A Black woman who lives in a Charlotte luxury high-rise says the building’s management company is trying to evict her and her daughter from their $2,600 a month apartment after an incident that started with other residents complaining about the daughter and a friend twerking at the building’s pool.
Marshette Foster and her 21-year-old daughter Alanah told the Charlotte Observer that they received an eviction notice after an episode on April 30 in which a concierge approached Alanah and her friend to say that other residents had reported the twerking. Alanah admits her friend cursed at the concierge in anger but only after noting that the concierge told them that Alana’s group of five guests was too large—something that wasn’t said to similar groups of white residents and guests at the pool at the same time, the Observer reported.
Shortly after that incident, the Fosters received an eviction notice that cited “extremely unacceptable behaviors” at the pool that also included fighting. But they say the eviction follows a pattern of harassment by white residents and concierges at the luxury Element SouthPark complex, including one situation that left Alanah’s mouth bloodied by another resident’s guest who punched her as she was arriving home from work. Accusations by management and other residents ranging from nudity to fighting at the pool are false, they say and they’ve hired a lawyer to fight the eviction.
From the Charlotte Observer
- A concierge approached Foster on the pool deck in late July or early August to inform her that someone reported seeing her having sex in the pool. “I looked at the video, and you were not having sex in the pool,” Foster said the concierge told her. “We’re sorry this happened.”
- A concierge asked Foster’s daughter at the pool one afternoon in August if she was a resident.
- A concierge approached her daughter later that month to ask if everything was OK, then telling her, “I received a call to come check the pool.” Foster said her daughter asked the concierge, “Why every time we’re at the pool a concierge checks on us?” “I’m sorry, I was just told to come check the pool,” Foster said the concierge replied.
- An intoxicated white female guest punched Foster’s daughter in the mouth on Jan. 9, causing her to bleed. Alanah Foster had just returned late at night from her shift at a pizzeria, her mother told the Observer. Both the intoxicated guest and the intoxicated resident she was with thought Alanah Foster was holding up the line of cars trying to get through the parking gate, but the gate was broken.
Alanah Foster is pursuing charges against the person who assaulted her.
Element SouthPark is managed by Greystar Worldwide LLC, a Charleston, S.C., developer and rental property management firm. In a 2016 profile, the Post and Courier newspaper called Greystar “the nation’s largest apartment manager”.
It was accused in 2020 of compiling “dossiers” of sensitive personal information on tenants without their knowledge.
In 2019, it was among seven housing companies listed in human rights complaints filed in the District of Columbia and Maryland alleging the companies used Facebook’s advertising algorithm to assist in age discrimination.