Sweep Turns Up 4 Illegal Apartments

Paint was peeling by the front door of the house at 31 Grace St. Rafael Ramos, the deputy head of housing code enforcement at New Haven government’s Livable City Initiative (LCI), noticed a broken window by the side as well as trash left out in the backyard.

He didn’t expect to discover four illegal apartments in the house’s basement when he knocked on the door.

That’s what he found.

Ramos had been walking with a group of city officials Tuesday morning conducting a sweep of the Cedar Hill neighborhood. The sweep was part of the city’s ​“clean and safe” walking tour initiative, in which city officials identify houses and buildings displaying signs of blight and try to connect the houses’ owners with relevant resources.

Representatives from LCI, the Department of Transportation, Traffic, and Parking, the Office of Housing and Homelessness Services, and the parks department were among the city officials present. Cedar Hill Alder Anna Festa, police officers including District Manager Lt. Manmeet Colon, and social workers like Noel Ortiz from Liberty Community Services also joined.

The Harp administration launched the sweeps in late 2017 to bring together different departments that work on neighborhood problems. It has previously conducted sweeps in Fair Haven, Newhallville, the Annex, and the Hill.

City officials split up into two groups and walked routes around the Cedar Hill neighborhood. They paid special attention to houses and buildings reported on the city’s SeeClickFix app, through which neighbors can file complaints about issues such as graffiti, potholes, and illegal trash dumping practices.

Ramos led one group down Cedar Hill Avenue, eventually turning onto Grace Street.

At 31 Grace St., Ramos first knocked on the door after noticing peeling paint by the front door, a broken window by the side, and trash left out in the backyard.

Shyanna, who’s 20, answered.

Ramos and LCI’s Linda Davis asked Shyanna about the house. Shyanna mentioned she is trying to regain custody of her 1‑year-old daughter after the state Department of Children and Families took her away. She and her mother, the house’s owner, had been trying — unsuccessfully — to get rid of ​“roommates” who were living downstairs in order to get her daughter back. The two of them live upstairs with one other relative.

The city officials began to move onto the house next door. But then Shyanna’s mother, Carmen, pulled up into the driveway in a car, responding to a phone call from her daughter.

Ramos turned back to talk to Carmen. Soon, officials standing nearby called Davis over, shouting ​“Mayday” to get her attention.

“We gotta clear the basement,” an officer said. Carmen had been renting out four illegal apartments in her basement to four tenants.

Members of the group walked over to a door at the side of the house, which opened to a stairwell leading to the basement.

Officials gathered in a hallway that also appeared to function as a kitchen with a microwave and sink, where two men stood inside their basement homes. Yellow floral curtains hung over a small window near the basement ceiling.

“You have to understand: this is unsafe,” Ramos told two tenants. There were no adequate egresses from the basement in the case of a fire, he said.

One tenant was smoking as he spoke. Lt. Colon asked him to put out the cigarette. ​“Talk about a fire hazard,” she said.

Officials found a mulcher (pictured) in the basement and swiftly carried it outdoors. ​“This is full of gas,” an official said. ​“It can’t be inside.”

One of the downstairs residents was Shyanna’s uncle. He said he’d been homelessness, once living at Columbus House, before he moved into the basement. He doesn’t officially pay rent, he said, but he helps out around the house. He has now agreed to live in a room upstairs, Ramos later reported.

“We’re not gonna put you in the street,” Ramos assured the other tenants. He made them hotel reservations for that night. They each would be assigned a relocation officer to help them find new housing accommodations. The tenants who were present were required to gather their belongings and move out right then; eventually, they walked out of the basement with garbage bags of their things.

Shyanna’s romantic partner physically abused her, she said, resulting in several domestic violence calls. That led to a visit from DCF, who initially discovered the tenants downstairs. Since then, Shyanna said that she and her mother have been trying to get rid the tenants, whom she alleges have used illegal drugs in their homes.

“This is our family home,” Shyanna said, adding that she had lived in the house since she was 9 years old. Several tenants have moved in and out of the basement over the past decade, she said. ​“My mom only does it because she needed money for the mortgage.”

According to Ramos, Carmen and her family will be responsible for paying for the costs of the evictions, including the hotel rooms and moving costs. The city will enforce the payment through a lien. No criminal charges will be filed, Ramos said.

As the group approached 45 and 47 Grace St. (pictured), a resident of the building next door called out to the officials.

“I don’t know if it’s cat litter or piss,” she said, referring to a smell coming from the house. ​“Somebody needs to make them clean that up.”

“I can imagine that somebody’s hoarding cats,” Ramos said. He approached the house, where duct tape lined the door.

“How are you doing? It’s the City of New Haven,” he said.

The tenant who answered said that her boyfriend had recently passed away; he had been the main caretaker of the house, she said. The house’s owner is in a rehabilitation facility after having surgery on her leg, she said. Ramos took down the owner’s name.

There were four stray cats, which the tenant called ​“feral,” living downstairs. Those belonged to the owner. The tenant herself had three cats living upstairs.

Ramos pressed the tenant on taking care of the cats.

“The manager’s dying,” she responded. ​“Can you give me a second? Everyone’s on my shoulders.”

Ramos left the scene.

“I could smell it. I could taste it,” he said afterwards of the stench. ​“We’re gonna come back with animal control and the health department.”

Next door to the 31 Grace St. House, at 19 and 17 Grace, a set of stairs leading up to the door was partially covered by a wooden ramp. Slim wooden boards had been nailed crookedly to the ramp. There was no railing to the left of the ramp.

“Is this legal?” someone asked, pointing to the ramp.

An empty stroller, with a stuffed animal tucked inside, sat to the left of the staircase.

“You could kill yourself trying to roll up and down there,” Ramos said.

He knocked on the door. No one answered. He hung a note around the doorknob, which asked for the owner to call the Liveable City Initiative to schedule an inspection. He also left a plastic bag stuffed with flyers containing information about trash pickup, emergency preparedness, and lead hazards, among other resources.