oklahoma Watch. After several visits to 5560 Medical Center Apartments, Oklahoma Watch made contact with leasing manager Karina Cisneros. Cisneros declined to comment apart from offering a firm denial of what happened in Nunoo’s apartment.

“We haven’t had any complaints about sewage,” Cisneros said.

Cisneros provided an email address for the owner of 5560 Medical Center Apartments, a mysterious Houston-based company called Greenline Apartment Management.

The email address was fake.

You Can See It from Space

One could be forgiven for expecting that 5560 Medical Center Apartments would provide clean, safe, elegant living. Comprising about thirty buildings, the complex stands across from Integris Health Baptist Medical Center, and is flanked by additional medical businesses, an infectious disease clinic and the offices of an eye surgeon.

Billboards on the property advertise chicly renovated kitchens and bathrooms outfitted with fancy vessel sinks.

However, less than a third of the buildings of 5560 Medical Center Apartments have pitched, new roofs; the rest are flat and white, and in grainy Google Earth imagery the structures appear old, stained with rust and pocked with holes.

An open records request contradicted Cisneros’s claim that there had been no sewage complaints.

Since 2009, at least 80 complaints have been made against the property now called 5560 Medical Center Apartments. Residents have turned to authorities to report on everything from crumbling staircases to flea-ridden cats living in vacant units to failed heat in winter and water leaking from walls and ceilings.

Fourteen complaints specifically addressed sewage leaking into apartments or bubbling up on the complex grounds, most from 2021-2024.

Keith Carey, 56, lived in the complex with his mother and suffered through several years of minor problems until 2022, when sewage began rising into their sinks and bathtub and overflowing their toilet. Management attempted to fix it by bringing in plumbers for months of work, blocking off their kitchen.

“They made us stay in the apartment and didn’t give us a hotel or anything,” Carey said. “We had to eat out a lot.”

They finally left, but the ordeal cost them a great deal in stress and lost belongings.

Other reports complained of blackwater coming up through showers and filling bathtubs, and of raw sewage seeping up through the land in common areas and flowing into apartments.

Terry Rodgers, 76, still lives at 5560 Medical Center Apartments; she has lived in the complex on three different occasions, once when she was in her 20s. She filed a complaint about leaks coming into her cabinets.

“For two weeks, my sinks were full of yuck,” Rodgers said.

More Sewage Problems

Watson knew what was happening.

Before sewage climbed into her own upstairs unit, she had done some make-ready work for Greenline Apartment Management, cleaning spaces to get them ready for new tenants. She was paid $65 for a one-bedroom unit, a little more for extra bedrooms. She was aware of sewage problems at another Oklahoma City property owned by Greenline Apartment Management, the 717 Ventura South Apartments on Santa Rosa Drive.

Watson also knew that not all of the spaces at 5560 Medical Center Apartments were decrepit. Some had fireplaces, patios, a view of a small lake.

“I would ask, ‘Why wasn’t this unit offered to me?’” Watson said.

Watson explained that the apartment immediately beneath her own unit was in even worse condition than Nunoo’s space.

“There’s a lot of units over here that are being rented out under those conditions,” Watson said.

She said aloud what Gillett was unable to deny: Greenline Apartment Management was continuing to receive Section 8 money while making no effort to address problems that had left residents living in squalor.

No One Wants to Talk About Sewage

It’s tricky to even figure out whose problem it is.

A Development Services inspector on site at 5560 Medical Center Apartments refused comment. A department representative later explained that they were in the same situation as OCHA: if a problem was discovered, they could serve an apartment manager with a notice to effect repairs within 48 hours.

Housing and Urban Development refused an interview request; Code Enforcement said they were responsible only for problems outside of a building. The Health Department received four complaints in 2021, but did not offer evidence of action having been taken.

Oklahoma City Utilities Department Public Information Officer Jasmine Morris said the reality of sewage problems was poorly understood; a pipe running from a public street onto private property crossed an arbitrary threshold that determined who would be responsible for fixing a problem.

Prompted by Oklahoma Watch, a city team was sent to flush the lines near 5560 Medical Center Apartments; no issue was discovered that the city was responsible for addressing.

“We just respond to the best of our ability,” Morris said. “We absolutely want to take responsibility for what we can address.”

Oklahoma City Director of Public Information Kristy Yager acknowledged a widespread problem.

“There are many properties in Oklahoma City that have maintenance issues,” Yager said. “There are many out-of-state owners that don’t take care of their properties, and the people who live there.”

Three Pillars Capital Group

It takes some doing to figure out who owns Greenline Apartment Management.

The company’s website does not list officers or leadership; there is no phone number and no physical address apart from a Houston P.O. box.

The website’s employment page lists available positions for property managers, maintenance workers, and leasing agents in Houston, Oklahoma City, and Pasadena, Texas. Recently, an accounts payable executive position with the company was available in Bangalore, India.

Documents obtained from the Texas Secretary of State link Greenline Apartment Management to Three Pillars Capital Group, which claims to manage 3,000 residential units across several states and was founded in 2017 by Gautam Goyal and Joshua Welch.

Welch worked as a systems engineer for defense contractor Lockheed Martin before turning to real estate.

Goyal worked for a hedge fund and ran one of his own. Now, in addition to donating $1 million to the University of Houston for the Gautam Goyal Family Scholarship and pursuing for-profit real estate ventures with Three Pillars, Goyal leads a nonprofit called World Will Be Better which makes vague boasts of initiatives intended to benefit individuals who are unable to provide safe living conditions for themselves.

In 2018, 5560 Medical Center Apartments was sold to an Oklahoma-based company called City Heights at Medical Center LLC.

In 2022, the property was sold again, to a company with almost exactly the same name, City Heights Medical LLC; it was now based in Delaware.

The Delaware-based City Heights Medical LLC has the same Houston physical address as Three Pillars Capital Group.

In 2021, as sewage problems left tenants living in filth, 5560 Medical Center Apartments had a market value of $5.5 million; in 2025, the market value of the property is $15 million.

In 2023, Three Pillars secured $300 million in new capital commitments to make further investments in distressed assets in Oklahoma and Texas, according to GlobeSt.

Greenline Apartment Management, Three Pillars Capital Group, and World Will be Better did not respond to repeated queries for comment.

After Oklahoma Watch made several calls to a phone number associated with Welch, a voice answered and issued profane, violent threats in response to a request to speak with Mr. Welch.

“He’s fucking your mother right now,” the voice said. “Then he’s going to fuck your sister.”

Sewage Problems are Spread Far and Wide

In 2014, Oklahoma legislators moved to address sewage infrastructure issues when noxious odors began to seep out of the Capitol ventilation system.

Then-State Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman complained that the offensive smell plagued him at work.

“The vent was right next to my desk,” Bingam said at the time.

A bill promptly passed, approving $160 million for repairs that would take up to five years to complete. Workers struggled to keep up with temporary fixes while lawmakers struggled to pass legislation through the lower chamber.

“They’re doing really good work, but they’re just putting Band-Aids on a larger wound,” an Office of Management and Enterprise Services spokesman said at the time.

Yager said that work on sewage lines near the Capitol is ongoing today.

In 2018, Highland Ridge Apartments in Edmond was investigated for raw sewage pouring out of bathrooms into hallways. In 2024, the property sold to another mysterious company called Jubilee Residences.

In the last few years, sewage problems have plagued numerous apartment complexes in Tulsa, including Sunset Plaza Apartments, Heston Point, Inhofe Plaza Apartments, McKinley Court Apartments, and Vista Shadow Mountain Apartments, sometimes resulting in condemnations.

Despite resident complaints of out-of-state owners failing to effect repairs, the Tulsa Housing Authority denied that out-of-state ownership was a problem.

“Tulsa Housing Authority does not currently have an issue with out-of-state landlords not meeting the Section 8 guidelines for maintenance,” Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs Ginny Hensley said in a written statement.

Nevertheless, in 2022, the Tulsa city council unanimously passed ordinances to strengthen the city’s code enforcement of rental properties, and Tulsa mayor Munroe Nichols’ first budget, delivered on May 1, makes significant investments based on a soon-to-be-completed sewer system study.

In Oklahoma City, the Department of Mental Health’s 2024 strategic plan included efforts to address sewage seeping from walls and nonfunctional plumbing at several of the department’s properties.

Too Much and Not Enough

Recent legislative efforts to address Oklahoma’s housing crisis are a mixed bag, according to a recent article by Sabine Brown of the Oklahoma Policy Institute.

On the one hand, valiant efforts to extend eviction timelines and create a workforce housing commission offer the potential for systemic change.

On the other hand, Oklahoma remains one of just six states that do not protect tenants against retaliatory actions by landlords, and legislators have failed to address the state’s exponentially rising homelessness problem.

“Instead of addressing the cause, some legislators are choosing to address only its symptoms,” Brown wrote.

The legislative effort that was most likely to impact tenants at 5560 Medical Center Apartments was House Bill 2015, championed by Lawton representative Danial Pae. HB 2015 sought to extend law that enables tenants to pay for repairs themselves and deduct it from their rent. Under current law, tenants can spend up to a month’s rent; HB 2015 sought to extend the amount to two months.

HB 2015 failed to move out of committee.

As chair of the Oversight Committee, Midwest City representative Robert Manger could have brought HB 2015 forward for a vote; Manger did not respond to queries about why the bill was held over to 2026.

Regardless, HB 2015 overlooked tenants like Nichelle Watson and Ashanti Nunoo, who may not be able to front money for much-needed repairs.

Watson’s next-door neighbor, Greg Calvin, 61, another Section 8 voucher holder, said there was sewage in his dishwasher and that his dishes were smelly and dirty even after they were washed.

“I’m on a fixed income,” Calvin said. “I can’t afford to pay for anything I shouldn’t have to worry about.”

More ominously, Calvin said he had recently spent four days in Integris hospital across the street, with a mysterious virus. He didn’t know if it was related to the sewage problems in his upstairs apartment.

Watson had been sick too.

“Mold causes health problems,” Watson said. “Sewage causes health problems. These apartments need to be condemned. Y’all are making people live in conditions they normally wouldn’t.”

Nunoo had been lucky to be able to move on, but her problems weren’t over.

“I’m overwhelmed with having to figure out a whole plan,” Nunoo said. “Buying everything, starting everything over, starting from scratch with the help of my mom. But I have other siblings. She can only do so much.”

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Sewage Happens: Twice-Neglected Section 8 Tenants Live in Squalor appeared first on oklahomawatch.org

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article focuses on housing issues affecting low-income tenants, particularly those on Section 8 housing vouchers, highlighting landlord neglect and the challenges faced by residents due to inadequate maintenance and sewage problems. It emphasizes systemic failures, calls for increased accountability of property owners and public agencies, and notes the limitations of current legislative efforts to protect tenants. The coverage leans slightly left by advocating for stronger tenant protections and government intervention in housing quality, but it maintains a factual, investigative tone without strong partisan rhetoric.