Park Ridge Seniors Form Tenants Union

Elderly renters at a Hard Street apartment complex donned bright blue t‑shirts and stood outside their building Wednesday chanting, ​“I believe that we will win” and ​“Sí se puede.”

A few moments later, they signed paperwork with the Fair Rent Commission (FRC) and announced the official formation of the Park Ridge Tenants Union — in an effort to elevate complaints around what they described as a faulty boiler, security concerns in the parking lot, slow response times to maintenance requests, dirty carpets in common spaces, an extra rental charge for live-in aides, and unreasonable rules for how residents use their apartments.

That was the scene Wednesday morning at the entrance of the Park Ridge Apartments at 10 Hard St., a subsidized complex in West Hills for seniors and people with disabilities that includes around 72 apartments.

This marks the city’s eighth officially recognized tenants union.

An affiliate of the Capital Realty Group, a 500-person asset management firm based in New York, owns and operates the building. In 2021, the company was sharply criticized in various Chicago news outlets for failing to respond to complaints of rats, mold, and termites at Concordia Place, a 297-unit complex that was owned at the time by an affiliate of Capital Realty. In New Haven, tenants from another Capital Realty property, Sunset Ridge Apartments, criticized the landlord in 2024 for passing significant rent hikes and failing to address severe mold. The Capital Realty Group affiliate has owned Park Ridge Apartments since 2016.

During Wednesday’s demonstration, Park Ridge residents were joined by Connecticut Tenants Union’s (CTTU) President Hannah Srajer and Vice President Luke Melonakos, FRC Executive Director Wildaliz Bermudez, and leaders from the local labor advocacy group New Haven Rising. Tenants union members from St. Luke’s Senior Housing on Goffe Street and Parkside Village II in Branford, complexes that also serve seniors and people with disabilities, showed up in droves.

“I don’t want to die in the building and have management say they didn’t know there was a problem,” said Park Ridge resident Gerene Freeman. ​“We want a meeting with management, where they’re sincere about making real changes.”

Freeman, who has lived in the building for eight years and was elected as an officer of the chapter, was the first Park Ridge tenant to reach out to CTTU. One of her primary concerns is the building’s faulty boiler, which she said shut off for hours in the middle of the night last winter. ​“It makes loud, banging sounds, like it’s gonna blow up,” she added.

Evelyn Randall has lived in Park Ridge for two years and said she has already experienced serious maintenance issues with her unit’s sewage system. She recalled being asked to leave her home for a week while technicians fixed the plumbing, but said she was not offered any funds to pay for a hotel room while the work was performed.

Srajer pointed out that Capital Realty — which, according a tenants union press release, made $317,000 in profit on the building last year — had enough money to make the repairs requested by tenants but instead chose to only spend $48,000 on maintenance ($660 per unit).

“This is a message not only to Capital Realty but to all corporate landlords that put profit before people,” she declared. Srajer then asked the landlord, rhetorically: ​“Would you let your mother be without heat in the winter?”

Fifty-five percent of the building agreed to join the union, a number that Melonakos said was particularly impressive given that many Park Ridge residents require 24/7 care and rarely leave their homes.

Several union representatives planned to drive to the corporate offices of Capital Realty in Spring Valley, New York, and deliver a petition demanding a collective bargaining agreement. They’ve given the company until Aug. 13 to respond.

It is not clear whether Capital Realty will engage with the union. They were not present at the rally and did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of the article.

So far, noted Melonakos, Capital Realty has allegedly used a ​“carrot and stick method” to dissuade the union from forming, leveraging both the offer of rewards and the threat of punishment.

According to Freeman, after catching wind of the union, the company replaced the carpeting in the common spaces. But once they realized the union was using the complex’s common room as a meeting space, they allegedly amended the space’s rules to restrict such gatherings.

“I had a pop-up inspection of my apartment the day after I was elected” as a chapter officer, said Ellen Pankey. She added, somewhat sardonically, that the visit was so unexpected that when she opened the door, she anticipated an Amazon delivery.

Aside from calling for improved living conditions at Park Ridge, Wednesday’s demonstration also served as a show of solidarity among seniors and tenants with disabilities across the state.

Lori-Lynn Ross, an officer with the Parkside Village II union, said the birth of her grandson in mid-2023 gave her ​“the wind under her sails” to push for safer housing. She came to Wednesday’s rally, she explained, because she believes every grandchild deserves to visit their grandmother in a healthy environment.

“What coming out and coming together has done for our quality of life was life-changing,” she said. ​“We’re all in the same boat.”