New furnace among the many repairs made at Joseph Floyd Manor
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The work to bring Joseph Floyd Manor up to a passing inspection grade continues after receiving a 19 out of 100 on its last inspection almost exactly a year ago.
Joseph Floyd Manor is a low-income housing complex catering mostly to seniors in downtown Charleston.
Last year, inspectors could find little right with the building, and since then the board of the Charleston County Housing and Redevelopment Authority has been finding ways to bring the 70-year-old building up to code.
Since last October, the board of directors have been working through a corrective action plan with more than 300 items to address. Some of those items are as simple as overgrown vegetation and broken locks while others are more complex and expensive like HVAC and plumbing repairs.
Altogether, there are 332 items listed in the corrective action plan – 93 are complete with many more currently in the works. A good number of the projects not yet finished are those that require capitol funds after project grants fell through. Other projects are waiting on a structural assessment of the building to be done. The board believes that assessment should be done by the end of this month.
While many of the most expensive projects are still waiting funds, managers are finding creative ways to tackle some big-ticket issues. Recently they were able to use excess COVID relief dollars to purchase a much-needed new boiler – one of the biggest items on the list. Board Chair Sandino Moses says that’s a huge win.
“It’s extremely important to have that boiler online because obviously the boiler controls a lot of different mechanisms in the building of JFM – heat, water and so on and so forth,” Moses said. “So those are definitely the things that are essential resources that our tenants need. We are very excited.”
Moses says they have spent a lot of time getting their budget control. He says it might not be flashy, but it is critical to getting the big-ticket items completed. All 332 items in the corrective action plan are slated to be finished by June of next year.
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