Georgia NAACP Alleges Coffee Correctional Facility Residents’ Health Endangered by Lackluster COVID-19 Response, Mold, Mildew

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A proposed class action aims to protect individuals incarcerated at Georgia’s Coffee Correctional Facility from contracting COVID-19 and other adverse health effects related to allegedly pervasive water leaks and black mold throughout the facility.

The 31-page lawsuit was filed on January 21 by the Georgia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Georgia NAACP) and three individual plaintiffs, and names as defendants the Georgia Department of Corrections, state DOC Commissioner Timothy C. Ward, prison operator CoreCivic and Coffee Correctional Facility Warden Steve Upton.

According to the lawsuit, African Americans are more likely than white Americans to have many of the underlying health conditions that are linked to a significant risk of developing severe complications or dying from COVID-19. The case states that those housed in correctional facilities are “particularly vulnerable” to the virus—generally up to five times more likely to contract COVID-19, according to the suit—given residents must often contend with overcrowded living conditions and inadequate social distancing. 

The lawsuit says that many incarcerated at the medium-security, Nicholls, Georgia’s Coffee Correctional Facility have reported that it’s “impossible” to follow the CDC’s social distancing recommendations, an issue the plaintiffs say is compounded by the fact that the more than 2,600 residents at the facility must also contend with rainwater leaks that leave puddles. These residents, the suit says, live within “pods” in which individuals sleep “approximately eighteen inches apart from each other.” 

“Individuals incarcerated there often walk through ankle-deep water, and standing water can often be found throughout the facility,” the complaint says.

According to the lawsuit, the continual presence of water inside Coffee Correctional Facility has led to the growth of black mold and mildew on walls, ceilings and inside the HVAC system. Per the case, a Coffee Correctional Facility resident has reported that the prison’s roofs have leaked for “more than five years,” with some areas seeing water running down walls, into windows and onto bunks and tables. 

“Moisture in the air is thick on rainy days, which causes breathing problems for many people,” the lawsuit says. “Another individual reports that some people sleep in garbage bags to make sure they stay dry.”

The presence of black mold inside the facility has “likely contributed” to instances of respiratory illness among residents and left them more susceptible to COVID-19, the suit says.

Despite the greater availability of COVID-19 tests in Georgia, those incarcerated in the state’s correctional facilities are unable to receive a test upon request, the suit claims. For its part, the Georgia Department of Corrections has not mandated that its facilities administer COVID-19 tests to residents who request them, and only tests those who have decidedly come down with the virus, the complaint reads.

“Coffee Correctional has generally administered COVID-19 tests only to incarcerated individuals who not only displayed symptoms of the virus but whose symptoms were so severe that the individuals required medical attention,” the lawsuit says. “Coffee Correctional has generally refused to offer COVID-19 tests to people who do not require medical attention but nonetheless display COVID-19 symptoms or have encountered someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19.” 

Per the complaint, at least two Coffee Correctional Facility inmates say they were denied tests after reporting that they were experiencing various COVID-19-related symptoms, including severe headaches, loss of appetite and diminished senses of taste and smell. 

The lawsuit says 235 individuals incarcerated at Coffee Correctional Facility have had confirmed COVID-19 cases as of January 14, 2021. Only one other Georgia Department of Corrections facility reported more than 100 confirmed cases among inmates as of the same date, according to the suit. 

The Georgia NAACP alleges that at least one of its approximately 10,000 members “faces a realistic danger of contracting COVID-19” as a result of the defendants’ “failure to follow the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (‘CDC’) guidelines and administer COVID-19 tests” to incarcerated individuals who’ve displayed symptoms or had close contact with someone with a confirmed case of the virus.

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