The St. Louis Housing Authority, a top performing agency by HUD’s standards, is currently under intense scrutiny after residents of Clinton-Peabody housing complex complained to the local HUD office about pests. In December, the health department reported 165 units out of 343 inspected units showed signs of mice.

The health department reported six units showing signs of mice and eight units showing signs of roaches as of August, Lovell said.

The problems at Clinton-Peabody have escalated this year, and McCaskill in particular has been out front with some election-year intervention. In March, she requested that HUD act swiftly with a plan to get rid of the rodent infestation and to share that plan with her. She visited residents in April to follow up on conditions.

Hawley, the state’s attorney general, took matters even further by filing a lawsuit in August against the agency and its management agent, McCormack Baron Management.

Cady Seabaugh, vice president of communications and sustainability for McCormack Baron, said it’s company policy to not comment on pending litigation.

Lovell said the housing authority became aware of Hawley’s investigation about Clinton-Peabody in April when they received a demand for documents. She said the housing authority provided more than 1,000 pages in response to his request by the deadline given and offered to provide more information if needed.

“As St. Louis Housing Authority has been fully cooperative, we are disappointed that the Attorney General chose to file suit without any communication about the issues involved,” she said.

The attorney general’s office still saw it “necessary to file the lawsuit” after receiving the documents and conducting an investigation of facts “to protect the health and safety of the residents of Clinton-Peabody housing complex,” Mary Compton, communications director for the Missouri attorney general’s office, said in a statement.

The lawsuit is trying to right the wrongs for tenants by seeking restitution for the time in which tenants paid rent while living in substandard housing.

The St. Louis Housing Authority has spent approximately $336,000 on corrective actions that range from blocking drainage holes in dumpsters and plugging holes where mice activity was identified.

Even with all the attention, Clinton-Peabody residents are still living in less-than-desirable conditions.

Factory worker Ebony Williams, 34, said she would often see mice around her floors and in her kitchen where mice droppings were so rife in her stove that it made it unusable, causing her to travel to her mother’s home to cook for her and her daughter. She waited months before she would receive a new range from the complex.

While the mice are mostly gone now, it seems like roaches are taking over, she said.

“We haven't had any maintenance done to the Peabodys in so long,” she said. “I've been down there eight or nine years and I asked them every time to repaint my wall and they say ‘no.’”

Williams is hoping to find a way out of the complex, but is finding it difficult to find the help she needs to begin the process.

Clay, whose district covers all of the city of St. Louis and a part of the county, did not respond to numerous requests for comment about the Clinton-Peabody complex and St. Louis housing issues, in general. He is a member of the housing and insurance subcommittee that oversees HUD and other agencies and is all but assured to win re-election in November.

Renters account for 46 percent of all households in Clay’s district compared to 34 percent in the state, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Some of the city’s poorest residents say the city is failing them.

Consider that for every 100 of the poorest families in Clay’s district, there are only 29 affordable units available, according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Seventy-five percent of extremely low-income households in his district are spending more than half of their income on rent. Those figures are among the worst in the state.

In St. Louis County, 22,753 people are part of the Section 8 voucher system, where the average household income per year among Section 8 voucher holders is $13,482, according to HUD data.

Susan Rollins, executive director of the Housing Authority of St. Louis County, said there have been some people waiting to be Section 8 voucher recipients for as long as 10 years, leaving many families either homeless or in shelters.“Families that are waiting are waiting for someone to move off the program, or they're waiting for someone to break one of the rules and get evicted,” she said. “It's not a very pretty picture of how individuals make it onto programs.”The Housing Authority of St. Louis County last opened its Section 8 voucher system in 2015, when 13,000 people applied. There are now 3,500 names left on the list, according to Rollins.