For years, the problems mounted at Maple Ridge Apartments: faulty electrical outlets, insect infestations, heating systems that broke down even as temperatures plummeted.
Then came the deadly fire in late December that forced Denise Gaston and her neighbors to flee into the night, some wearing only slippers and pajamas under their coats. Outside the burning building, they could hear a woman screaming for help.
Firefighters rescued two children and their mother from their third-floor apartment, but the youngest — 2-year-old Praise Lemons — died that night.
Days later, on a tour of the low-income housing complex, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey called the tenants’ living conditions “horrible” and said the out-of-state owners — a Seattle firm called Vitus Group LLC — had allowed the buildings to fall into dangerous disrepair.
Even as residents like Ms. Gaston were forced from their homes and into temporary housing at a hotel, Mr. Gainey said city officials were struggling to identify the people who led the corporation.
But by then, city officials had been in touch with the company’s executives for years, and Pittsburgh’s own inspectors had turned up safety violations at the property after Vitus purchased it, records obtained by the Post-Gazette show.
Just hours before the fire, a city official had traded emails with the company’s development director, Brooke Kim, over financing the rehabilitation of the deteriorating housing complex.
The city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority — which is led by Mr. Gainey’s chief of staff, Kyle Chintalapalli — had pledged to issue millions of dollars in public debt on the company’s behalf. The authority also played a key role in the firm’s purchase of Maple Ridge Apartments in 2022, Mr. Gainey’s first year in office, the records show.
Starting that September, months before Vitus bought the complex, URA officials had been in talks with the company about its pursuit of public money to help pay for upgrades and repairs at the property in the East Hills neighborhood, one of the city’s poorest.
For Vitus, a key part of the plan for the complex relied on a federal tax credit created decades ago to entice private developers to invest in low-income housing.
The company’s bid for that federal program — basically, a 10-year tax cut that would help finance the project — needed a key boost from the URA: a promise that the city would sell millions in tax-exempt bonds to finance massive loans to the company.
The city moved quickly. On Nov. 10, 2022, less than two months after Vitus first reached out to the URA, the agency’s board of directors — chaired by Mr. Chintalapalli — unanimously approved the $17 million bond issue.
Just over a month after the vote, on Dec. 13, a Vitus subsidiary bought the 91-unit complex for $9.5 million.
Maple Ridge had become the latest addition to Vitus’ real estate empire — a portfolio that has grown to more than 130 low-income housing properties across 30 states, stretching from Alaska to Florida.
The 30-year-old company boasts on its website of projects that have revitalized homes for disadvantaged families nationwide, bringing upgraded appliances and “a substantial renovation of each property.”
But at Maple Ridge, conditions continued to worsen.
‘A lot of neglect’
In January 2023, a month after Vitus took ownership, Allegheny County health inspectors found that the heat had failed in one of the buildings. Not a single apartment had a temperature higher than 60 degrees, according to the county’s report.
Eight months later, county inspectors visited Apartment L in building 2117 — the unit where the deadly fire would later break out — and found a cockroach infestation, one of several they would uncover throughout the complex.
As county workers continued to turn up problems, the city’s own inspectors visited the property at least seven times in the two years leading up to the 2024 fire.
In one unit, Pittsburgh code enforcers discovered a cracked bathroom ceiling and exposed electrical outlets that were not generating power.
“There was a lot of neglect and issues with maintenance,” said Dajzah Williams, who lived at Maple Ridge for five years before she moved out in November 2023.
Warm months brought more insect outbreaks. In winter, Ms. Williams draped blankets over her windows to try to trap the heat when the furnace stopped working, and she would hear rodents crawling inside her walls, she said.
Maintenance requests began taking longer and longer in recent years, Ms. Gaston said.
When her blinds began to deteriorate, Ms. Gaston asked for replacements but said she never received them. A loose electrical outlet in her bathroom went unfixed for a month, she said.
The problems added urgency to Vitus’ plans to rehabilitate the deteriorating property. But by late 2024, the company still hadn’t secured the federal tax credit that would unlock its access to the $17 million in bonds the URA had pledged two years earlier.
In September, Ms. Kim again reached out to the city agency about the company’s plan to re-apply for the program.
The sprawling rehabilitation would be the housing complex’s first in decades.
Over the years, other parts of the larger housing development around Maple Ridge Apartments had gotten significantly more attention and upkeep while the low-income buildings languished, Vitus wrote in its application for the tax credits.
The company’s multimillion-dollar rehabilitation project would finally fix “longstanding issues of neglect and mismanagement,” according to the company’s application.
“The issues created by the former owner through neglect over time are not issues that we created,” Ms. Kim said. “They are the issues we are committed to addressing through the comprehensive rehabilitation we have been planning for several years now.”
That sudden infusion of cash — $9 million in all — would transform the living conditions for residents who have few options for affordable housing.
Inside, the 91 apartments would get new doors, carpets, plumbing fixtures and energy-efficient appliances. Safety and security upgrades outside would add cameras, lighting, repaved roads and sidewalks, and repaired railings.
“We are committed to seeing this project through and delivering on our promise to the community,” Ms. Kim told the Post-Gazette last week.
The Gainey administration defended its role in the project, saying its support was “driven by a steadfast dedication to transparency, care, and the understanding that the decision must serve the Maple Ridge residents and East Hills Community.”
“We look forward to the property owners making demonstrable progress on property conditions that improve the quality of life for the residents as we continue to evaluate our collective options, including potential long-term public reinvestment in the property,” Mr. Gainey’s press secretary, Olga George, wrote in response to questions from the Post-Gazette.
Affordable housing crisis
For the city, the restoration that could begin as early as late this year would be a major overhaul of an important piece of its affordable housing inventory — something that’s in short supply and has become a central issue in two consecutive mayor’s races.
During his term in office, Mr. Gainey has pushed for an extensive change in the city’s zoning laws that would require developers to set aside a portion of any new housing projects for low-income renters — a policy that became another flashpoint in a string of clashes with the real estate industry that began shortly after he took office.
In late February, the mayor took aim at out-of-state corporate property owners who, he said, were acting as absentee landlords and raising the cost of housing across the city.
“We have to use every tool at our disposal to address the sweeping crisis that we're in,” Mr. Gainey said.
As the need grows, the city itself has struggled to turn its own inventory of derelict homes into affordable housing — with hundreds of properties under its control in dangerous and decrepit conditions.
Nonprofits and housing advocates have for years complained that the local government throws up too many barriers for those who want to buy and fix up the city-controlled properties.
As city leaders search for solutions to the affordable housing crisis, the URA late last year told Vitus it planned once again to throw its support behind the company’s application for public aid to help refurbish Maple Ridge.
On Dec. 27, the URA’s residential lending manager, Ben Peyton, told Ms. Kim in an email that just two weeks earlier, the agency had briefed its board of directors on the projects they wanted to support — including Maple Ridge.
“Thanks, Ben!” Ms. Kim wrote at 3:57 p.m. “Happy Holidays!”
Five hours later, the apartment building at 2117 Park Hill Drive was burning.
Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fire, but officials said it likely wasn’t an electrical problem or a malfunctioning space heater.
When investigators report the cause, “Vitus will ensure any additional measures needed to prevent such incidents in the future are swiftly implemented,” Ms. Kim wrote to the Post-Gazette.
In the aftermath of the blaze, the city condemned the building where the fire occurred and safety inspectors descended on other parts of the complex, where they found fire alarm panels not working properly.
Then, in late January, as a cold snap gripped the region, the heating failed in three buildings, inspectors said.
For Ms. Gaston, the fire forced her from her home into a hotel, where she spent three months living with her mother and grandson.
Memories from the night of the blaze still linger, she said, sometimes triggered by the sounds of a fire truck, a fire alarm, even a smoke detector.
“It’s been a nightmare,” she said.
Staff writer Hallie Lauer contributed.
First Published: April 13, 2025, 8:00 a.m.
Updated: April 14, 2025, 4:49 p.m.
