SPRINGFIELD — U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski is demanding to know why a building management company accused of failing to provide safe and clean living conditions in one of its Springfield-based apartment buildings has not taken action.
Budzinski, a Democrat who represents Illinois’ 13th congressional district, sent a letter Monday to Pacific Management Inc., seeking answers about Sangamon Towers, 424 N. Fourth St., which residents and workers say is plagued by bedbugs, mold, human waste in public places and insufficient security protocols.
The privately owned building receives funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide affordable housing for low-income, elderly and disabled residents.
“We don’t operate like that and those are things I don’t expect to hear,” Pacific Management President and CEO Jeffrey Richards told Capitol News Illinois.
Budzinski said the building was flagged to her office by the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union, which has members who work or live there SEIU Healthcare is a union representing home care and nursing home workers in the Midwest.
“This goes well beyond a simple light bulb that needs to be changed,” Budzinski told Capitol News Illinois in an interview. “This is about uninhabitable living conditions, and these are residents that are paying to live there, and they very well deserve to have safe, healthy living conditions.”
In late August, after months of conversations with residents, Budzinski approached HUD with the concerns, requesting information about the frequency of inspections and compliance with HUD standards.
HUD responded in a letter on Sept. 12, sharing that they had only received one formal complaint about the Sangamon Towers property, and that it had received a high score on its last inspection: 94 out of 100. Publicly available HUD data confirms that score.
Yet, past reporting has documented HUD’s inspection process as failing to flag dangerous living conditions in federally subsidized housing. HUD has since shifted to a new set of standards for inspecting publicly subsidized housing, but full implementation of requirements to meet those standards has faced delays.
Although Sangamon Towers received a satisfactory score on the inspection, HUD’s September letter to Budzinski notes deficiencies “for cockroach presence in two units and a mold-like substance in a bathroom of another unit.” Neither issue was associated with the original complaint submitted to HUD.
Budzinski asked residents and local stakeholders why they hadn’t filed more complaints. The answer she got back: fear of retaliation.
Read now: Budzinski Sangamon Towers Letter
In her Monday letter to Richards, the Pacific Management president and CEO, Budzinski wrote that the resident who filed the complaint to HUD was allegedly treated differently by management, including delayed delivery of mail and delayed resolution of work orders filed by the resident.
“Due to this alleged retaliation by management, other residents were hesitant to follow suit with their own complaints,” Budzinski wrote.
Pacific Management owns 17 residential properties in Illinois, most of which serve low-income and senior communities in northern and central parts of the state, including Chicago.
Illinois Times reported similar complaints about Near North, a separate property owned by the company in Springfield, while a 2023 article by Wednesday Journal documented numerous violations at another property in Oak Park.
In an email to CNI, Oak Park Trustee James Taglia said he had the building inspected and found a similar situation as was reported at Sangamon Towers.
“They racked up more than 500 violations for 200 units,” Taglia wrote. “It’s a constant battle and we are currently fighting with them over the exact same things.”
Reacting to the Illinois Times coverage, Richards attributed the issues to Springfield’s unhoused population, some of whom suffer from addiction and mental health issues.
“In turn, those external issues impact Sangamon’s tenants, operation, and security on an ongoing basis,” he said.
Richards added that management was working on addressing the issues, including by contracting for 24/7 security at the property. The company does not practice or tolerate retaliation against residents who submit complaints, according to Richards.
Budzinski said she would follow up again with HUD and continue working with state and local partners if she did not receive a satisfactory response to her letter from Pacific Management.
“We’re going to continue to pursue this until we get answers and we see action from this management company that they are going to fully address these very serious concerns that the residents have,” Budzinski said.
Affordable housing advocates said this situation is not unique and worry that proposed budget cuts to HUD will make situations like this one more common.
“Inadequate HUD budgets and the government shutdown, the terminations of staff at HUD are making it much more likely or inevitable that these types of situations might become more frequent or more difficult to deal with,” said Bob Palmer, policy director at Housing Action Illinois.
In June, the Trump administration proposed a 51% cut to gross discretionary funding for HUD in 2026. The budget proposes eliminating programs like Section 8 housing choice vouchers, project-based housing, public housing and housing for the elderly and people with disabilities.
“It’s crucial that this housing be maintained and preserved because there is such a shortage of affordable housing in Springfield, in the rest of Illinois and the rest of the country,” Palmer said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.