Tenant Profile: Brian Fitzpatrick

Everyday our organization is fortunate to work with tenants whose stories affirm the importance of building Black political power in St. Louis.  Brian Fitzpatrick is one of them. Brian is St. Louis based tenant we’ve been organizing at the apartment complex, “The Fountains at Carondelet,” formerly known as Southwest Crossing Apartments. Scroll down to read his story.

Brian Fitzpatrick, photo story by Sasha Martin

My first apartment at this complex seemed real nice and comfortable. Then I started seeing how they wasn’t taking care of the maintenance. I had to find that out the hard way. I got up one morning, and saw my toilet was leaking. It was 2019, the same year that the river flooded over. I contacted the management company and they said, ‘We’ve got to dig a hole to figure out where the leak is coming from.’ They started in my bathroom, and pulled up one tile. That’s all they did the first day, and told me they would be back to finish the job. I ended up staying at my cousin's place while they worked. When I came back to get my things a couple of days later, I saw what they had done. 

They had tore my whole apartment up. They had ripped up the tub, toilet, and kitchen counter. My kitchen table was flipped over and all my furniture was against the wall. I went into the bathroom to grab my toiletries, and I saw they had dug a bigger hole right in front of the bathroom sink. There were other holes like it throughout the apartment. It looked like somebody had set a bomb off in there.

At that time, the apartment complex was called Southwest Crossing. And the owner of the complex was on the run from the federal government. He never took responsibility for the destruction of my home. He didn't say, "We're going to accommodate you because this is our fault." He just hauled ass, and the whole management team followed him. 

The new management company took over and re-named the complex, “The Fountains.” They didn’t understand what was going on with my apartment. They said, "we're gonna put you over here for 10 days while we try to figure it out.” Before the 10 days were up, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to move back over there. There wasn't no way they were going to get it back to the way it was. I was lucky to get my furniture out of there. If I had a lawyer representing me, I would have sued Southwest Crossing.

I stopped paying rent after the incident with Southwest Crossing. Shortly after that my furnace broke and that really set me back, because it ran up my electric bill. I had to use my money to pay my rent, and I fell behind on my electric. That's how me and Kennard came into contact. I normally don't like to ask nobody for help. But he talked me into getting involved with the work y’all are doing to organize tenants across the city.

I told Kennard about my broken furnace and he helped me apply for rental and utility assistance. I did get some assistance for my electric bill. But I’ve been waiting about four or five months for the rental assistance because of an issue with my paperwork. These delays have really set me back.

The city needs to be more lenient about getting the assistance out that people deserve. People out here really need it, and they don't need to go through red tape to get it.

Building tenant power with Action has motivated me to go out there and see if I can help somebody else. I want to let other tenants know that there’s organizations out there, who can help if you’re going through something.

I've been trying to get other people in the complex to talk up. Cause there's a lot of people that ain't talking up. They just sit there and letting shit happen to them. I wish people would understand that you gotta step up and say something. Don’t sit back and wait for the property management company to do the right thing.

I ain't scared about them retaliating against me, but I know there’s a real fear there for some people. They be on us about our rent, but they won't fix our shit. Then they threaten us with eviction. When the moratorium got lifted, they started putting eviction notices on people's doors. I think people were scared that if they said something, they were going to be kicked out. But the property management company can't kick you out for speaking your mind.

I would like to see the property managers maintain the Fountains to the liking of the tenants, so that tenants feel safe and comfortable. If they maintain it and do what they are supposed to do, this could be a beautiful little place.