{"id":7627,"date":"2023-03-02T16:54:44","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T16:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=7627"},"modified":"2023-03-02T16:54:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T16:54:44","slug":"beacon-place-apartments-residents-face-deteriorating-living-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/02\/beacon-place-apartments-residents-face-deteriorating-living-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Beacon Place Apartments\u2019 Residents Face Deteriorating Living Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Gwendolyn Hunt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Sean Nestor<\/em>
\nThe Truth Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2021, deplorable living conditions at the Greenbelt Place Apartments
\nattracted the attention of U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur and the U.S.
\nDepartment of Housing and Urban Development. This followed several years of
\nunheard pleas for action from residents and advocacy groups alike pointing
\nout severe neglect of the property by its out-of-state owner.<\/p>\n

Still, Dallas-based Eureka Multifamily Group continues to own and profit off the complex while residents suffer in squalor.<\/p>\n

Less than a mile north on Cherry Street, residents of the Beacon Place
\nApartments are sounding the alarm about similar problems. Beacon Place is a 200-unit complex on the outskirts of downtown Toledo where a large percentage of the tenants are elderly and Black. Many have rented there for 20-30 years.<\/p>\n

Ever since an anonymous entity bought the complex in 2016 and hired Carmel, Indiana-based Denizen Management to manage the property, residents have complained of constant rent increases, deteriorating buildings and mistreatment by management.<\/p>\n

Rising Costs, Declining Quality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beacon Place is home to several residents who have been long-term renters.
\nWithout exception, each of the tenants I spoke with agreed that while past
\nmanagers had their flaws, Denizen Management has engaged in unprecedented
\nlevels of negligence and abuse.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Smith (not her true name), aged 71, noticed a change in demeanor right away. “When you’d ask them to fix something, it was always \u2018We\u2019re busy’, or ‘Do you have someone?’, or ‘Can your husband fix it?’ It was always about the money and never the repairs. I\u2019ve lived here almost 20 years and they’ve never replaced the carpet, never painted the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another tenant, Mrs. Jones (not her true name), aged 77, agreed. \u201cI liked being here; it was always so well-kept [before Denizen]. Now, they aren\u2019t doing anything except taking our money.\u201d She has been renting at Beacon Place since 1980.<\/p>\n

Issues corroborated by multiple tenants include:<\/p>\n

– Charging several fees on top of rent, including water, sewer, trash
\ncollection, common area electricity, and an administrative fee each month;
\n– Denying requests for transparency regarding what the management
\ncompany pays in utilities and how each renter\u2019s bill is calculated;
\n– Enrolling tenants who already have renter\u2019s insurance into Denizen\u2019s
\ninsurance plan without informing them;
\n– Pushing tenants to use an online billing system instead of allowing
\nthem to receive paper bills;
\n– Rude and dismissive language lobbied against tenants who ask questions
\n– \u00a0Little to no groundskeeping resulting in trash strewn across common
\nareas;
\n– Little or no landscaping resulting in overgrown bushes and tree
\nbranches obscuring windows;
\n– Stray animals including rats and cats loitering on the property;
\n– Maintenance work not being done properly;
\n– Maintenance work taking excessively long to complete;
\n– Ignoring plumbing issues, including a water main break that lasted for
\nmonths despite flooding a common area;
\n– Not washing the building exteriors or replacing carpeting in units;
\n– Loose and rotting wooden steps leading to second-floor units;
\n– Not shoveling or salting paved walkways around the complex;
\n– Refusing to provide wheelchair ramps or handrails for disabled tenants
\nunless the tenant pays for both installation and removal.<\/p>\n

Many tenants I spoke with stated that they wouldn\u2019t mind the rent increases
\nand extra charges if they had something to show for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery month the rent goes up. This month, it was up $40 even though I’m using less. Every month it increases because of the sewer, trash, and water fees. I’m on a fixed income. I can’t afford it. Floors are squeaky, the boards are loose – there are a lot of repairs they need to make. They keep going up on the rent but aren’t fixing anything,\u201d said Mrs. Jones.<\/p>\n

Tenants Unite<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four years into Denizen Management\u2019s reign, tenants became frustrated
\nenough that they began talking to each other about what could be done.
\nDuring a meeting in September of 2020 of about 20 tenants on a shared lawn
\nin front of their units, property manager Samantha Teets placed a 911 call
\nstating that \u201ctwo black men are holding down a white woman.\u201d When police
\narrived, they found a peaceful assembly that the tenants were within their
\nrights to hold; however, the experience had a chilling effect on future
\ngatherings, hampering efforts to organize.<\/p>\n

Some tenants persisted regardless, and, with the help of Advocates for
\nBasic Legal Equality (ABLE), an organizer was found to assist them. Regular
\nmeetings resumed in September of 2021, a full year later; this yielded the
\nformation of a tenants\u2019 union, the Beacon Place Tenant Council, that
\nNovember. Armed now with a formal structure, the tenant union surveyed the
\ntenants about which issues they considered the most pressing.<\/p>\n

At the top of the list were the water bills. Though most apartment
\ncomplexes don\u2019t charge for water, Beacon Place does. The cost also tended
\nto increase each month, and management would react with hostility when
\npressed why. The formula used to determine what each unit would be charged
\nsupposedly took into account square footage, the number of bedrooms, and
\nthe number of people on the lease; however, neighboring residents where all
\nthree were the same were getting billed different amounts.<\/p>\n

Seeking Relief<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fortunately, a remedy had just been passed into law. In September of 2021,
\nToledo City Council enacted an ordinance amending Toledo Municipal Code
\n933.06, \u201cResale of water\u201d, which prohibited the resale of water to tenants
\nunless each individual unit has its own meter. This allows each tenant to
\nknow exactly how much water they consumed and, by extension, what they
\nshould be charged. At Beacon Place, all 200 units are connected to a single
\nmeter in violation of this requirement.<\/p>\n

Partnering with ABLE, the Beacon Place Tenant Council filed suit against
\nDenizen Management in December 2021 seeking enforcement of the new law.
\nDenizen subsequently countersued the City of Toledo, claiming the law was
\nunconstitutional. This put the City\u2019s law department on the same team as
\nABLE, and, for the first time, tenants at Beacon Place had leverage against
\ntheir landlord.<\/p>\n

Around this time, management began to acquiesce to certain demands. For the
\nfirst time, the paved walkways got shoveled when it snowed; some buildings
\nhad their exterior power washed; some tenants reported finally getting worn
\ncarpeting replaced; and a new, friendlier manager was installed in the
\nfront office (although Samantha Teets remains in a supervisory role).
\nEfforts to settle the lawsuit outside of court began, providing the tenant
\ncouncil with an opportunity to negotiate for solutions to other problems
\nnot brought up in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

It was during a settlement discussion in late July of 2022 that matters
\nwent south. An attorney for the City of Toledo announced that the
\nadministration had no plans to enforce TMC 933.06, agreed with the lawyers
\nrepresenting Denizen that the law was \u201cconfusing,\u201d and stated that they
\nhoped to repeal the law in its entirety, or at least significantly rewrite
\nit. When those words were uttered, all leverage the tenant council had
\ndissipated.<\/p>\n

Attempts to settle stalled, and in November of 2022, Toledo Municipal
\nHousing and Environmental Court Judge Joseph J. Howe dismissed the case. He
\ncited the city\u2019s affirmation that they had no intention to enforce the law
\nas grounds to render the lawsuit moot.<\/p>\n

Justice Delayed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many tenants were upset when they heard that the city had killed their
\nlawsuit. \u201cWe are taxpayers. If the City can go against their own law, what
\ndoes that mean to the citizens of Toledo? That you can just do what you
\nwant to do and take our tax money?” said Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Smith agreed,
\nstating \u201cI really couldn\u2019t understand why they would dismiss it unless they
\nwere in cahoots with Denizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The City of Toledo promotes itself as looking out for the interests of
\nrenters, who now comprise nearly half of the city\u2019s population according to
\nthe 2020 census. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has
\ncreated the Emergency Rental Assistance Program in collaboration with Lucas
\nCounty, hired a Manager of Tenant and Landlord Services, and committed
\n$250,000 annually to provide legal representation to low-income residents
\nfacing eviction.<\/p>\n

Still, it would seem the city has no appetite for holding negligent
\nlandlords accountable \u2013 even when those landlords are based outside of
\nToledo (even Ohio) and are actively harming the city\u2019s waning housing
\nstock. Hundreds of residents remain in precarious positions and feel left
\nbehind by their own government. Requests to meet with elected officials
\nhave so far yielded no responses.<\/p>\n

Gwendolyn Hunt (her true name), the 71-year-old president of the Beacon Place Tenant Council, still holds faith that better days are ahead. \u201cMy hopes are that one day, Beacon Place and Denizen Management can come together with our council in an open format where we can sit down and solve any problems we have here in the Beacon Community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sean Nestor The Truth Contributor In 2021, deplorable living conditions at the Greenbelt Place Apartments attracted the attention of U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This followed several years of unheard pleas for action from residents and advocacy groups alike pointing out severe neglect of the property […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[164],"class_list":["post-7627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7627"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7689,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627\/revisions\/7689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7627"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=7627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}