homa City and Pasadena, Texas. Recently, an accounts payable executive position with the company was available in Bangalore, India.

Documents obtained from the Texas Secretary of State link Greenline Apartment Management to Three Pillars Capital Group, which claims to manage 3,000 residential units across several states and was founded in 2017 by Gautam Goyal and Joshua Welch.

Welch worked as a systems engineer for defense contractor Lockheed Martin before turning to real estate.

Goyal worked for a hedge fund and ran one of his own. Now, in addition to donating $1 million to the University of Houston for the Gautam Goyal Family Scholarship and pursuing for-profit real estate ventures with Three Pillars, Goyal leads a nonprofit called World Will Be Better which makes vague boasts of initiatives intended to benefit individuals who are unable to provide safe living conditions for themselves.

In 2018, 5560 Medical Center Apartments was sold to an Oklahoma- based company called City Heights at Medical Center LLC.

In 2022, the property was sold again, to a company with almost exactly the same name, City Heights Medical LLC; it was now based in Delaware.

The Delaware-based City Heights Medical LLC has the same Houston physical address as Three Pillars Capital Group.

In 2021, as sewage problems left tenants living in filth, 5560 Medical Center Apartments had a market value of $5.5 million; in 2025, the market value of the property is $15 million.

In 2023, Three Pillars secured $300 million in new capital commitments to make further investments in distressed assets in Oklahoma and Texas, according to GlobeSt.

Greenline Apartment Management, Three Pillars Capital Group and World Will be Better did not respond to repeated queries for comment.

After Oklahoma Watch made several calls to a phone number associated with Welch, a voice answered and issued profane, violent threats in response to a request to speak with Mr. Welch.

“He’s [expletive] your mother right now,” the voice said. “Then he’s going to [expletive] your sister.” Sewage Problems are Spread Far and Wide In 2014, Oklahoma legislators moved to address sewage infrastructure issues when noxious odors began to seep out of the Capitol ventilation system.

Then-State Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman complained that the offensive smell plagued him at work.

“The vent was right next to my desk,” Bingam said at the time.

A bill promptly passed, approving $160 million for repairs that would take up to five years to complete. Workers struggled to keep up with temporary fixes while lawmakers struggled to pass legislation through the lower chamber.

“They’re doing really good work, but they’re just putting Band-Aids on a larger wound,” an Office of Management and Enterprise Services spokesman said at the time.

Yager said that work on sewage lines near the Capitol is ongoing today.

In 2018, Highland Ridge Apartments in Edmond was investigated for raw sewage pouring out of bathrooms into hallways. In 2024, the property sold to another mysterious company called Jubilee Residences.

In the last few years, sewage problems have plagued numerous apartment complexes in Tulsa, including Sunset Plaza Apartments, Heston Point, Inhofe Plaza Apartments, McKinley Court Apartments and Vista Shadow Mountain Apartments, sometimes resulting in condemnations.

Despite resident complaints of out-of-state owners failing to effect repairs, the Tulsa Housing Authority denied that out-of-state ownership was a problem.

“Tulsa Housing Authority does not currently have an issue with outof- state landlords not meeting the Section 8 guidelines for maintenance,” Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs Ginny Hensley said in a written statement.

Nevertheless, in 2022, the Tulsa city council unanimously passed ordinances to strengthen the city’s code enforcement of rental properties, and Tulsa mayor Munroe Nichols’ first budget, delivered on May 1, makes significant investments based on a soon-to-becompleted sewer system study.

In Oklahoma City, the Department of Mental Health’s 2024 strategic plan included efforts to address sewage seeping from walls and nonfunctional plumbing at several of the department’s properties.

— Too Much & Not Enough Recent legislative efforts to address Oklahoma’s housing crisis are a mixed bag, according to a recent article by Sabine Brown of the Oklahoma Policy Institute.

On the one hand, valiant efforts to extend eviction timelines and create a workforce housing commission offer the potential for systemic change.

On the other hand, Oklahoma remains one of just six states that do not protect tenants against retaliatory actions by landlords, and legislators have failed to address the state’s exponentially rising homelessness problem.

“Instead of addressing the cause, some legislators are choosing to address only its symptoms,” Brown wrote.

The legislative effort that was most likely to impact tenants at 5560 Medical Center Apartments was House Bill 2015, championed by Lawton representative Danial Pae. HB 2015 sought to extend law that enables tenants to pay for repairs themselves and deduct it from their rent. Under current law, tenants can spend up to a month’s rent; HB 2015 sought to extend the amount to two months.

HB 2015 failed to move out of committee.

As chair of the Oversight Committee, Midwest City representative Robert Manger could have brought HB 2015 forward for a vote; Manger did not respond to queries about why the bill was held over to 2026.

Regardless, HB 2015 overlooked tenants like Nichelle Watson and Ashanti Nunoo, who may not be able to front money for much-needed repairs.

Watson’s next-door neighbor, Greg Calvin, 61, another Section 8 voucher holder, said there was sewage in his dishwasher and that his dishes were smelly and dirty even after they were washed.

“I’m on a fixed income,” Calvin said. “I can’t afford to pay for anything I shouldn’t have to worry about.”

More ominously, Calvin said he had recently spent four days in Integris hospital across the street, with a mysterious virus. He didn’t know if it was related to the sewage problems in his upstairs apartment.

Watson had been sick too.

“Mold causes health problems,” Watson said. “Sewage causes health problems. These apartments need to be condemned. Y’all are making people live in conditions they normally wouldn’t.”

Nunoo had been lucky to be able to move on, but her problems weren’t over.

“I’m overwhelmed with having to figure out a whole plan,” Nunoo said. “Buying everything, starting everything over, starting from scratch with the help of my mom. But I have other siblings. She can only do so much.”