City Sued Over Fire-Relocation Aid

Two tenants displaced by a Grand Avenue fire learned Monday that they have hotel rooms to stay in thanks to a ​“courtesy” emergency payment from City Hall — while legal aid attorneys have filed two new lawsuits alleging that the Harp Administration has repeatedly violated other fire victims’ state and federal rights by denying them such relocation benefits.

Those two tenants are Lisa Rivera and Yamile Barrios.

The married couple and their bijou-mix Natasha fled their third-floor apartment at 309 Grand Ave. last Wednesday when a fire that apparently started on the fire escape outside their front window displaced eight tenants from the residential-commercial building near Blatchley Avenue.

(Asst. Fire Chief Mark Vendetto told the Independent on the day of the fire that 16 people had been displaced by the blaze. The city and the building’s property manager confirmed Monday that only eight people lived in and were forced to move out of the building’s four apartments by the fire. The remaining eight people initially identified as displaced likely were only visiting residents at the property at the time.)

Rivera and Barrios, who had been homeless before moving into the Grand Avenue shelter, have been worried about becoming homeless again in the wake of the fire.

They told the Independent Monday that they have spent the past five nights at the Days Inn motel on Foxon Boulevard.

“I haven’t slept in two days,” Rivera said while in the fourth-floor office of New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) on Orange Street. ​“All you do is go back to thinking. I figure God don’t give you more than you can handle. I’ll be all right.”

Red Cross paid for the couple’s emergency stay at the Rt. 80 motel through last Friday.

That same day, NHLAA Deputy Director Elizabeth Rosenthal emailed city attorneys and Livable City Initiative (LCI) representatives and requested that the city ​“step in and provide assistance to the displaced tenants under the URAA [Uniform Relocation Assistance Act] by, inter alia, providing temporary housing until they can return or find permanent replacement housing.”

Later that afternoon, Asst. Corporation Counsel Alison Lanoue responded that the city would extend the couple’s stay at the Day’s Inn through Monday, Dec. 9 ​“as a courtesy.” Lanoue also wrote that the city believes that the URAA ​“does not apply to these circumstances.”

Rivera, Barrios, and legal aid attorney Amy Marx told the Independent that the couple formally applied for relocation assistance with LCI Monday morning.

Marx said that during that meeting, the city committed to paying for Rivera and Barrios to continue to stay at the motel for at least the next few days.

Rivera and Barrios said that they had been homeless and working with the local homeless support nonprofit Columbus House before they moved into their now-burned-out Grand Avenue apartment about a year and a half ago. That housing placement was facilitated by another local homeless support nonprofit, Liberty Community Services (LCS), according to Marx.

Rivera and Barrios said they are still looking to move to a new apartment in West Haven with the help of LCS. But in the interim, they’re stranded in the Rt. 80 hotel, trying to coordinate with the 309 Grand Ave. landlord to find a time where they can return to the old apartment and salvage whatever clothing or appliances may remain.

The building’s property manager, who identified himself only as Dave, told the Independent by phone Monday that he is still working with the local fire department and insurance investigators and that they have not yet determined the source of the fire. ​“I blame it on a cigarette,” he said.

On the day of the fire, Rivera said she too thought the fire might have been caused by a neighbor climbing up the front fire escape to where she kept a couch and chairs, and sitting and smoking.

The building’sowner, Bethany-based Yale nephrologist Jianchao Xu — who has a spotty history of property maintenance on the west side of town and had been believed to be divesting himself of problem rental houses — did not respond to a request for comment.

Two New Legal Aid Lawsuits

While Rivera and Barrios have a definite place to stay for the time being thanks to the city’s commitment to pay for their hotel room, legal aid recently filed two lawsuits accusing the city of not following through on state and federal obligations when dealing with other victims of fire-spurred displacement.

On Dec. 6, Marx and NHLAA Legal Fellow Melissa Marichal filed two separate lawsuits with similar allegations in state housing court: one entitled Ruth Nelson v. City of New Haven and the other Natalya Daniels v. City of New Haven.

In both cases, the respective legal aid attorneys argue that the city violated provisions of the state’s relocation assistance act and the displaced tenants’ constitutional rights to due process as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

That’s because the city allegedly denied providing relocation assistance, including temporary housing, storage services, and moving expenses, to the two sets of displaced tenants and their respective families. Natalya Daniels and her three minor children were forced to leave their apartment at 88 Kensington St. on July 16 because of a fire. Ruth Nelson and her minor child found herself uprooted, also because of a fire, on July 17.

“On July 16, [the city] failed to notify plaintiff that she could or should seek relocation assistance from the city,” Marx wrote in the Daniels complaint. ​“No City official ever offered any notice of relocation rights nor application for relocation assistance.”

“No one advised her that she was entitled to benefits that included relocation housing until her unit could be repaired and that, if the family ultimately could not return to its former residence, that the family would be entitled to assistance in finding comparable, safe, decent, and sanitary permanent housing and a replacement housing payment,” the complaint continued.

Marichal cites a similar situation in her Nelson complaint.

“Rather than provide Ms. Nelson with temporary housing until she can permanently relocate back to her unit, as required under the URAA, Defendants are providing Ms. Nelson with temporary housing from November 15, 2019 through December 10, 2019 ​‘as a courtesy.’”

These official denials are not only a violation of the URAA, the lawsuits contend, but also a violation of the tenants’ 14th Amendment rights because the city does not apparently have a formalized relocation plan for tenants displaced by fire. That means that, if the city does not provide notice of tenants’ rights under the URAA, tenants have no recourse to appeal that de facto municipal denial of assistance.

“The city should have a written relocation plan so that everybody’s on the same page about what the policy and procedures are,” Marx (pictured) said Monday.

Having the fire department and the Red Cross at the site of a fire, helping tenants find immediate emergency shelter is not good enough, she and Rosenthal and Marichal argued. The city should also provide a leaflet or card that explains what tenants’ rights are, and where they should go in City Hall to apply for relocation assistance.

“You should not be left standing at the street corner scared,” Marx continued. ​“You’re already traumatized by the fire. You shouldn’t be adding to that trauma by not knowing what’s going to come next.”

Both lawsuits call on New Haven’s state housing court to provide preliminary injunctions that order the city to provide ​“decent, safe, sanitary and otherwise suitable temporary housing” as well as reimbursements for storage and moving expenses.

They also request temporary injunctions ordering the city to immediately provide the plaintiffs with notices of their rights under the URAA and enjoining the city from discontinuing the provision of those relocation benefits.

Finally, they request a permanent injunction requiring the city to provide ​“suitable temporary relocation housing and all other appropriate relocation assistance” to the plaintiffs.

“Our position is that the city has done a … how should I put this?” Marx said

“Inadequate?” Rosenthal suggested.

“Totally inadequate job administering relocation assistance,” Marx finished.

The city’s spokesperson did not respond to emailed requests for comment by the publication time of this story.

In the legal aid lawsuits themselves, city attorney Lanoue is quoted as explaining the city’s denial of relocation assistance to the two sets of tenants as due to it being ​“the city’s position that the URAA does not apply to displacement due to an accidental fire (with no finding of neglect on the part of the landlord/property owner).”

Lanoue is also quoted as saying that, in Daniels’s case, that particular tenant initially declined temporary relocation assistance from the Red Cross in the immediate aftermath of the fire.

“The Red Cross offered Ms. Daniels a few day stay at a West Haven motel,” Marx wrote in the complaint. ​“Ms. Daniels declined such short-term offer, believing that it was only for a few days and preferring to take her children to be with family in the face of the immediate trauma of the fire given that they had no viable options for adequate temporary relocation housing.

“With no stable, temporary relocation housing, Ms. Daniels has been homeless, forced to stay and move between the homes of friends and family.

“With no assistance with moving nor storing her household property, Ms. Daniels has not been able to properly store her property, but rather been forced to disburse her property to homes of friends and family.

“Two of the children are consistently late to school on account of the unstable housing situation and the need for car transportation.

“The family is suffering emotional distress from sleeping on floors and constantly moving between family and friends’ homes.”