ST. LOUIS — Rick Lingard says recovering from the physical and mental trauma of being shot in the stomach in his own home eight years ago has not been nearly as difficult as dealing with what he calls Habitat for Humanity’s refusal to maintain the vacant properties it owns around his St. Louis home.
The nonprofit, which builds homes for families in need, says it has plans to build another seven homes near the former officer’s residence.
Yet the property has been left vacant for at least five years.
Lingard said months will sometimes pass before someone comes to cut the grass. Some weeds were so tall Thursday that they’ve started to swallow three trailers on the property and at least two fire hydrants.
On Thursday, Lingard said it was the worst he's ever seen it.
“Even what happened to me didn't force me to move, but living in these kinds of conditions is definitely making me look for another place to live,” he said. “And that's the unfortunate part about me is that I can get over almost losing my life, but this right here is something that I can't control.”
In a statement, Habitat for Humanity’s Chief Executive Officer Kimberly McKinney, wrote “most of the property” has been on a lawn-cutting schedule that takes place every other week.
“Challenges, including recent rains, reflect higher than normal grass,” she wrote. “As Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis strives to maintain a reputation as a good community partner, we certainly will address the issue expeditiously. But for a slowdown due to the Covid-19, seven additional homes would currently be under construction in this neighborhood. Collectively, the development represents an investment of $3 million and 14 new homes. Habitat is as anxious as anyone to get phase two of this project underway.”
About 12 hours after issuing this statement, multiple trucks from the city's Forestry Department descended upon Lingard's neighborhood, hacking away at the overgrown weeds, grass and other debris.
"You're not going to believe this," Lingard texted me, along with the pictures of the work being done.
The problem, Lingard fears, is the fix is only temporary.
Lingard said he has pictures of multiple times the property has been overgrown through the years and said there hasn't ever been a consistent lawn-cutting schedule.
His neighbor, Natasha Travis, said she’s heard Habitat’s representatives promise they will start building homes for five years now.
She moved there in 2012.
“I'm not an idiot,” she said. “That's what they will do to try to pacify the neighbors. They’ll say that, ‘We're going to start building, we're going to start building.’
“Well, it's five years later, and they haven't built anything, nor have they even gone into those (trailers).”
She said she’s called aldermen, senators and the city to report the problems to no avail.
“I just think it's disheartening that we have to get attorneys, and we have to go through the media just to get you to come up and cut your grass, when you're an organization who is about developing neighborhoods and developing people and then you basically treat this area basically like a slumlord,” she said. “And I think that's just absolutely terrible.
“The Bible says, ‘Don't let your good be spoken evil.’ And unfortunately, I can speak much evil of Habitat’s good. And I think that's terrible.”
Lingard said the experience has shaken his faith in the organization, too.
“The people that are making donations, whether it's $10 or $10 million, they need know that this is the way they treat people,” he said. “If you're going to be a good organizations then be good, all the way around.
“Just not when you can say, ‘Hey, we built this house for this low-income family and, now they're doing good.’ What about the people that didn't need you. I don't need you, but we want to live as well.”
He’s filed a lawsuit against Habitat for Humanity as well as the original developer, Michael Woodling, because appraisers have told him his home has depreciated in value anywhere between $20,000 and $30,000. His attorney, Herman Jimerson, said Thursday they believe Habitat is responsible for the property.
Lingard gets emotional when talking about it, especially when it comes to his children and how embarrassed they are to invite friends to come over.
He told a story about the time his 17-year-old daughter was going on her first date and the boy’s mother brought her son to their house.
“For them to see the kind of conditions we are living in, it was horrendous to me,” he said.
Lingard’s home is only one of four that Woodling built during the 2000s with plans to build a subdivision. It sits along with three others on a culdesac, but to get to it, you have to pass by the unsightly land.
Lingard moved there in 2008 – around the same time the housing market crash sank Woodling’s plans to build more homes there.
Four years later, Lingard got shot. His injuries ended his police career. He was 45.
He didn't want to talk about what he remembers about the day he was shot, saying he didn't want to revisit it.
But did share some details about his survival. He's had four surgeries and still suffers from pain daily. Doctors had to remove sections of his intestines.
In 2015, Habitat for Humanity built seven homes near Lingard's, he said. During construction, the nonprofit moved the trailers onto the yet-to-be-developed property – and that’s where they’ve sat ever since, Lingard said.
Residents have seen a mattress near the trailers and found needles and other evidence of drug use and prostitution around there. Pitbulls once came out of the weeds near Lingard’s garage. He said he wasn’t hurt, but startled.
“I truly feel like an animal begging to have my cage cleared,” he said. “It’s embarrassing. I can’t have people over. I just want to have a nice place to live and feel good about paying my mortgage every month.”
Lingard said he’s called the police. Even though his home is within St. Louis County, the vacant property in question falls within the city’s limits.
Officers he once worked with came out and tagged the trailers after he showed them the city’s ordinance that states they can only be on a site for a maximum of 60 days.
But he said they also told him they couldn’t do much more about the situation because they didn’t want to be accused of giving one of their former colleagues any special treatment.
“For me, you know, spending as much time as I spent on the police department and trying to help as many people as I possibly could and do right and then I’d come home to a place that I can basically lay all my burdens down,” he said. “And when I come home that's more burdens for me.
“I have to worry about my wife coming home at night and going into the garage and somebody jumping from behind the tree that they have refused to cut. At some point, you just want to be able to relax in your house, and I'm sure I speak for the residents up here, I don't find my house relaxing at this point.”