Jordan Allyn photo
Park Ridge tenant Evelyn Randall (left): Experienced union member at work, new union member at home.
Elderly renters with the Park Ridge Tenants Union hosted a pizza party Wednesday to uplift a newly formed tenants union at a senior apartment building in Detroit that is owned by the same corporate landlord that owns Park Ridge.
At the same time, they noticed that their shared landlord’s website is no longer available for public view.
The Park Ridge Tenants Union put together that party Wednesday at the 72-unit complex at 10 Hard St.
They were celebrating Tuesday’s announcement 600-plus miles away of the creation of the River Pointe Tower Tenants Union at a 122-unit building on the east side of Detroit.
Both Park Ridge and River Pointe are owned by affiliates of the New York-based landlord Capital Realty Group.
On Wednesday, Park Ridge tenants convened to read and watch news coverage of the unionizing efforts in Detroit.
They also noticed that Capital Realty Group’s website, which was formerly open to the public, now requires a username and password to access.
“As of this morning, we noticed that their website has been closed,” Connecticut Tenants Union Vice President Luke Melonakos said about Capital Realty Group’s site.
Melonakos added, “Their strategy so far seems to be hiding from the publicity and kind of waving it away and trying to say ‘nothing to see here.’”
The party took place two weeks to the day after the formation of the Park Ridge Tenants Union amidst senior renters’ concerns about a faulty boiler, security in the parking lot, slow response times to maintenance requests, dirty carpets in common spaces, an extra rental charge for live-in aides, and rules for how residents use their apartments.
On the same day of the union’s announcement, union members travelled to the Capital Realty Group’s Spring Valley, N.Y. headquarters, only to be redirected to New Jersey, then back to New York, where they claimed to see company employees close their blinds and hide behind their desks.
In the past couple of weeks, management replaced a carpet in the common area, but has yet to address residents’ pressing concerns regarding boiler and plumbing issues, tenants union members said on Wednesday.
Gerene Freeman, the vice president of Park Ridge Tenants Union, said the boiler “sounds like it’s going to blow up.” Freeman said she was the first tenant to move in after Capital Realty Group purchased the property eight years ago.
The federally subsidized West Hills complex houses seniors and people with disabilities. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal announced last week that he plans to send a letter to Capital Realty Group calling on them to listen to tenant concerns.
Evelyn Randall, a member of the Park Ridge Tenants Union, said on Wednesday that last year she woke up to sewage overflowing from her toilet and bathtub. “It was scary because I had never dealt with anything like that in my lifetime,” said Randall. She stayed with her sister in a different apartment in New Haven while maintenance cleaned up the mess. “It wasn’t like anyone from administration approached me at all about anything,” said Randall.
Randall served as a union steward while working for a health maintenance organization (HMO). “We got a lot of things accomplished,” said Randall. She saw wage increases and educational enrichment programs as a result of the union. Given this experience, she hopes for positive changes with Park Ridge’s housing conditions.
In addition to the Park Ridge complex, Capital Realty Group also owns Sunset Ridge Apartments in New Haven. The national news outlet In These Times published earlier this year an investigation about how residents developed respiratory problems or severe allergies due to untreated mold in Sunset Ridge. Those tenants have not yet unionized.
“I’ve been here for 20 years, and it was so different,” Park Ridge Tenants Union member Harold Reid said on Wednesday. Before Capital Realty Group purchased the property, Reid said, “It was wonderful, it was family style.” He knew the landlord and his kids and felt heard.
“Tenants are going up against not a local landlord that they can go talk to and have a relationship with, but a corporate entity that hides from them,” said Melonakos. “And that’s why tenants are compelled to organize, because one by one they have not been able to get results.”
A representative of the landlord did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article.
At Wednesday's party on Hard St.
Capital Realty Group's website, password protected as of Wedbnesday.
What this same website looked like on July 14, per the Wayback Machine website.