A 702-unit apartment complex in Algiers that spent years on the city's radar for blight and unsafe living conditions has new ownership. Parc Fontaine Apartments, located at 3101 Rue Parc Fontaine in the Old Aurora neighborhood, has been sold to The Mary Fund, Inc., a Connecticut-based nonprofit focused on affordable housing, according to seed facts in the underlying report.
The sale closes a turbulent chapter for the property, which was previously owned by Tennessee-based Global Ministries Foundation and had been the subject of multiple Fox 8 Defenders reports on habitability problems, as reported by WVUE. Residents told the station that management was unwilling to address the problems, describing broken water pipes and moldy rooms throughout the complex. The Mary Fund now says it will inspect every apartment unit and begin addressing mold, potholes, trip hazards and other safety concerns as part of a multiyear rehabilitation effort, the station reports.
A Long Road to Blight and a City Crackdown
Parc Fontaine's troubles predate the sale by years. The City of New Orleans placed the complex on its official “Dirty Dozen” list of top blighted properties in November 2023, initiating formal code enforcement proceedings against Global Ministries Foundation. By May 2024, the city's Department of Code Enforcement reported that Parc Fontaine was actively negotiating with a potential buyer to resolve outstanding blight violations and avoid demolition.
The New Orleans City Council also voted to revoke Parc Fontaine's ad valorem property tax exemption following repeated code enforcement violations for disrepair. That move was made possible by a statewide constitutional change: Louisiana voters approved Constitutional Amendment 4 in October 2023 with 66% support, empowering local parishes to strip property tax exemptions from nonprofit housing owners that rack up three or more health and safety code violations in a single year, according to Ballotpedia. The council had taken similar action before against Global Ministries Foundation, previously revoking the tax exemption of The Willows, another Global Ministries-owned complex in New Orleans East.
A Nonprofit Seller With a National Track Record of Scrutiny
Global Ministries Foundation, headed by Rev. Richard Hamlet, built a portfolio of affordable housing complexes across seven states using tax-exempt bond financing, but the organization faced federal HUD defunding and congressional scrutiny over severe property neglect, according to a 2016 congressional record. Parc Fontaine itself was originally acquired in 2012 using tax-exempt Series 2012 revenue bonds issued for up to $35 million. In December 2023, the Louisiana Local Government Environmental Facilities and Community Development Authority approved assigning that bond debt from Global Ministries Foundation to The Mary Fund, a step that paved the way for the ownership transfer now finalized.
New Owner, New Promises
The Mary Fund's founder is a native New Orleanian, and the organization's executive director said the group intends to bring Parc Fontaine back to the standard its residents deserve. New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno, who took office in January and previously served as City Council President during votes to sanction negligent landlords, said it is encouraging to see residents with a path forward focused on their well-being.
What remains unclear is how much capital the rehabilitation will ultimately require across all 702 units, and whether The Mary Fund will eventually seek to have the property's tax-exempt status restored now that ownership has changed. City code enforcement standards that helped force the sale will likely continue to shape how quickly visible repairs, from mold remediation to pothole fixes, materialize for residents on the ground in Algiers.
