Woman feeding lunch to kids at north side apartment complex told to stop

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Since April of last year four people have been shot at the Coppertree Apartments at 1415 West Gulf Bank.

“We had a lot of shooting going on,” said PEP volunteer Tammy Chavis. “The kids were afraid to actually go out and play.”

“My son was running in the street  when the bullets started flying,” said Tameka Mottley who started  PEP which stands for People Encouraging People.   

When school ended she tried to get a free lunch program offered by the city of Houston for the apartment complex.

“Because we didn’t have a club house they said we wouldn’t be eligible,” Chavis said.

That didn’t stop Mottley who got the prior management at Coppertree Apartments to donate an empty apartment from June through August 19th so none of the kids would go hungry.

“A lot of parents go to work a lot of the children have to kind of fend for themselves,” said PEP volunteer Candice Williams.

“We did everything painted put the shelves up made it as much as a safe haven as possible,” Mottley said.

With donations from two churches the apartment became not only somewhere to eat but also somewhere to go for dozens of kids.

“We do have a book club we have a dance team we have street Olympics,” Williams said.

But it’s all about to end.

These women say last Friday the new manager told them they had to be out of the apartment by 5pm Monday.

“All of a sudden new management came in no you can’t do this you can’t feed the kids we are not going to do this because the kids here are not a priority,” Chavis said. .

We went to ask the new manager about that.

“Actually I have no comment I can’t speak to you about anything right now,” is all the new manager had to say to us.

When we interviewed Mottely she was about 15 minutes away from her deadline to be out of the apartment and hand in the key.

We asked her what she was going to do.

“I’m a fighter,” Mottley said. “I don’t give up.”