 "The
building next door to me has been rat infested and so poorly maintained
icicles were hanging from the hallway ceiling. The owner seems
to slide under the rug. We have gone after him, but he is
not embarrassed by bad press. He needs to be taken to housing
court. The city now has him at the top of the list and we
are tracking what happens,” said Donna Nelson a resident
of Hartford, CT’s West End.
Nelson was just one of the many residents who complained about neglectful
landlords. For years, residents cited problems such as shoddy repair
work by non-licensed workers and inspectors who wrote down complaints
but performed no follow-up.
Cornered by members of the West End Civic Association, city building
officials acknowledged that they had not provided Hartford Housing
Court with adequate information to prosecute any cases against neglectful
landlords in 2002. In previous years, the city had only sent
eight cases in 2001 and 13 in 2000.
To clean up their neighborhoods and oust the bad landlords, WECA
pressured city officials to write down and follow up on violation
complaints, to perform inspections and to send neglectful landlords
to court with the proper paperwork.
WECA then began requesting information from the state Housing Court
to learn what landlords were being investigated and what follow-up
was needed to go after delinquent landlords. After little response
from her office, leaders tried to meet with the Housing Court Prosecutor,
Jessie Bennett. She refused, claiming the group was harassing
her.
After hand delivered letters elicited no response and city council
members and state representatives working on behalf of WECA were
poorly treated by her staff, WECA led a protest on the coldest day
of the year, to force Bennett into meeting with the neighborhood
residents.
After the protest, Bennett’s boss, State’s Attorney
James Thomas, met with the WECA and committed to go after Hartford
landlords who have violated housing codes, to provide information
to WECA about cases in its area and to work more closely with city
officials to work out service problems so slumlords would not get
a free ride.
“After trying for over a year to get a meeting with Jessie
Bennett, we have succeeded in getting her boss to agree that her
office will do everything we wanted. We also have built a
better relationship with the city department so our area inspector
is calling us when he finds problems. We have a commitment
that the city will send a case every other week to court and that
slumlords will feel the pressure of being sent to court,”
said WECA member Sonia Ayala. Other victories
include:
- A representative
from the City Licenses and Inspections Department will attend
WECA’s meetings every other month to report on the progress
of problem buildings.
- Cases
will be sent to Housing Court every other week - twice as many
cases as the highest number sent two years ago.
- A Housing
Court Prosecutor will work with the city to fix problems with
improper service.
- Out
of town slumlords will be notified of violations so they can be
held accountable by the court.
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