AUSTIN — Hundreds of properties across Texas still have storm damage and repair delays, many in poor, communities of color.

We’ve covered numerous stories of families living with exposed walls, pest infestations, electrical issues and mold.

Februarys freeze exposed many issues that would have otherwise gone unnoticed, and now some housing agencies are saying, they’re using this as a learning experience.

There’s not a lot of peace and quiet in Lisa Rheams home these days. The noisy new addition to her apartment is an air purifier.

“It sure sucks,” she said.

This industrial-sized fan sits in her living room and it runs 24/7.

“It better work if it’s that loud,” she said.

It’s supposed to get rid of mold in the air and in the walls, built up from the storm. Rheams even bought bags that hang on the walls to collect the moisture in the air.

“This is supposed to last 60 days and this is day 21,” she said, showing us a bag full of water.

Rheams lives at Rosemont at Oak Valley in southeast Austin.

The mother of four is one of dozens of residents who have complained about the conditions here. She shows us pictures on her phone of rat feces in her vents and in her walls.

“I was eating and rat poop fell from my vent right where I was sitting,” she said.

Since February, there have been around 45 complaints with the Austin Code Department. A report the property owner submitted to the state says the complex has storm damage in 92 units.

But Rheams says she’s had problems long before February’s freeze.

“It took Uri [the storm] for them to start paying attention to our complaints,” she said.

That is also what it took to get public housing officials to pay attention.

Patrick Howard is the executive Vice President of the Strategic Housing Finance Corporation of Travis County.

“The storm probably just highlighted other things that were going on that we weren’t aware of,” Howard said.

SHFC’s purpose is to provide financing for housing development projects “that will provide decent, safe, and sanitary housing for persons of low and moderate income,” according to its website.

SHFC works with private developers and public entities to provide funding for affordable housing projects like Rosemont at Oak Valley, which it owns.

“We should obviously hold ourselves accountable and again. I think we’ve come to the realization of why there needs to be more involvement even if we’re interested in someone to take care of these things on our behalf, we’re still the owners,” Howard said.

Howard says since the storm, they are checking in with the new management team and communicating directly with tenants.

While Howard says they are making improvements, residents like Rheams say otherwise, so they are taking matters into their own hands.

“We can be one group, but we can also make that one voice and that voice can be strong as long as we stick together,” Rheams said.

The former property management group recently ended its contract and now the complex has new management. We reached out to the company for comment. The property manager told us they couldn’t comment.

Nonprofit groups working closely with Rosemont residents tell me that the new management company is still failing to make good on multiple promises they made publicly to tenants. We are hearing from tenants that repairs were rushed and poorly done, so people now have mold growing in their walls and they have to tear them down again. Some say they still haven’t received rent reimbursements that were promised months ago.