The Massachusetts housing crisis is taking center stage in Revere as roughly 40 families will soon have to move out of a 13-story, oceanside apartment tower that city officials say is “moldy” and “rat-infested.”

Revere’s Board of Health has voted to condemn the Water’s Edge apartment high-rise, a 91-unit building that holds a long history of code violations that officials say poses a serious safety and health threat to its residents. At 41 units occupied, the building is less than half full.

Those violations include the property maintaining “non-functioning life safety systems,” like a fire pump not running properly that needs to be replaced, city attorney Paul Tellier told the health board Thursday. Hallways, ceiling tiles, and staircases are showing signs of mold, while a trash room has gotten so packed with garbage that the trash chute is inaccessible, he said.

“Over the past 20 months, Waters Edge has … refused to perform any remediation of its deteriorating life-safety systems,” Tellier said. “As a result, their tenants are living in a moldy, rat-infested high-rise building with no fire alarm and fire sprinklers that do not work.”

Residents, speaking at Thursday’s board meeting, urged the city to “seriously” think about outside factors at play in the predicament, specifically the state’s housing crisis.

Luneceee Eligne, a tenant, highlighted an encampment next to one of the property’s garages at 364 Ocean Ave. Rent has gotten “out of control” in the Greater Boston city, she said, demanding the board to consider the “financial roadblocks” that may arise.

One-bedrooms at Water’s Edge start at $2,300 and two-bedrooms begin at $2,700, according to the property owner’s website.

“The state has a serious housing crisis,” Eligne said. “It’s a crisis, it’s at epic proportion. For a lot of people who live at 364 now, it is most likely the only place we can afford. If you are going to move to condemn this building, you’re literally going to impact the livelihood of the 41 families you named here today.”

The timeline for condemnation is in the works.

A flood in November 2022 damaged the building’s fire panel, officials said. The city soon thereafter issued owner Water’s Edge Limited Partnership an order to correct. The owner responded by hiring the Revere Fire Department to provide a 24/7 fire watch.

Tellier and officials accused Water’s Edge of not paying the fire department which is still deploying firefighters to monitor the site nor the contractors to make necessary repairs. The landlord is delinquent on taxes and property mortgage, Tellier said.

Deputy Fire Chief Paul Cheever, the city’s chief fire inspector, said payments haven’t been made for the detail since February. Even with firefighters on site, the department has responded to the property 85 times, including four fires: one in the trash chute, another in the trash room, and the remaining two in a garage, he said.

Only 12 responses have been medical-related, Cheever said, adding the call volume is not typical for “these types of buildings.”

“This is taxing on the fire department,” he said. “These violations and conditions at this building, I consider serious.”

Several violations found in a 2017 order to correct are lingering today, said municipal inspections director Michael Wells, including the busted fire panel and pump which officials say prevents adequate water pressure from reaching above the sixth floor.

Wells added that the issues at 364 Ocean Ave were the same as those dealt at 370 Ocean Ave., another apartment high-rise that remains empty following a fire in June 2022 that displaced over 80 residents

Then-Mayor Brian Arrigo told the Globe at the time of that fire that since 2004, city inspectors had fined Water’s Edge 70 times, and the landlord owed the city more than $1 million.

In a statement on Friday, Mayor Patrick Keefe Jr. said the fire department will remain on site at all times of the day. City employees and advocates have been working with residents to provide “necessary assistance” to residents for the past month, he added.

“We will not turn our backs on these residents,” Keefe said.

Water’s Edge attorney David Frye raised numerous issues around the call for condemnation including how an order to correct and inspection forms have not been signed under the pains and penalties of perjury.

“If there’s any thought of doing that, we need to do it in a way when there’s time to address the issues,” Frye said of condemnation. “We can’t just do it in the middle of the night and then expect people to be placed somewhere else … To me, that’s insane.”

The two fires in a garage that the deputy fire chief highlighted, resident Sylvia Smith said, took place in a “detached garage.” She said she’s seen improvements in the building over the months.

“I’m not saying the building has problems because of course it does,” Smith said, “and everybody knows it does. But I don’t think it’s in a state to be condemned.”

“Massachusetts is in a housing crisis, and we all know that,” she added. “Are you willing to put your name on hundreds of people being homeless?”

A physician by trade, Board of Health Chairman Drew Bunker called it “egregious” that the building has fallen into the state that it has. He found either option, to condemn or keep the building as is, “very disturbing and very challenging.”

“There is the precedent of getting the people out when a building is condemned, but at the same time, we are dealing with people’s lives,” Bunker said. “If it comes down to a person being on the street, we have to think about that and make a decision for the timing to be appropriate so that someone could reasonably get somewhere.”