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New Orleans Saints Hall of Famer Tyrone Hughes stands in front of his home in Marrero, La., Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (Photo by Matthew Perschall, The Times-Picayune) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Tyrone Hughes won over New Orleans Saints fans in the 1990s as a fleet-footed kick returner.
He holds several team records, including the most kickoff return yards in a single game, and his four years with the Saints earned him a spot in the franchise's hall of fame . But for the past seven years, Hughes has been navigating something more complicated than onrushing tacklers. He's trying to free himself from a bureaucratic quagmire that he fears could force him from his Marrero home.
Hughes has lived in a cream-colored, 3-bedroom house on Rue Louis Phillipe since 2013, under a "rent-to-own" program managed by a local nonprofit, Peoples Community Subsidiary, which relied on federal housing subsidies managed by Jefferson Parish. But since the 2017 collapse of First NBC Bank, which held the mortgage on the home, he's been trying in vain to figure out where he should be making his monthly rent payments. The former Saint says he's been seeking straight answers from a host of different government agencies and lending companies.
Now, he's worried that a lawsuit, filed in May by Jefferson Parish against Peoples Community, a housing nonprofit started in 1994 by Laeticia Hollis and the legal owner of the home, could result in him having to leave it. The lawsuit, filed in the 24th Judicial District Court, is seeking to repossess five homes, including Hughes's, from Peoples Community. In the suit, Jefferson Parish referred to his address and a second one with another tenant, Cheryl Johnson, as occupied by "squatters" and questioned whether the occupants qualified for subsidized housing.
Cheryl Johnson, left, and Saints Hall of Famer Tyrone Hughes, right, stand in front of Johnson's home in Marrero, La., Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (Photo by Matthew Perschall, The Times-Picayune) Hughes said he was appalled to see himself referred to as a "squatter.
" He just wants to know, after years of emails, calls and now hiring an attorney to help sort things out, how to pay the $800 he owes each month. "To date, I still do not know what the parish, or HUD or anyone else is looking for," he said. "I just want to be able to make payments and get some clarity.
" Fallout from First NBC The strange situation in which Hughes, 54, now finds himself underscores the widespread, and long-lasting, repercussions of the First NBC collapse seven years ago. The failure sent shockwaves through the local market and eventually led to the conviction of former CEO Ashton Ryan for bank fraud and about a dozen guilty pleas from bank officers and borrowers. Former First NBC executive Ashton Ryan, Jr.
, center, walks out of U.S. District Court in New Orleans with his lawyers, Peter Castaing, Edward J.
Castaing, Jr., and Deborah Pearce following his guilty verdict on Thursday, February 9, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate) When the bank collapsed, Hancock Whitney Bank took over about $1 billion of First NBC's mortgages and other loans.
But another $1 billion — including the mortgage on Hughes's home — were sold off by federal regulators for cents on the dollar to various investors and debt collectors. Many borrowers were left in the dark for months or even years about the status of their loans, though debt and interest continued to pile up. Those who didn't set aside money could suddenly find they faced huge balloon payments when their new lender caught up with them, which could mean losing their property or other collateral.
Time in the spotlight Hughes was born in the New Orleans area and attended St. Augustine High School. His football heroics landed him a four-year scholarship at the University of Nebraska.
The Saints picked him in the fifth round of the 1993 NFL draft, and he proved an able punt and kickoff returner. He stayed with the Saints for four years before signing with the Chicago Bears as a free agent in 1997. But he couldn't reproduce the special teams success he had in New Orleans, and after brief stints with the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys, he retired in 1998.
Advocate Staff Photograph by John Pendygraft. Picture shot on Oct. 6, 1996 -- Saints Tyrone Hughes starts to run a kickoff back.
Hughes returned to New Orleans, where he worked as a football coach for St. Augustine, and other schools. After Hurricane Katrina, he did marketing for a construction supply company and later energy and health care companies.
"After your NFL career, most ballplayers have to work for a living just like anybody else," said Hughes, who won't receive his NFL pension until he turns 65. "I qualify for affordable housing." T he home in Marrero He found his way to Rue Louis Phillipe through another Saint, Tyrone Legette, who had also been a Nebraska Cornhusker.
After Legette retired, he started a construction firm that built hundreds of affordable houses in Louisiana. Hughes's Marrero house was one of seven Legette built in 2012 for Peoples Community. St.
James Wildcats head coach Robert Valdea shakes hands with former New Orleans Saint Tyrone Hughes against Jennings Bulldogs during the LHSAA Class 3A High School State Championship at Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, LA. When the Marrero houses were built, Hughes said Hollis asked him to promote the project and to move into one of the units to help manage the development. Two of the houses were sold outright.
The other five, including Hughes's, were set up in a rent-to-own program after First NBC provided the mortgages. "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 next few years, three of the rent-to-own houses were abandoned by the occupants. Only Hughes and Johnson stayed. In 2018, Hollis took a job as executive director of housing at the St.
Charles Parish Housing Authority as Peoples Community foundered. She died last year at 58 before being able to sort out its accounts. Her mother, Patricia James, said the strain of trying to deal with Peoples Community after the First NBC collapse weighed on her.
As well as the Rue Louis Phillipe houses, she controlled the $45 million Westwood Crossing project, also in Marrero, which ran into financial difficulty. "It took a toll on her and she just walked away from it," said James, who was a Peoples Community board member and is named as a defendant in Jefferson Parish's litigation. A tricky situation Hughes's attorney, Andre Robinson, called his client's issue "a very interesting legal situation" because of the convoluted history of the properties.
"He's a tenant of a company that did not keep up its responsibility, because the person running it died without a succession plan," said Robinson, referring to the fact that Hollis left the nonprofit's paperwork a mess. Cheryl Johnson stands in front of her home in Marrero, La., Tuesday, July 2, 2024.
(Photo by Matthew Perschall, The Times-Picayune) Johnson retained a copy of her rent-to-own agreement. Hughes said he relied on Hollis to take care of the paperwork on the property. He doesn't have a copy of his rent-to-own agreement, but has located emails between Hollis and an administrator of Jefferson Parish's Community Development Department detailing the agreement when it was set up.
He is trying to compile the check stubs establishing the rent payments he made to Peoples Community and then First NBC from the time he moved in until First NBC collapsed. Blindsided Hughes said he was blindsided by the May lawsuit, which seeks to repossess the five Peoples Community houses on the grounds that the nonprofit, which has not filed its IRS Form 990 nonprofit accounts since 2017, had failed to meet its obligations under HUD's Home Investment Partnership program that provided the original subsidies. The lawsuit doesn't name Hughes or Johnson, but it refers to their addresses and says "they are occupied by squatters who do not pay rent to anyone.
" It also questions their eligibility to be in the housing program. Both Hughes and Johnson corresponded with officials from Jefferson Parish and HUD at least since early last year to try and sort out the situation. They couldn't get an answer on where to pay any rent, according to copies of the correspondence reviewed by The Times-Picayune.
A Jefferson Parish attorney, Reed Smith, wrote to Hughes last month to tell him he did not owe the parish any money in connection with the property, nor to the best of his knowledge did he owe HUD any money. The email to Hughes stated that the property was currently owned by Peoples Community and that there is a mortgage held by Girod LoanCo, which is ultimately owned by TPG Capital, a $100 billion private investment firm. It was one of the companies that bought a large chunk of First NBC from regulators after the collapse.
A house sits boarded up on Rue Louis Phillippe in Marrero, La., Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (Photo by Matthew Perschall, The Times-Picayune) Gretchen Hirt, a spokesperson for Jefferson Parish, when asked to clarify the situation, provided the same property and mortgage information that was emailed to Hughes.
"The Parish of Jefferson is not actively attempting to evict Mr. Hughes," Hirt said via email. She declined say whether eviction is possible if the parish ultimately takes possession of the homes.
"Because the houses are the subject of ongoing litigation, the Parish has no further comment at this time," Hirt said. In addition to Peoples Community, Girod LoanCo is named as a defendant so that it can assert it rights to the properties, the lawsuit said. TPG Capital referred inquiries to Girod LoanCo's local attorney, Scott Cheatham of Adams and Reese.
He did not respond to requests for comment. Hughes said he first heard from Girod LoanCo in late 2022. He said he began corresponding with Cheatham in February of 2023 and spoke or emailed several times, but was told any payments would have to wait until Jefferson Parish decided what action it would take.
Patricia James, 79, said she was surprised to find out that she, her two sisters and her two cousins, who were the five board members of Peoples Community and are in their 80s and 90s, were named as defendants in Jefferson Parish's lawsuit, which claims they are all personally liable for any damages, including an unspecified amount of property taxes "The nonprofit was all about helping people," she said. She's looking for legal advice before deciding what to do. "But I don't want them taking it over just so someone can make an easy profit.
" Hughes said he might try and revive Peoples Community and get named executive director, which might at least give him legal standing in the repossession of the house where he lives. "That's our most likely play now," he said..
