Street Roots • Jan. 26-Feb.^ï, 2018
News
Final countdown
Evictions are coming due at The Melrose
apartments in St. Johns, where some residents are
suing claiming their ouster is retaliatory
Melrose, said “the situation is critical” for
his family. He said he can’t find affordable
rentals near his current home and his family
ife is somewhere between hard and
needs more time. Vierra is 63 years old, and
heartbreak for the majority-Latino
spoke in Spanish as he stood in an
tenants remaining in The Melrose
apartment with rotting living room carpet
Apartments, where residents of 40 of its 72
and a dilapidated kitchen floor.
units are facing an eviction deadline in a
Another tenant, who declined to give her
matter of days.
.
name but will go by Maria for this story, was
This is the latest, and probably the final
thankful her family found a new apartment
wave of no-causé evictions at the apartment
just days before it was time to vacate. Still,
complex, where tenant rights have gone
she said, standing in her living room and
head-to-head against its ownership for the
rocking a 7-month-old child, the move is a
past year.
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hardship for her family.
Previous eviction notices began early last
The initial eviction notices went out
year but were later rescinded following a
within weeks of the property’s sale in
public outcry. Tenants that remained in
October 2016, The Willamette Week
their units then received a rent increase
reported. Then Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oct. 1, followed by a new wave of 90-day
looked into the hew ownership group and
found links to T. Gary Rogers, a Californian
evictions issued Nov. 1.
The evictions are the subject of a lawsuit
who’s been CEO of Dreyer’s Grand Ice
by the Oregon Law Center representing 19
Cream, chairman of Levi Strauss & Co. and
tenants who say their ouster is retaliation
chairman of the San Francisco Federal
for complaining about the condition of the
Reserve Bank. The property is being
units. The tenants had asked that the rent
managed by Avenue 5 Residential LLC.
increase be rescinded until repairs were
Staff at the Community Alliance of
made to the units. The nocause evictions
Tenants (CAT) have been working with
residents in the 45-year-old North
arrived soon after.
.
And barring any change in plans by the
Fessenden Street complex since 2014. But it
was after the current owners began issuing
building’s owner, the largely Latino
eviction notices that it become a symbol for
community will be dispersed from theSt..
Johns complex, which is being, updated with
the city’s affordable housing crisis. The
building, then known as Titan Manor, was
better amenities and higher rents.
José “Chepe” Vierra, a tenant of The
BY THACHER SCHMID
ST A FF W R ITE R
■
purchased by a group of limited liability
companies for $8.3 million and renamed
The Melrose.
“We .are deeply disappointed to hear that
our friends and neighbors are being told to
leave their homes,” CAT and the Titan
Manor Tenants Alliance wrote in a
December letter to owners and managers.
“More disturbing is that we began to trust
you and your intentions when your change
of heart prompted you to rescind the
termination notides 10 months ago.”
There’s no evidence the owners and
managers intend to discriminate, but the
waves of evictions at The Melrose fall
predominately on the shoulders of the
Latino community that calls the building
home.
“At the end of the day it feels like
economic and ethnic cleansing,” said
Katrina Holland, executive director of CAT,
echoing the sentiment of some residents.
“You can’t pay, so whatever. You’ve got to
go.”
“We categorically reject any inference or
charge that race or ethnicity has anything to
do with the renovations and changes at the
Melrose,” said Dan Lavey, a spokesman for
the owners.
The owners maintain that the building
needs repairs that can’t occur while
residents stay in their units, necessitating
the evictions.
“While nearly half of the residences were
renovated in just a few months, further work
remains to ensure that every residence is
improved to meet the expectations shared
by our residents, owners and city officials,”
Lavey said in a statement to media. “To
expedite the renovation process, in
N ovem ber, th e difficult d ecisio n w as m ad e
to give residents living in un-renovated units
official notice that they will need to seek
different housing arrangements. In
accordance with city law, each resident has
roughly three months to secure different
housing.”
Lavey said that to date, 30 impacted
residents have received $4000 each in
relocation assistance from the apartment
owners and have been offered $200 for
moving assistance.
However the lawsuit notes four Melrose
eviction recipients were tenants whose
apartments already had been substantially
renovated or who had already been
relocated into newly renovated apartments
in the past year.
After complaints from tenants, city
inspectors found 490 housing code
violations at the former Titan Manor, the
most that any single property in Portland
has ever received, according to CAT.
According to the lawsuit, code violations
were rampant under the previous owner.
Numerous inspections by the Bureau of
Development Services dating back to June
2015 record multiple, repeated violations
and a failure to correct the violations. It also
found new violations last year related to
electrical, plumbing and mechanical repair
work conducted without proper permits and
inspections.
Tenants reported mold and mildew
throughout their units, toilet and bathtubs
that were not secured or leaked, rodent,
cockroach and bedbug infestations, leaking
or malfunctioning appliances and severe
dilapidation.
Lavey and an attorney for the Oregon
Law Cepter declined to discuss the lawsuit,
Page 7
which seeks approximately $4,000 to $5,000
for each of its 19 residents.
Maria and José Vierra aren’t in the
lawsuit, or working with CAT, but they’re
part of what appears to be a majority of
tenants who are Latino.
More than half of the 19 plaintiffs in the
lawsuit have Latino surnames. A school
secretary at the majority-Latino school
James John Elementary, Angela Diaz-
Deleon, said she was aware of 20 students
living at Titan Manor/The Melrose whose
families got eviction notices last year - all of
whom were Latino,
“We’ve lost some and kept some,” Diaz-
Deleon said. “This week I’ve had two
families who have come with those eviction
notices.”
Vierra and his wife Julia Morales
currently pay $900 for the dilapidated
2-bedroom apartment they have lived in for
18 years. They said The Melrose’s Seattle-
based management company Avenue 5
Residential LLC won’t accept their
application to move to a vacant renovated '
unit at a higher price point?
Vierra said managers haven’t responded
to calls from other property managers
calling for a reference from those who found
other places to go, like his nephew, who
lives in a separate unit. “They don’t answer
the phone for references,” Morales said.
Policy and Organizing Director Pamela
Pham of CAT said she’s heard similar
complaints from other residents trying to
move, though lately managers “have made
some effort” to return calls for references.
Lavey said the idea that managers ‘
wouldn’t return calls for references “doesn’t
seem logical.”
A n in q u ir y to th e m e d ia e m a il fo r th e
property’s management firm Avenue 5
Resident LLC was not returned.
Lavey confirmed the building’s manager
left their job Jan. 16. He said it’s “not
accurate” to say applications from current
residents have been turned away. Lavey said
the owners and managers are “streamlining
the application process and waiving fees for
those impacted residents wishing to move to
a different unit.”
One thing that no one disputes is that the
owners are intent on fixing up the property
after years of neglect On Jan. 18, Sherwin-
Williams vans decorated the parking lot,
maintenance workers were busy, and paint
fumes filled the air. New design elements
graced exterior walls.
Lavey emphasized that owners are
dedicated to providing a “healthier, cleaner,
safer, warmer place for people to live.”
“We believe strongly that we’re doing
everything possible to make The Melrose a
better place for the residents,” Lavey said.
CAT’s Pham said the focus is on the
building, not its residents.
“I’ve spoken to the owner several times,
also site manager and leasing manager, and
it’s pretty consistent that folks see (them)
as units that provide income and they
definitely do not see the residents who live
there.”
'
Not all facing eviction are persons of
color. Those who aren’t, however, may be
vulnerable in other ways.
Sam, 62, struggled to lift groceries up
weather-beaten stairs badly in need of a
paint job to his second-story home.
“Everybody’s getting evicted, far as I
See EVICTIONS, page 13