File photos
Meet the negotiators: (Clockwise from top left) New Haven's Ellen Pankey, Detroit's Teresa McCormick, New Haven's Gerene Freeman, and Detroit's Charles Cunningham.
Ellen Pankey, 76, told her landlord, face to face, that her West Hills apartment building’s faulty, noisy boiler keeps her up at night, and that on the weekends, garbage in the trash chute piles all the way up to the second or third floor.
She aired those concerns during an hour-and-a-half long Zoom meeting among New Haven’s Park Ridge Tenants Union, Detroit’s River Pointe Tower Tenants Union, and their shared landlord, the New York-based Capital Realty Group.
The meeting marked the groups’ first negotiating session since the senior renters formed their respective unions earlier this month.
No signed commitments came out of Wednesday’s online meeting, but Capital Realty reportedly agreed to respect the right of tenants to unionize and to discuss quality of life improvements in follow-up meetings.
These New Haven and Detroit updates come as yet another group of senior residents formed yet another tenants union at yet another Capital Realty building — this one in Louisville, Kentucky. The new American Village Tenants Union, announced on Thursday, marks the third union formed at a Capital Realty property in the past three weeks.
Pankey, who has lived in the 72-unit West Hills complex at 10 Hard St. for seven years, was joined on Wednesday by two of her fellow Park Ridge tenants, including Gerene Freeman; Connecticut Tenants Union (CTTU) President Hannah Srajer; River Pointe tenants union members Teresa McCormick, Ronald Mays, and Charles Cunningham from Detroit; Detroit Tenants Association Co-Founder Steven Rimmer; and Tenants Union Federation President Tara Raghuveer.
Four members of Capital Realty’s upper management — including principals Moshe Eichler and Sam Horowitz — were also on the call.
Capital Realty did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of this article. This article is based on interviews with two of the tenants who participated in the call, as well as with a tenants union organizer who listened in.
During a phone interview with the Independent on Thursday, Pankey recalled Eichler reacting to her concerns “with a still face.” According to Pankey, Eichler and Capital Realty General Counsel Petya Vassilev deferred any discussion of a written agreement to Sep. 8, when their next meeting with the unions is scheduled.
Vassilev, said Pankey, also accused the unions — especially Detroit’s River Pointe Tower union — of harassing tenants who refused to unionize late at night. Pankey denied the allegations for the Park Ridge Tenants Union, adding that camera footage would confirm no members were knocking on doors or bothering residents after hours. While she couldn’t be sure about the River Point Tower tenants union, she said, she doubted that any members — who are all seniors, many with disabilities — were causing problems.
Despite how “guarded” upper management seemed, Pankey said, she feels “hopeful” about future negotiations, now that the landlord has seen and heard the intensity of tenants’ frustrations.
One of the Detroit tenants who spoke at Wednesday’s landlord-renter negotiating meeting, 77-year-old Teresa McCormick, listed her requests for urgent pest control, hardware and vent filter replacements, and a better package delivery system — something she said is particularly important for seniors, who often rely on delivery services for food, medication, and other essentials.
Eichler “understood, he listened to our issues, and I really thought he was sincere,” said McCormick, who has lived in Detroit’s River Pointe 122-unit apartment building for a year. Eichler seemed surprised to hear about the maintenance and management problems, she added, and willing to negotiate an agreement addressing them.
CTTU Vice President Luke Melonakos, who listened to the call without speaking, generally shared McCormick’s impression of Eichler. Eichler seemed cagey about agreeing to anything in writing, he added.
“Our approach is that we always want to engage in good faith,” said Melonakos, so he chose to believe Eichler when he said the maintenance issues were news to him and that he’d proactively address them moving forward. At the same time, Melonakos continued, “We stay ready for bad faith.” He said they’re preparing for the Sep. 8 meeting, and hope it happens, but they’ll see “if it actually does.”
In terms of tangible commitments from the meeting, both Pankey and McCormick understood Eichler as agreeing to honor the tenants’ right to organize. A press release from CTTU, sent on Wednesday, outlined those outcomes more specifically: it states that Capital Realty Group committed “to recognize and meet in good faith with any tenant unions within the Capital portfolio,” “to honor tenants’ right to organize,” to “sign a non-retaliation notice that affirms their commitment,” and “to a follow-up meeting with the unions to negotiate a formal agreement to the rest of the terms discussed.”
The press release also states that the unions will meet onsite management and Capital Realty’s regional asset managers between Aug. 28 and Sep. 8. According to Pankey and McCormick, that meeting was put forward as a precondition to Eichler signing any written agreements with the unions.
Meanwhile, in Louisville, residents of the 214-unit American Village complex formally announced their tenants union Thursday morning. The subsidized complex is located in a Shively, a Louisville suburb, and primarily serves seniors and residents with disabilities. According to Louisville’s WAVE News, residents said they’re dealing with “a broken AC, collapsing ceilings, broken elevators, mold, pests, and more.”