MARRERO, La. — New Orleans Saints Hall of Famer Tyrone Hughes fears he could be evicted from his Marrero home because who he pays his rent to is in question and he is not getting any answers.
As our partners at The Times-Picayune report, Hughes has lived in his 3-bedroom home on Rue Louis Phillipe since 2013 through a “rent-to-own” program managed by the local nonprofit Peoples Community Subsidiary.
That nonprofit relied on federal subsidies managed by Jefferson Parish and First NBC Bank held the mortgage.
However, following the 2017 collapse of First NBC Bank, Hughes has been left struggling to find out to whom he should be paying his rent.
Hughes tells the news outlet that he is not getting any straight answers and says he is now worried about what might happen next now that Jefferson Parish filed a lawsuit in May against Peoples Community, founded in 1994 by Laeticia Hollis who legally owns Hughes house.
According to Nola.com, the 24th Judicial District Court filing listed Hughes’ home and four other homes owned by Peoples Community. The lawsuit described Hughes’ address and others as occupied by “squatters” and questioned whether or not he and the other tenants qualify for subsidized housing.
"To date, I still do not know what the parish, or HUD, or anyone else is looking for," he told Nola.com. "I just want to be able to make payments and get some clarity."
"I began to pay rent of $800 a month towards the rent-to-own program and this went on for some years," Hughes said. "Then First NBC goes out of business and no one contacts us to say where to send the payments."
Over the years three of the homes in the program were abandoned by the tenants. Hughes stayed in his rent-to-own home while Hollis, the homeowner, took another housing director job in St. Charles Parish before she died in 2023, leaving Hughes in a slump with no clear answers as to what he should do next.
"He's a tenant of a company that did not keep up its responsibility because the person running it died without a succession plan," Hughes’ attorney Andre Robinson told the news outlet.
Hughs said Jefferson Parish attorney Reed Smith told him in an email that he does not owe any money to the parish, or HUD and that his home in Marrero is still owned by Peoples Community and his mortgage is held by Girod Loan Co. owned by a private investment firm TPG Capital when it bought a large portion of First NBC after the collapse.
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