nothin City Condemns Top Slumlords’ Rooming House | New Haven Independent

City Condemns Top Slumlords’ Rooming House

Thomas MacMillan Photo

LCI’s Rafael Ramos at the scene.

A year after neighbors rallied to shut it down, an illegal rooming house in Cedar Hill still held a handful of tenants — until Wednesday, when the city ordered it unfit for human habitation.

Rafael Ramos, the Livable City Initiative’s head of housing code enforcement, taped a green sign announcing that news to the door of the hovel at 1296 State St. at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Diamond Properties had operated a rooming house at that address for years, while neighbors complained that the building was a hotbed of prostitution and drug-dealing. After the city discovered the operation last year, the landlords first sought to legitimize the single-room-occupancy building, then backed down after neighbors mounted an opposition campaign.

In the last year, the landlords were supposed to be converting the building (pictured) into regular apartments, Ramos said. Instead, they simply reduced the number of tenants, down from 18 to about five, he said.

The building showed up on the city’s radar again Tuesday when building inspectors found the roof was in shambles and water was leaking inside the building, Ramos said. Click the video to see some of the damage.

City government’s neighborhoods anti-blight agency the Livable City Initiative (LCI), paid a visit this week and found the water main into the house was broken, spilling water into the basement. LCI shut the water off, then shut the power off Wednesday. Ramos said he worried the rain leaking into the building might mix with the electricity and start a fire.

The building is run by Diamond Properties Management, a controversial outfit run by Michael Steinbach and Janet Dawson, who have left a trail of sometimes deadly squalor, questionable mortgage and government financing transactions, and blight throughout New Haven. Steinbach couldn’t be reached for comment; he and Dawson have repeatedly declined to comment on previous Independent stories about Diamond’s shenanigans elsewhere in town.

Rebecca Turcio, a Cedar Hill activist who has organized neighborhood opposition to the rooming house, said she’s glad the city finally shut the place down. “Our neighborhood’s getting really bad and I really think it has to do a lot with that property,” she said.

Ramos (pictured at the top of the story) showed up at 1296 State St. at 4 p.m., accompanied by the health department’s Roslyn Hamilton. They taped a “CLOSED” sign on the metal shutters covering the door to A&N Market, on the ground floor of the rooming house building.

Ramos then taped a green “Order For Unfitness For Human Habitation” to the entrance to the rooming house. As he did so, a 78-year-old man came down the stairs, wielding a green plastic flashlight in the pitch-black stairwell.

“Look, we’re closing the building because there’s no water and the roof’s no good,” Ramos told him in Spanish. “You have somewhere to go, or you need help?”

The man said he had too much stuff to leave, and his daughter had just brought him groceries the day before.

Ramos called the man’s family and helped arrange for him to leave. The 78-year-old said he’d lived on the second floor for eight years. He said he never had a problem with the building or the landlord. He said he paid $375 per month for his room, which had a linoleum floor, a single bed, and three refrigerators, two of which were working.

Ramos pointed to a window, to where the remains of much of the building’s roof lay in a driveway behind the building, near an old mattress and boxspring decorated with flowers. He said the landlord had put tarps on the roof to prevent water from coming in. That only made the problem worse, since the roof is flat and the water just pooled, Ramos said.

On the third floor, Ramos found another tenant, incensed at the news that he had to leave the building. Ramos calmed him down by asking the man to breathe deeply with him.

The man insisted he didn’t need to leave. He said he had water stored and was fine without electricity.

“You can’t stay tonight,” Ramos said in Spanish. He sat on an exercise machine in the corner of the man’s room. “It’s not my decision. This house is without water and light. It’s dangerous to your health.” He said the city would put the man up in a motel.

“I just paid the rent here,” the man said, switching to English. “Nobody’s bothered me in here. I’ve been so happy in here.” He pointed to the small table of Easter decorations he’d installed in the darkened hallway outside his room.

Ramos convinced the man he’d have to leave. He said the city would put him up, probably at Three Judge’s motel in West Hills.

Outside, workers from the A&N Market loaded meats, milk, eggs, and boxes of Dutch Master cigars from the store into a tan Toyota SUV. They declined to comment.

Anthony Fulgieiri (pictured), another tenant, walked up with a McDonald’s smoothie, tattoos on his hands and neck, and a dire prediction: This building will be broken into tonight.” He said everyone has been watching tenants pack up, and sees an opportunity to enter an unguarded building.

Fulgieiri said he’d lived at the building for three years without problems. He said he and his fiancee paid $550 per month for their room. They’re both on disability and it’s the best place they could find for the money, he said.

It was a nice building until this,” Fulgieri said. He said he’d lived in a tent before moving into the building. I’ve got no place else to go.”

Ramos said the city would house the displaced tenants in motel rooms until they could find new apartments for them. Now we go from code enforcement to social work.”

This is the start of something,” said Turcio, the Cedar Hill activist. If the city targets other problem properties” in the neighborhood, Cedar Hill could turn around, she said. As it is, crime has been rising, she said.

It’s a great neighborhood. It’s worth saving,” she said. This was the worst property in the neighborhood by far and I’m very happy that it’s closed.”


Previous coverage of Diamond Properties’ owners:
Rooming House Retreats
Rooming House Riles Cedar Hill
Failed Inspection? Slumlords Find New Inspector
Slumlords Sell” Properties, Still Collect Rent
Slumlords Unload 9 Properties
Ceiling Fell. Baby Died. Slumlords Paid Nothing
Slumlords Stiff Banks — & Rake In Sec. 8 Bucks
One family moves in, another forced out
Showpiece House Rises Next To Problem House

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