Asset Living / The Reserve SA

In June 2021, Nina and their roommates contacted HTU after months of living in dangerous conditions at The Reserve SA apartment complex, a student housing complex in San Antonio managed by Asset Living. Black mold spread in the apartment for over six months and was never properly treated or removed.  That apartment also had ongoing issues with the A/C for months, in the brutal Texas heat. The doctor of one of Nina’s roommates, who had cancer during the period of their lease, wrote a letter explaining the danger this apartment posed to the health of his client. Still, Asset Living refused to act. When Nina and their roommates decided to leave out of concern for their health, Asset Living charged them thousands of dollars each for terminating the lease. 

 

In response to this injustice, Nina led a campaign, alongside HTU organizers, with the demand of dropping the fees. With the support of many fellow tenants, Nina delivered their demand letter to a representative’s home in Houston and later held a picket at the Asset Living Houston offices. At one point, Asset Living’s Vice President Joe Goodwin called to bully Nina and gaslight them about the severity of their apartment’s issues. 

 

Unfortunately after moving to another city, Nina had to end the campaign without their demands being met. Many tenants at The Reserve SA shared similar experiences online and in response to the campaign, and for Asset Living it seems that mistreating low income college students is their business model. In particular, Joe Goodwin, Ryan McGrath and Richard S Owen Jr. are culpable for their role in allowing these terrible living conditions to exist, denying the severity of the problems and charging fees to escape the dangerous environment they were responsible for.