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Thieves ransack Houston apartments meant to help homeless teens
Several new apartments in the Third Ward built to help homeless teenagers get back on their feet were recently broken into and ransacked. The organization believes the burglars stole nearly $100,000 dollars worth of items from the units. FOX 26's Natalie Hee speaks more to the organization executive director on what was taken.
HOUSTON - Several new apartments in the Third Ward meant to help homeless teens get back on their feet, were recently broken into and had nearly $100,000 worth of items stolen from the units.
The apartments are managed by the Covenant House, a faith-based organization that’s helped provide shelter and services for homeless teens for nearly 40 years.
The apartments are located on the 3400 block of Tuam Street near downtown Houston.
Executive Director Leslie Bourne said on Monday morning, she discovered almost everything inside the newly furnished apartments had been ransacked and ripped apart.
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"All the furniture, all the bedroom furniture, all the refrigerators, microwaves, stoves, washers, dryers, hot water heaters, AC units; it’s a massive theft," said Bourne.
Bourne said the calculated and methodic thieves left hardly anything behind except broken glass.
"You can see the ruts in the mud. They had dollies and things like that, but they had to have several large trucks," Bourne said.
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To make matters worse, Bourne said the thieves then left the bathtubs running to flood the apartments.
"There’s still water in here from when this happened. We’re trying to get it up quickly cause we don’t want to have to deal with mold issues on top of everything else. Our early estimates of our out-of-pocket is going to be in the $80,000 to $100,000 range," Bourne said.
"It’s hard to calculate that someone would want to do that when you’ve stolen everything and now you want to ruin what you left. That’s hard to take in," Bourne continued.
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The break-in means it could be several months before these homeless teens get the help they need.
"These apartments were meant to get 16 youth out of homelessness into new homes and along with that, they would get our wrap-around services with Covenant House. We have a medical clinic, case management, our workforce career services area – all of that. And now, all of that is on hold for quite a while until we can get these backup and running again," Bourne said.
Anyone with information on this case is urged to contact Houston Police.
Those who would like to help Covenant House Texas recover from this incident can click here.