Thomas Breen photo
Local landlord Galina Zalman: “We only use food banks.”
After taxes, utilities, repairs, and tens of thousands of dollars lost through unpaid rent amid the Covid-19 pandemic, landlord Galina Zalman said she made a total of $2,552 in 2020 — sending her to a food pantry as she struggles to keep three local rental properties afloat.
Zalman, who is 72 years old, and her husband Andrey live on the ground floor of a two-family house that they own at 33 Hazel St. in Newhallville.
In a housing market increasingly dominated by mega-landlords and their associated property management companies, the two Russian-born Brooklyn transplants are a rare breed: Owner-occupants and small-time landlords whose sole source of income is local real estate.
The Zalmans’ owner-occupied rental home at 33 Hazel St.
In addition to the two-story, two-family home they live in at 33 Hazel, the Zalmans also own a two-story, single-family house at 130 Hazel St. down the block, and a two-story, two-family house at 70 Adeline St. in the Hill.
During an interview outside of her Newhallville home, Zalman told the Independent that 2020 made being a small-time rental property owner in New Haven nearly impossible.
Several of her tenants simply stopped paying rent as the Covid-19 pandemic took its economic toll, she said. One tenant who was behind on rent passed away. Another who was behind on rent is now in jail. A few of her remaining tenants have not paid in full or at all in months.
Zalman said the governor’s statewide eviction moratorium — designed to protect vulnerable tenants from losing their homes during an economic and public health emergency—has prolonged by many months any legal attempt she might make to move out tenants who are not paying their bills.
But what has been a much bigger problem for her and her husband’s business, she said, is finding people able to pay rent at all.
A faux-fur-lined hood pulled over her head atop her winter coat, Zalman said that, across all three of her rental properties, she and her husband lost out on a total of $30,000 in unpaid rent last year.
She paged through a file thick with papers related to her rental business. Pointing to the bottom of the fourth column, she said that she and Andrey brought in $39,910 in rent across all three houses in 2020. After subtracting utilities, local property taxes, repairs, and other costs associated with keeping up the homes, that number dwindled to $2,552.25 in adjusted gross income.
“We live only on money from rent,” she said in a thick Russian accent. “We don’t have another job. We don’t have disability. I don’t have pension. I have 72 years, and I don’t have pension.”
For most of last year, she said, she and Andrey have relied on local food pantries, in particular the one run by Jewish Family Services of Greater New Haven on Whalley Avenue. A local church has also occasionally dropped off groceries at their house.
“We only use food banks, because no money,” she said.
A Zalman-owned rental property at 130 Hazel St.
The husband-and-wife landlord duo moved from Brooklyn to New Haven and bought their three rental properties back in 2009, she said. That was after Andrey received a $200,000 payout following a construction-related injury he incurred on the job in 2005.
“We go to New Haven, because Brooklyn houses [are] too expensive,” she said.
What was a difficult line of work in more stable years has become virtually untenable in the age of Covid-19, she said. She said she has not been able to find any local, state, or federal assistance to make up for lost rent.
One of the few bright spots of last year, she said, was working with the local homelessness services nonprofit Liberty Community Services, which she said helped cover a security deposit for one tenant and rental assistance for another.
“She’s a great landlord, a real sweetheart,” said Luis Salgado (pictured at right), who rents a room on the second floor of 33 Hazel St.
He had been living at the Columbus House homeless shelter before moving into his current rented room in March of last year. He said he was on unemployment. When that ran out, Zalman encouraged him to call Liberty Community Services. He did, and they helped cover some of his rent.
Eviction Moves Ahead At 70 Adeline
Another Zalman-owned rental property, at 70 Adeline St.
Earlier Thursday morning, Zalman was in virtual housing court pursuing an eviction against two tenants at her 70 Adeline St. property.
According to the state housing court database, Zalman has filed for four evictions during her 11 and a half years as a New Haven landlord. All four of those evictions have been at the Adeline Street property.
According to court documents, Zalman filed this most recent case in October. She alleged that two tenants in Room #3 on the first floor of 70 Adeline failed to pay their $700 monthly rent on Feb. 1, 2020. (The governor’s eviction moratorium applies only to tenants behind on rent due in March 2020 or later, as well as to tenants who more than six months behind on rent due after March 2020.)
Zalman, representing herself, was the only party to show up at Thursday’s housing court hearing. The hearing was held online and livestreamed on YouTube. (The state judicial system has begun livestreaming videos of civil and criminal court cases on YouTube as of Feb. 1, 2021.)
“We provided a little bit of a grace period to see if the defendants were going to be joining this hearing,” said state Superior Court Judge Claudia Baio. “As of right now, the defendants have not entered the virtual courtroom. The clerk has advised that she made efforts to reach the defendants unsuccessfully. The clerk’s office has not received any communication from the defendants. And the court file reflects that nothing has been filed with the court by the defendant since notice of this hearing was provided. That includes there being no motion for continuance nor any claim of a CDC declaration.”
Baio said that, given the defendants’ no-show, she would be granting a default judgment in favor of Zalman’s filing for eviction.
Speaking up through a Russian interpreter, Zalman chimed in before Baio could rule in her favor.
“It looks like they are doing everything they can to protract the time without pay,” she said about the two tenants. “They’ve lived there since December of 2019.” She said they haven’t paid any rent since moving in.
“They just want to protract their tenancy for free,” she said. “I would very much like to have these people move out as soon as possible.”
Zalman said that she had to pay over $1,000 for a marshal to execute a previous eviction judgment she had won against a tenant.
Will that be necessary in order to enforce this new judgment for 70 Adeline?
“The court can’t do anything about that, ma’am,” Baio replied. “I can only address the matter that is before me today. Judgment of possession has entered in favor of you. If you have questions, you can contact the clerk or seek legal guidance.”
Tenant’s Take: This Is Retaliation
One of the tenants whom Zalman is looking to evict from 70 Adeline St. is Arthur Ray Moore. He told the Independent by phone Thursday night that he has a very different take on the eviction case — and on Zalman as a landlord.
“She has so many enemies here because she don’t do nothing here” to fix up a rundown property, he said about Zalman.
Moore said that he and his partner missed the Thursday morning housing court hearing because his partner’s phone was on vibrate, and she didn’t hear when the court called. He said they were also out of the house for a hospital visit.
“We’ve got mold in here,” he said about their room at 70 Adeline St. “The ceiling’s falling down. We’ve got no heat.” He described the building as a rooming house, where Zalman rents to tenants by the room.
In a legal response filed with state housing court on Oct. 27, Moore’s partner (who could not be reached for comment for this story) wrote that sewage had backed up from the first floor and flowed into the basement. She also wrote that Zalman had turned off the heat in June and hadn’t turned it back on by October. And she wrote that she and Moore had called the city’s Livable City Initiative (LCI), which had sent a housing code inspector to visit the property.
In response to these allegations, Zalman generally blamed the tenants for the state of disrepair on the ground floor of the building, for allegedly bringing in broken furniture from the street and destroying other existing furniture, and for causing the sewage backup themselves.
LCI Deputy Director Rafael Ramos told the Independent that his office did indeed respond to a tenant complaint about a sewage stoppage at 70 Adeline St. back in June. He said he wasn’t able to get in touch with the owner, and so the city paid for a plumber to go directly to the house and unclog the sewer. He said the city has placed a lien on the property for the cost of that plumbing work.
Ramos said a city housing code inspector tried to reinspect the property in August, but couldn’t get in. Ramos and a fellow inspector then returned in October to see how things were going and to see if the heat had been turned back on. He said that Southern Connecticut Gas had turned off the gas in June because of the sewage backup in the basement.
When Ramos and another LCI inspector arrived in October, Ramos said, they again were not able to get into the property. This time, an apparent tenant “swore and cursed and threatened” through a window at the inspectors. The inspectors left after being threatened while trying to help.
“The neighbors had forewarned us that that house has a lot of shenanigans,” Ramos said. He said 70 Adeline St. is not registered as a rooming house, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is operating illegally. The local definition of a rooming house is four or more unrelated people renting an apartment. Ramos said he didn’t know how many people exactly were renting rooms at 70 Adeline.
Moore told the Independent that there are only four renters in the two-family house at present. Moore also said that it was his brother-in-law who lives upstairs, and not Moore himself, who likely cursed at the inspectors in October.
Moore also disputed Zalman’s assertion that he hadn’t paid rent since December 2019. “I’ve got every receipt,” he said. “I’ve paid rent since day one, since I moved in here.”
When asked for copies of receipts, Moore provided pictures showing that he had paid rent every month of 2019. When asked for receipts from 2020, he wrote by text message, “That’s when the pandemic hit march of last year so everything had stopped.”
Moore said he had been working at a halfway house on Howard Avenue before getting laid off last April. He said he was able to get on unemployment after that.
Moore said that the real reason Zalman is trying to evict him is in retaliation for her belief that he robbed her back in February 2020 when she came down to the house to try to collect rent. He said that she was robbed by someone else that day, and not by him.
Both Galina and Andrey Zalman told the Independent that they believe it was Moore, based on his voice and shoes. Galina said she’s filed a criminal complaint with the New Haven Police Department against him, and she showed the Independent a picture, purportedly taken after the alleged violent robbery, of her bruised arm.
Andrey Zalman also stressed that the Moore knew the time for the court hearing, and simply didn’t show up. “More important,” he wrote by email, “that couple [must] move out”.
More info on related issues, organizations:
• New Haven Homelessness Fact Check
• Why Is Homelessness Such A Problem In U.S. Cities?
• Connecticut Coalition To End Homelessness
• National Alliance To End Homelessness
• Alliance for Community Empowerment
• Community Wealth Building
• Community Development Corporations
Moore said that he and his partner missed the Thursday morning housing court hearing because his partner's phone was on vibrate, and she didn't hear when the court called. He said they were also out of the house for a hospital visit.
Was he not notified by the court of the date? It is a bogus excuse, but the judge will likely grant his motion to reopen, like she has granted so many bogus tenet motions as she and the state pursue a social justice mission of rewarding bad behavior. As for his claims of lack of repairs, if they were in good faith he should be depositing rent into court. He says he get unemployment, which would have included the $600 kicker, as well as the initial $1200 per adult, but he has not paid anything all year, including pre-pandemic. Jan, Feb, March, he was working so why no rent?