For the past three years, Tina Marie Shaw has had to rely on an electric space heater to keep the winter cold out of her public housing unit in Creighton Court.

“I worry about the heater starting a fire,” said Ms. Shaw, who looks after her 9-year-old grandson, Xavia, her pride and joy and an honors student at a Richmond elementary school.

To avoid risk to herself and the child, “I unplug (the heater) at night when I go upstairs to bed, and turn it on in the morning.”

The space heater has been the only option her landlord, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, has provided to warm the living room and kitchen on the first floor of her two-bedroom apartment.

Three years ago, RRHA removed a leaking radiator from the first floor, but until this week had not replaced it, she said. A gas-fired radiator heats the bedroom area on the second floor.

When the Free Press sent an inquiry Tuesday to T.K. Somanath, RRHA’s chief executive officer, about the radiator and other issues, Charles B. Williams, RRHA’s vice president for property management, responded Wednesday by having a radiator installed in Ms. Shaw’s apartment.

However, Ms. Shaw said the replacement radiator is leaking, too, and may be the same radiator that was removed in 2012.

“If it’s the same one, it was never repaired. If it’s a different one, it has the same problem. All I got was water leaking on the floor. It didn’t get hot. This is ridiculous,” said Ms. Shaw, who reported the latest problem to the maintenance office.

As has been the case since the radiator was removed, RRHA has provided her each winter with a space heater. But she had to take back the one she received in November because it stopped working. She said that despite her repeated requests, the space heater was not replaced until this week when she insisted on having heat in her downstairs.

“It was just too cold,” she said. “We had to wear coats and blankets to be on the first floor. Or we stayed in bed.”

Welcome to the world of public housing tenants like Ms. Shaw, who seem to be facing challenges living in units that are still among the city’s most affordable housing for people with little money.

The future of these units is in question as RRHA and the city call for replacing them with new residential developments aimed at attracting people with a wider range of incomes, not just the poor. Creighton Court and its 504 units are first on the list of RRHA’s large complexes targeted for replacement, despite extensive renovation a few years ago with a federal grant.

With such plans still on the drawing board, RRHA has struggled to keep existing units in good shape, citing waning federal support for public housing. In the past year, RRHA has faced big bills to fight infestations of bedbugs and roaches that have plagued residents in several of its communities.

Ms. Shaw has lived in Creighton Court for eight years. She and other tenants say that RRHA also has raised the cost of living in Creighton Court and other active complexes by boosting the amount they must pay for electricity and requiring them to pay for routine maintenance.

Extra charges hit home with public housing families who largely scrape by. On average, tenants make do with incomes of less than $11,000 a year — well below the Richmond median income of $40,496 as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau. (Median income is the midpoint, with 50 percent having higher incomes and 50 percent lower incomes.)

Rent varies for RRHA residents, depending on the source of income. For working residents, RRHA charges 30 percent of income after allowable deductions. The minimum rent, though, can be as low as $50 a month for those who are unemployed or living on Social Security disability income as Ms. Shaw does.

Now 50, she is grateful for the small rent, given that she supports herself and her grandson on the $654 a month she receives in Social Security which is supplemented by $235 she receives monthly in food stamps. She used to work for a recycling company, but suffered a back injury about four years ago that forced her to apply for disability.

Ms. Shaw said that she pays add-ons to her rent if she needs the kind of routine service that landlords in private communities with higher rents often provide without charge.

For example, Ms. Shaw said she was charged $15 to have an RRHA employee unstop a blocked pipe in a sink. “I was told it was stopped up by hair,” she said. “I would have had to pay for it no matter the reason.”

She said she also will have to pay to have a RRHA employee replace the blown light bulb in the overhead light in her bathroom. The fixtures have been installed with special fasteners that require maintenance workers to open them.

That’s typical, she said. “If something goes wrong, we have to pay to have it fixed.”

Tenants who move out also can find themselves hit with substantial charges.

Shauneca Washington was hit with a $409 bill when she moved from her Fairfield Court unit after receiving a housing voucher that allowed her to rent in a privately owned apartment complex.

Ms. Washington said RRHA inflated the final bill by charging her for replacing a medicine cabinet, a hallway door and window shades. RRHA ultimately removed the charges only after she provided evidence that all of those items were in the apartment when she left.

“I’m glad I took pictures when I moved out,” she said. “If I hadn’t, I would have been stuck.”

Electricity also is no longer cheap, Ms. Shaw and others said.

RRHA, which picks up the cost of water and gas, used to provide a subsidy of $43 a month for power use, they said. However, residents have seen that monthly subsidy drop to under $25 per unit and, for some, to less than $20 a month.

According to bills provided to the Free Press, tenants routinely are charged $60 a month for “excess electric utilities,” a charge for power that exceeds the subsidy. In the summer, the bill can soar to more than $120 a month when the air conditioning is going, the bills show.

Tenants in complexes like Creighton Court apparently have little control over power use. RRHA relies on a central meter on many of the buildings and then splits the charge among each unit, residents said.

Ms. Shaw said that she cannot afford the electricity charge. Her most recent rent bill shows her unpaid bill for “excess” power now tops $1,000.

She said she was told by the RRHA staff that the only reason that she is not being evicted is that Richmond General District Court judges have barred RRHA from using nonpayment of power bills as justification.

“I think they add a $15 late charge,” she said. “I make sure the rent is paid,” she said, because, given her income, her unit is still the best housing option for her and her grandson.