Thomas Breen photo
Jason Puttre, one of 10 Bella Vista tenants facing eviction.
Two years after losing one of his legs, and one year after losing his family’s financial support, Jason Puttre is now on the cusp of losing his Bella Vista apartment — as a Meriden-based landlord moves to evict 10 elderly and disabled tenants who are more than six months behind on rent.
Between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20, Carabetta Management Co. filed 10 eviction lawsuits against residents at the five-building, 1,413-unit complex on Eastern Street on the far east side of town.
All 10 summary process complaints allege that the respective tenants are guilty of “serious nonpayment of rent” — that is, of falling six or more months behind on rent since the Covid-19 pandemic made landfall in Connecticut last March. “Serious nonpayment” is one of the exceptions to the state’s current eviction moratorium.
Puttre, a 48-year-old former nurse who has lived in an eighth-floor, one-bedroom apartment at Bella Vista since May 2019, is one of those tenants now on the housing court hook.
Bella Vista’s Building D, where Puttre has lived since 2019.
The four-day, 10-lawsuit rush of new eviction complaints at Bella Vista represents the latest chapter in what is becoming a familiar saga during the pandemic.
Tenants who have seen their monthly incomes slashed during Covid and have experienced a variety of other losses during the pandemic have fallen further and further behind on rent as they’ve prioritized other expenses. Landlords unable to collect that rent have then turned to the exceptions in the state’s eviction moratorium in a final effort to get delinquent tenants on payment plans, or to move out those tenants altogether and bring in new ones who can afford the rent.
Gov. Ned Lamont has extended the state’s eviction moratorium through the end of March. But he has included a number of exceptions — including for tenants who didn’t pay rent before March 2020, as well as for tenants who are six or more months behind on rent since the start of the pandemic. The CDC’s federal eviction moratorium for certain low-income tenants at risk of becoming homeless if evicted is also still in effect.
According to the Independent’s review of state housing court records, New Haven landlords have filed a total of 161 eviction lawsuits against local tenants since last October. Roughly three-quarters of those eviction suits, or 123 in total — including all 10 of the new Bella Vista suits — have been for so-called “serious nonpayment of rent.”
“What Do You Pay First?”
That’s the reason cited by Carabetta’s attorney, the West Hartford-based lawyer William Christopher Reckmeyer, in its Feb. 17 eviction complaint against Puttre.
The lawsuit states that Puttre stopped paying his $670 monthly rent in March 2020, leaving him with over $8,000 owed in back rent since the start of Covid-19.
Puttre told the Independent that he started falling behind on rent last year when his parents moved to Delaware and his sister’s husband was diagnosed with leukemia.
His family members had provided roughly $2,500 per month in financial support before then, he said. Virtually overnight, right as the pandemic hit, that financial buffer disappeared — leaving him to live off of just the $1,500 he brings in each month through Social Security Disability.
“It’s a tough call,” he said. “My son needs money for tuition and being away at college. That’s certainly a priority. So is a roof over my head. But so are groceries, and gas in my car, and car insurance. I don’t know. What do you pay first?”
With the eviction moratorium in place, he decided to stop paying rent.
A former traveling nurse who used to specialize in long-term care and rehabilitation, Puttre lost his left leg over two years ago after a cortisone shot for arthritis led to an infection that antibiotics couldn’t treat. He moved into Bella Vista with the intention of staying there only as long as he needed to complete rehabilitation, learn to walk comfortably with his prosthetic leg, and then get a new job, ideally as a nurse.
With an eviction now looming, he said, he’s going to have to step up rehab as he looks for a new job and a new apartment.
“Certainly getting back to work in some capacity has come to the forefront,” he said. “I have to focus less on my physical therapy and get back to work of any kind.”
“A Very Depressing Moment”
Another tenant, a 69-year-old retired Yale custodian and Sargent Locks machine operator, also told the Independent that the Covid-19 pandemic played an outsized role in leading to his falling behind on rent at Bella Vista, and to Carabetta’s recent filing of an eviction suit against him.
Court records show that that tenant hasn’t paid his $670 per month rent for his Bella Vista one-bedroom apartment since last April.
In his court-filed reply to the eviction suit, the tenant wrote, “I am 69 years of age, due to the Covid pandemic I was confronted with issues and difficulties but I am back in position to bring forth towards my back rent and to make arrangements in paying my monthly rent and arrangements to add additionally towards back rent. I would appreciate it deeply.”
In an interview Monday morning, the tenant said that the emotional and financial tolls of the pandemic have hit him hard. He lives off of a fixed income of $1,800 per month through Social Security, he said. That income hasn’t changed during the pandemic.
Soon after Covid hit, he decided to prioritize paying for food, his car bills, and his phone bills over rent. He knew that the statewide eviction moratorium was in place, and he didn’t know what other expenses might pop up as the pandemic dragged on.
“My day-to-day life has put me in a very depressing moment,” he said. “I’ve been diagnosed with an emotional stress disorder. I’ve just been trying to deal with it. I stay in the house all day. I very rarely go out. Sometimes I just lose track of time.”
He said earlier in the pandemic he was “having deaths between my family and friends every other week.” He’d go to funerals sometimes once every two or three weeks, and would get regular calls from people he knew growing up in North Carolina about how, yet again, a former classmate or neighbor had passed.
“It was terrible. It was absolutely terrible with the deaths that have been going on.”
Even though his income wasn’t hit by the pandemic, the stress and sorrow and isolation during the past year — exacerbated by living alone in his apartment — caused him to “lose track of my responsibilities,” he said.
When asked where he would live if the eviction goes through, the said, “That’s the problem. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t want to be roaming the streets in the midst of this virus.”
Both Puttre and the other Bella Vista told the Independent that they’re interested in entering into some kind of payment plan with management, if Carabetta is up for helping them get back on track with rent payments.
“Goal Is To Help Residents Help Themselves”
Carabetta Senior Vice President of Management Operations William Stetson told the Independent that his company filed the 10 eviction suits against Bella Vista residents like Puttre in a last-bid attempt to get tenants who are well behind on rent to start paying up.
Carabetta’s goal is not to kick these vulnerable tenants to the curb during a pandemic, he said.
“The goal is to help the residents help themselves remain in the units. If the resident is not willing to meet us even part of the way, that can place the overall development in financial risk.”
He noted that the 10 eviction complaints filed in four days in mid-February represent just 0.7 percent of the elderly and disabled residential complex’s total housing units.
Carabetta owns 9,700 units across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida. It is actively pursuing a local tax abatement in its bid to purchase the Antillean Manor complex in New Haven’s Dwight neighborhood.
Carabetta helped secure between $60,000 and $80,000 in state Temporary Rental Housing Assistance Program (TRHAP) assistance for Bella Vista tenants behind on rent earlier on in the pandemic according to Stetson. He said they plan to help tenants do the same when the new $237 million UniteCT rental assistance program comes online later this month.
But for tenants who have not started paying and are more than six months behind on rent, he said, Carabetta decided to take them to court.
“At the end of the day, we’re not seeking to necessarily evict residents. What we’re doing is taking them to court to get the court to help negotiate a repayment plan.”
He said Carabetta has entered into a number of modified rent payment arrangements with tenants who have seen their incomes take a hit during the pandemic. For the most part, he said, Bella Vista’s tenants are on fixed income, like Social Security or Disability, which means that many have not seen their incomes change dramatically during Covid. At least, not as much as most other tenants who are working full-time.
Stetson said he has seen many tenants over the past year misunderstand the state’s eviction moratorium to mean that they do not have to pay rent.
That’s not the case, and has never been the case, he said. Tenants still have to pay rent during the ongoing pandemic. The moratorium simply stops their landlords from evicting them. Unless, of course, if they fall more than six months behind on what’s due.
“We end up walking a fine line. We have a heck of a time paying our bills” if tenants don’t pay rent, he said.
“If these 10 residents want to work with us, we’re there. Our goal is to keep the apartments full.”
More info on related issues, organizations:
Local Act: Empower underserved communities in Connecticut
Local Learn: New Haven community wealth-building initiatives
National Act: Organizations that support community development