Threatened with eviction, elderly public housing resident remains in home

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - A beloved 80-year-old public housing resident who was facing eviction has apparently won at least a temporary reprieve. Court records show Bobbie Figures was scheduled to be removed from her home of 18 years on Sunday, but that was before State Representative Senfronia Thompson became involved.

Figures was accused by a manager with the Houston Housing Authority of allowing two grandsons and her estranged husband to reside at her unit in the past. Multiple neighbors have volunteered to testify that those allegations are false.

"They would have to haul me out of here and take me to jail to take all my stuff," said Figures. Despite her having spent two decades advocating for residents at the Forest Green Town Homes currently serving on the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, the agency proceeded with the eviction.

Alerted to the impending removal by FOX 26, Texas Rep. Thompson intervened on Friday by demanding a re-hearing for Figures with legal counsel on hand this time to call witnesses supporting her account. The strategy appears to have worked with the eviction date passing without action.

"I have helped everybody over here," said Figures. "It does not matter. I don't have much money, but what little I have I divide it with them. If they need food, I feed them. I have done a lot here on these apartments that management didn't take care of." 

For its part, the Housing Authority says there are facts involved in the case it cannot share because of privacy rules.

Figures says the allegations against her were made by a former Forest Green manager who was transferred after residents signed a petition requesting her removal. She will attend a meeting with fellow commissioners on Tuesday and deal face-to-face with the administrators still trying evict her.