Trump Calls Baltimore 'Vermin Infested' While Feds Fail To Remove Rodents In Subsidized Housing
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BALTIMORE — President Donald Trump launched a multiday Twitter tirade last month directed at U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, sharing video footage of derelict Baltimore neighborhoods and asking why the Democratic congressman wasn’t doing more to address the “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” in his district.
Though Trump didn’t say so, some of the responsibility for any such conditions rests with his own administration. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has ultimate oversight of nearly 35,000 public housing and federally subsidized rental units in the city, many of which suffer from the squalor the president decried on social media. HUD has known for years of failing conditions in many of them but hasn’t taken steps to ramp up oversight as it has done in other regions, such as New York City.
“I’m afraid,” said Rochell Barksdale, sitting in her living room at McCulloh Homes, a public housing property that failed an inspection in March. Barksdale has asthma and other health issues exacerbated by mold. She’s allergic to roaches, which she now has in her kitchen.
“This is trauma,” she said, “living in public housing.”