Puerto Rico announces compulsory visits to assess conditions in housing projects

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico ’s government announced on Tuesday compulsory visits to hundreds of public housing projects to check on residents and their living conditions.

Juan Rosario Hernández, director of the Public Housing Administration, said more than a dozen agents will inspect a total of 56,000 units at 328 projects across the U.S. territory by the first week of March.

Agents will check on the welfare of children and elderly people as well as determine whether occupants are authorized to live there, he told Tele11, a local news station.

The announcement comes a week after neighbors in the U.S. territory’s biggest public housing project denounced alleged subhuman conditions of an apartment where a mother and her two children were living. The investigation is ongoing, with authorities noting the family has fled.

The Public Housing Administration seized 44 units last August it deemed were illegally occupied, noting that thousands of people were on the waiting list for affordable housing at the time.

Authorities say some public housing units are used for drug trafficking operations.