Tenants Union Pickets Ocean Successor

“Mold, mice, potholes, trash! What are you doing with our cash?”

A dozen tenant advocates chanted that message on Thursday, calling for the new property manager of an east-side apartment complex to negotiate a lease with their union. 

The protesters included Connecticut Tenants Union leaders as well as members of the Quinnipiac Avenue Tenants Union, which represents a 40-unit apartment complex at 530 Eastern St. and 1275 Quinnipiac Ave. 

At 1 p.m. on Thursday, they picketed outside the downtown office building at 350 Orange St., where new property manager Hammock Home Management is headquartered.

According to protest leaders, tenants at the complex recently received an email stating that a property management company known as Hammock Home Management took over the complex from Ocean Management as of Oct. 1. 

The building technically hasn’t been sold from one company to the other — but Kings NH LLC, the holding company that has legally owned the apartment complex since 2018, has swapped affiliations. The holding company once listed Shmuel Aizenberg of Ocean Management as its managing member, but state business records show that Aizenberg stepped down from that position in September; Yohay Levram, who’s in charge of Hammock Home Management, is now listed as the holding company’s manager.

According to Quinnipiac Tenants Union Vice President Hope Vaughn, the tenants union members have met multiple times with Levram to try to negotiate a collective lease. They are aiming for a contract akin to the three-year deal that Ocean Management agreed to with the tenants union at 311 Blake St. — the sole agreement reached so far between a New Haven-based tenant union and a landlord.

Marching in a circle on the narrow sidewalk in front of the office building, the group waved placards reading ​“Tenants Demand: Security Safety Stability Respect” and chanted ​“Get up, get down / New Haven is a union town.”

Connecticut Tenants Union Vice President Luke Melonakos-Harrison said the Quinnipiac tenants union is seeking commitments from Levram’s company on ​“major repairs, ongoing maintenance and communication standards, setting rent schedules, and renegotiating leases.” 

Vaughn added that the property struggles with flooding both in basements and in the parking lot. ​“If we have an emergency, if we have to leave,” it’s difficult to do so because of how bad the flooding gets.

“I’m fighting for respect. I’m fighting for peace,” said fellow tenants union member Richard Machuca. ​“We came here and we try to negotiate.” So far, nothing doing.

Thus the picket.

Hammock Home Management employees did briefly show up to the picket — not to engage with the protesters, but instead to lay out a table with pastries and coffee and a handwritten sign reading, ​“Hammock Home Management welcomes tenants of Quinnipiac and Eastern. Please enjoy coffee & Danish.”

A Hammock Home employee declined to comment in person at Thursday’s picket. Gerry Giaimo, an attorney representing Hammock Home, did answer the Independent’s questions via email. 

Giaimo said that Hammock Home Management LLC took over the management of 1279 Quinnipiac / 530 Eastern from Ocean Management on Oct. 1 ​“with the intent of focusing on its tenants’ satisfaction through communication and transparency.” 

He stressed that, counter to claims made by the tenants union, ​“Hammock is an entirely new management company that has replaced Ocean, not rebranded it.”

The tenants union’s press release claimed that the Quinnipiac Avenue complex’s residents are currently dealing with a lack of heat, chronic leaks and sewage problems, and faulty appliances, doors, and windows, among other problems. 

“The claims made in the press release you have provided us invoke allegations against Ocean as the justification to now defame the people who have been brought in to improve management,” Giaimo told the Independent. ​“Contrary to what is implied, there are no known housing code violations at the Quinnipiac/Eastern properties. Further, the Hammock has been vetted and granted a valid Residential Business License from New Haven for these properties and it has employed a dedicated superintendent who is present on the property daily.”

Giaimo concluded by stressing that Hammock is not associated with Ocean, ​“other than Hammock having poached two former Ocean employees.” (The tenants union press release pointed out that Levram previously worked as the ​“second-in-command at Ocean.”)

“Ocean continues to exist and manages numerous other properties owned by varying interests,” Giaimo wrote. ​“Hammock does not have any connection, management, or ownership in the properties Ocean manages and vice versa. Hammock and Ocean share no employees, and manage properties owned by different interests.”

He concluded by stating that Levram is not employed by Ocean, and ​“has never had any ownership in properties or in the Ocean entity.” He is currently an employee and manager at Home Hammock Management. ​“Neither Mr. Levram nor Hammock is controlled by or takes any direction from Ocean Management.”

Giaimo dismissed the picket and protest as a ​“manufactured controversy,” with criticisms of Ocean being ​“glazed onto a stand-alone, new entity.” He said that only eight of the 40 units at the Quinnipiac and Eastern complexes are currently up for renewal.

“Disagreeing with or not meeting unilateral deadlines to collectively bargain with tenants at Quinnipiac and Eastern (80% of whom have an existing, valid lease), is not bad faith, any more so than busing in protesters to picket who don’t live at either of those properties,” he wrote. ​“There is nothing wrong with regional and national groups working their mandate to grow local tenant unions, but one size does not fit all, and in this case they are unfairly smearing Hammock.”