MACON, Ga. — We've been following the housing situation at Miga Villa Apartments in Macon this week. Wednesday, people were told that five out of the eight apartments are unsafe to live in. On Thursday, they're shutting off the power to those five buildings.
Most of the people living in five out of the eight buildings were moved to the Regency Hotel Wednesday night. Code Enforcement arrived Thursday morning, and with the help of Georgia Power, shut down all the electricity to the mostly-vacant buildings. Residents have been coming by to pack up the last of their belongings.
Paula Ryles has lived at the Miga Villa Apartments for the past two years . She, her husband, and children were among the 14 families that moved to the Regency Wednesday night.
"It was kind of heartbreaking because of my children, but I finally just came to the conclusion that it was gonna happen eventually anyways,” she says.
Paula contacted the Macon-Bibb Economic Opportunity Council to get a hotel room for her family for the next month, but they have bigger issues to face now.
"When it comes to housing somewhere else, we have had no assistance. We got denied them paying the first month's rent and the first month's deposit, so right now, we just have to sack up a little money to move on,” she says.
Ryles says some of her Miga Villa neighbors have had to take off work for a week to pack up their things so they're not thrown away. She has some advice for those that are allowed to stay in the three remaining buildings.
"I just feel like code enforcement is going to come back and they're going to shut the whole property down, so I just feel if the people have assistance now, they might as well take it and run with it because it's gonna happen again,” Ryles says.
Macon-Bibb County Manager Keith Moffett tells us what we should expect to happen in the next couple of days.
In the next 24/48 hours, we’re giving the owner a more comprehensive list of code violations or structural violations, things that can be repaired,” Moffett says.
He wants to leave us with this.
"We cannot have someone living in unsafe conditions and once we present that information very clearly to the property owner and the tenant, it'll be up to them about how they move forward,” Moffett says.
People in the three remaining buildings will be allowed to stay and their power was not cut off.