Gov. Ned Lamont joined a group of tenants and lawmakers in Hartford Wednesday to call on a corporate landlord to improve conditions at its properties and address long-standing concerns.
Alpha Capital, which owns 365 properties across Connecticut, was asked to attend to Wednesday’s gathering at the Legislative Office Building, to hear tenants’ complaints. But the company declined.
“While we appreciate your invitation, we are not in a position to attend the proposed meeting in its current format,” CEO Tyler Smith wrote in a letter addressed to the meeting’s organizers.
Hannah Srajer, president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, addressed the company’s response Wednesday. “We are offering you a way out of this mess, and the way out is to respect the people that pay your bills, to listen to them and come to solutions. … Give us a call. We’ll set a meeting. Let’s resolve these issues before we have to take it further.”
Among the concerns tenants raised Wednesday was eviction — residents being displaced from their homes, in some cases without cause. For several years now, state lawmakers have raised legislation that would require landlords to provide a reason when they evict renters, but it has failed to reach the governor’s desk.
This year, Senate Bill 257 died without a vote in either chamber. The controversial bill would have ended no-fault or lapse-of-time evictions, which typically occur at the end of a lease, at larger apartment complexes. These protections already exist for seniors and people with disabilities.
According to Luke Melonakos, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, no-fault evictions make up about 11% of all evictions in Connecticut. However, he added that the figure does not “reflect many more unwanted displacements of people who were forced to move but didn’t want to go to court.”
At one of the company’s properties in Middletown, nearly all of the tenants were evicted last fall. And in October, Alpha Capital planned to send 40 eviction notices to the city of New London — but the company eventually backed down after facing public pressure, Melonakos said.
At Wednesday’s event in Hartford, Lamont and state lawmakers, including Housing Committee co-Chair Martha Marx, D-New London, pledged to push for eviction reform legislation again during next year’s General Assembly session.
“Just-cause eviction. We didn’t quite get that over the finish line. We’re going to get that done this next coming cycle,” Lamont told the tenants Wednesday.
In a legislature where nearly one out of five lawmakers is a landlord, the proposal faces obstacles.
“I am looking at all of those legislators that don’t support it, or are rolling their eyes, or nervous about what the landlords are going to think. We are talking about an entire state of renters who have no protection,” Marx said Wednesday.
Harry Bryant, a 63-year-old veteran who has lived at the Middletown property for almost 10 years, said he repeatedly received eviction notices.
“They gave everybody eviction notices. Jeez, out of a full house, there were maybe five left over the age of 60,” Bryant said.
For many tenants, eviction concerns were only one of many grievances they described at Alpha Capital-owned properties. Several complained about maintenance issues, rent hikes, as well as difficulties communicating with their landlord.
Mark C. Ball, a 57-year-old tenant who lived at another Alpha Capital-owned property in Middletown, said the building’s long-broken elevator has made it difficult for him and others with disabilities to access the building. Ball uses a wheelchair.
“I was stuck in the elevator for an hour and a half. I fell off the elevator,” Ball said. “After Alpha Management took over the building, everything went downhill.”
Karen Quinn, an 83-year-old tenant from Bay Point Apartments in East Lyme, said she had to deal with heating problems.
“Both winters, I had trouble with the electricity and the heating… this last winter, on Dec. 26, the heat went off completely,” Quinn said.
In a statement to the Connecticut Mirror, Alpha Capital’s Smith said the company “is committed to providing safe, quality housing and investing in communities throughout Connecticut.”
He said many properties the company has purchased were already in a state of disrepair and that the company has spent millions of dollars renovating the buildings it’s acquired.
Smith declined to comment on individual concerns, but said in the statement, “We understand that changes in ownership can be difficult, particularly for long-term residents, and we do not dismiss those concerns.”
Marx said housing remains the top concern for many of her constituents and for residents statewide, and she offered support for the tenants gathered Wednesday.
“We are talking about a person’s home. A person’s home is not a safety net. It is what we all deserve,” Marx said.
Lamont echoed that message. “There are a lot of people trying to take advantage of you in this day and age…That’s not going to happen here in Connecticut. You deserve a place to be. You deserve a place you can call home. You deserve a place where the landlord treats you with respect,” he said.
