Thomas Breen photo
Michael Henderson: "I'm not trying to not pay rent."
The new owner of a 72-unit apartment complex in Upper Westville has moved to evict five households — including parents of young children who said they are willing and able to pay their rent, if only the landlord would take their money.
State court records show that 492 Fountain LLC filed five different eviction lawsuits between late March and late April against various tenants living at the Imperial Gardens complex at 492 – 514 Fountain St.
The landlord is a holding company managed by Yohay Levram, a former Ocean Management employee who is also the head of the downtown-based property management company Hammock Home Management.
492 Fountain LLC purchased the Westville complex in December for $10.25 million.
The eviction lawsuits all cite nonpayment of rent as the primary reason for the landlord’s bid to kick out these tenants.
Court filings and interviews with two of the tenants facing eviction complicate that story — with renters blaming their current precarious housing situations on tech problems with Hammock’s online payment portal and difficulties getting anyone at the new property management company to answer the phone.
A lawyer representing Hammock dismissed these claims as “false accusations,” and said that the tenants, and not the property management company, were the ones who didn’t respond to Hammock’s outreach. The tenants told the Independent that this is just not true. See more below for Hammock’s response in full.
So far, three of the five Imperial Gardens tenants facing eviction have reached stipulated agreements in housing court that buy them a little bit more time before they have to uproot their lives and leave. One of those tenants reached an agreement on Thursday with the help of legal aid lawyer Amy Marx, who is also the alder who represents the ward that includes Imperial Gardens. Marx, in her capacity as a staff attorney at legal aid, stepped in last minute to help the tenant after finding out about the tenant’s case while in court.
Of the two other Imperial Gardens eviction cases, one has seen a judge enter a default judgment against the tenant for not filing an appearance in court. The fifth and most recently filed case is still working its way through the court system, though that tenant has also not yet filed an appearance.
A Big Difference Between "What's On Paper" & "What Happened"
The Imperial Gardens complex on Fountain St.
Michael Henderson and Ranice Caruth have lived in their respective two-bedroom apartments at Imperial Gardens for more than five years apiece. Henderson has a wife and two children, an 11-year-old and an infant. Caruth has a 5‑year-old daughter.
Both told the Independent they like living at the Fountain Street complex; that it is near their children’s school on Davis Street; that it’s close to family and friends; that it is home. They had no intention of moving.
Henderson said he fell behind on his $1,400 monthly rent in January as he struggled to apply for unemployment due to an injury he suffered in his job as a construction worker. He said he tried to make a good-faith partial payment of $350 earlier in January, and tried to pay his full amount after unemployment came through on Jan. 24.
No matter how many times he called or tried to use the online portal or even went down to Hammock’s Orange Street office, he said, he was never able to clear his balance. He said he was assured by a Hammock employee, Melissa Fainer, that the online portal would work and he’d be able to pay that way. “I was told not to worry and others were experiencing similar issues,” Henderson wrote in an April 10 court filing.
Instead, in mid-February, he received a notice to quit. Henderson said he was told by Fainer that going forward he had to deal only with the lawyer representing the landlord in this eviction case, rather than the property management company.
When he went to eviction court at 121 Elm St. on April 24 for his trial — his first time ever in a courtroom, Henderson said — he said he was told during mediation by Hammock’s lawyer that the company wanted him out that day.
Henderson said he was shocked, as he had all of the money available to pay his rent balance, late fees, and even the landlord’s attorney fees.
Ultimately, Henderson signed a stipulation by which he and his family agreed to leave their Fountain Street apartment no later than July 31 so long as they pay $1,400 per month before then.
“I never went down there with any animosity, any anger. It was always trying to resolve the situation at hand, which was paying my rent,” Henderson, 31, said about his attempts over the past few months to clear his rent balance with Hammock.
As he wrote in a court filing in this case, “I have consistently demonstrated my intent to pay rent and have acted in good faith to resolve the payment discrepancy … I am a responsible tenant who has made every effort to fulfill my rental obligations.”
Now his family is looking for a new apartment with an eviction case on his record.
There’s a big difference between “what’s on paper” and “what happened,” he said about his eviction case. And “what’s on paper is ‘I didn’t pay rent.’ ”
Henderson said that this eviction case is already hindering his ability to find somewhere new to live. He said he tried to apply for an open apartment at a Mandy Management property on Fairfield Street, but was told by a Mandy employee that the company doesn’t accept applications from renters with notices to quit on their records.
Yudi Gurevitch, the head of Mandy Management, said this is not his company’s policy. “Mandy Management’s rental application process is 100% holistic, evaluating each applicant based on a complete picture that includes income, references, and credit history,” he said. “A notice to quit or prior eviction may trigger additional review, but it doesn’t automatically disqualify someone. Rental history is just one part of the overall application.”
"No One Ever Got Back To Me"
In court filings and an interview with the Independent, Caruth offered a similar story. She said she was unsure how to pay her January rent after the new management company took over, and received a knock at her door and a late notice from a Hammock employee in January — the first and only contact she said she’s ever had with her new landlord.
Caruth said she had the money available and wanted to pay her January rent, but Hammock directed her to an online portal that didn’t have her apartment listed. No matter how many times she tried on that portal, she said, she couldn’t pay.
“I’ve called over 20 times in the past two months,” Caruth told the Independent about her outreach to Hammock. “I left voicemails for different departments. … No one ever got back to me.” Until, that is, she got a notice to quit letting her know her landlord was trying to evict her.
“I had the money to pay for January,” she insisted. In a March 26 court filing, she wrote that she is able to pay her full rent “if I can get information on who to pay and when.”
Paying rent isn’t a problem, she told the Independent. What is a problem is “they [Hammock] don’t respond. It’s like they don’t want to talk to tenants before trying to kick them out.”
On April 22, state housing court Judge Alayna Stone entered a judgment for the landlord in the eviction case because Caruth had failed to appear in court for her trial. On April 23, Caruth wrote in a court filing that her child was sick, she was unable to find coverage, and she had tried in vain to let her landlord know but had been “unable to get in contact.”
Caruth showed up to New Haven’s third-floor housing court Thursday morning for the latest hearing in her case. She was seeking to open the existing eviction judgment that had been entered when she failed to appear for her trial. The landlord objected to Caruth’s motion on the grounds that having difficulties finding childcare is not a sufficient excuse under state law for not showing up to a scheduled court proceeding.
Caruth didn’t ultimately have to appear before state Superior Court Judge Walter Spader, Jr. Thursday, as she wound up striking a stipulated agreement with her landlord, represented by attorney Ian Gottlieb. Caruth was helped in reaching that stipulation by Amy Marx, who learned about her case in court and filed an appearance that morning to represent Caruth.
Ultimately, in the landlord-tenant stipulation, Caruth agreed to leave her apartment no later than July 31, as long as she pays her monthly rent of just under $1,300 between now then. The agreement states that Caruth has no back rent due as of Thursday.
“I wish they would actually answer their phones so they can hear our side and allow us to stay,” Caruth said when asked by this reporter earlier this week about how she would have liked the past few months to play out instead of the way that they did.
In court on Thursday, she said she is grateful that she and her daughter will be able to stay in their longtime apartment for another three months. That said, she’s not looking forward to having to find a new place to live so soon — and she’s saddened to think that her daughter may have to leave Davis Street School.
Marx, meanwhile, stressed that “this is exactly the kind of situation” that calls for expanded just-cause eviction protections. Even though the initial eviction lawsuit filed against Caruth accused her of nonpayment of rent, Marx was confident that Caruth would have won that. But even if she won, her landlord could have turned around and filed a lapse-of-time eviction lawsuit, on the grounds that her lease had expired.
Still another Imperial Gardens tenant facing eviction had a housing court trial scheduled for Thursday. He wrote in a court filing in March that he had paid his rent for the month of January by the time the notice to quit was filed.
He signed a stipulation stating that he can stay in his apartment through the end of August so long as he pays his monthly rent of $1,375.
Hammock's "Phone Line And Door Are Always Open"
Hammock attorney Gerald Giaimo (right) at a City Hall hearing in November.
Gerald Giamo, a lawyer representing Hammock Home Management, disagreed with all of Henderson’s and Caruth’s accusations of wrongdoing on his client’s part.
He said that Hammock’s online payment portal “has and continues to operate without disruption.”
“Since its assumption of management at the Fountain Street property, Hammock has made open and prompt communication with tenants a priority,” he continued. “If a tenant has not been served with a Notice to Quit, he or she can pay rent through the online portal without difficulty. Before a Notice to Quit is issued, Hammock will attempt to communicate with the tenant multiple times to inquire.”
In the cases of Henderson and Caruth, Giaimo said, that Hammock “absolutely made efforts to speak with the tenants before a Notice to Quit was issued. If a tenant does not respond, however, a Notice to Quit will issue and an eviction will proceed. From that point on, the matter is in the hands of eviction counsel who handles communications going forward (as the matter is in litigation).”
As a general rule, he said, Hammock will not comment on pending litigation. He noted that the documents in Henderson’s and Caruth’s housing court cases are all available as public records.
“Again, Hammock Home Management prides itself on the quality of its services and its fairness to tenants,” Giaimo concluded. “Its phone lines and door are always open.”
Caruth, one of the tenants facing eviction who reached a stipulation on Thursday, pushed back on Giaimo’s response in a follow-up comment of her own. “Hammock did not reach out ‘multiple times’ like they should have,” she said. They only showed up once at her door in January. And the paper they dropped off didn’t have any contact information for Hammock. She said she had to Google the management office to find out how to get in touch with them.
“And sure, the phone lines and doors may be open like he said but there’s no one behind them so they might as well be closed,” she concluded. “Do better.”