Paul Bass Photo
Ashe at Antillean Manor: No thanks for the fruit basket.
The management company that oversaw the destruction — then partial rebuilding — of Alice Ashe’s apartment complex asked her to sign a petition the other day. She wasn’t buying.
The petition was drawn up by Carabetta Management, the company that runs Antillean Manor, a decaying federally subsidized 31-unit complex on Day Street between Chapel Street and Edgewood Avenue.
The petition calls for the dissolution of a tenant cooperative that has owned the complex since 1984 but hasn’t met in years. The petition also asks that ownership of the property be transferred to Carabetta. Carabetta officials have been circulating the petition to tenants, asking them to sign it.
“I’m not signing no petition!” Ashe declared Wednesday. Carabetta let the development continue to fall apart when it took over management in 2011, Ashe said — until this October, when the city issued an emergency order to fix death-defying balcony cracks and mold-producing leaks. Conditions have grown so bad that both the city and Carabetta agree it needs eventually to be torn down. Carabetta responded quickly to the city order, making major repairs, which continue this week.
Meanwhile, the company has been negotiating with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — which holds the $759,200 mortgage to the property (pictured), and which subsidizes all the rents through $330,942 in Section 8 payments — on a plan for the property’s future. Carabetta seeks to buy the property, tear down the existing complex, house tenants at another property (with HUD help), and build a new mixed-income complex on the property. (A similar scenario to Church Street South, another Section 8‑subsidized complex where the owner allowed to deteriorate it beyond repair and now hopes to build a more lucrative development there.)
Ashe, a retired food packer at the old Matlaw’s plant in West Haven, has lived at Antillean Manor for over 20 years. She once served on the now-defunct cooperative board, when it functioned. She said that until recently, every time she called about rundown conditions at the complex, she couldn’t get a call back from Carabetta, let alone repairs. But she did hear from them when her check was a little late, she said — she immediately was hit with eviction papers, then charged the cost of the papers and sheriff’s service.
“Why they so kind of all of a sudden?” she said she wondered about Carabetta. The company even sent her a present for Christmas.
“They had nerve sending me a fruit basket. I’m throwing it out,” Ashe said. “They ain’t done nothing for me. I ain’t falling for it. I’m fed up with it.”
She spoke inside her second-floor apartment, where she was filling boxes with her belongings. She hopes to move out soon once her son finds a job in Camden, S.C.
Click here to read the petition.
Eric Mathes of Rivco Construction Wednesday installing bypasses, pictured below, to tap into a new boiler system installed at Antillean Manor.
Carabetta’s petition drive drew the attention of New Haven Legal Assistance Association, which represents some Antillean tenants in disputes with Carabetta. NHLAA helped the tenants form the coop back in 1984.
“It might be that down the road it makes sense for Carabetta or another developer to buy the property and put something else” up there, NHLAA attorney Shelley White said in a conversation Wednesday. But “it’s a big decision” to dissolve the cooperative and turn the property over to Carabetta, she continued. “Tenants should be able to discuss it collectively, not one on one with the entity that wants to be the buyer.”
White made the same argument in a letter sent Monday to HUD officials.
“It is disturbing, to say the least, that the entity seeking to purchase the property would have its employees directly solicit approval of the sale (and dissolution of the tenant cooperative) from tenants whose leases are overseen by Carabetta (several of whom are currently under eviction and trying to work out reinstatement arrangements with Carabetta) and who widely perceive Carabetta as already owning Antillean Manor …” White wrote to HUD.
“The corporation has not met annually (or otherwise) since 2011, has not filed an annual statement with the Secretary of State’s office in Hartford since 2011, and has corporate officers who have moved out of Antillean Manor and are arguably not even members. Corporate membership seems to be limited to current occupants who are also ‘subscribers,’ i.e. occupants who signed cooperative Subscription Agreements and Occupancy Agreements. However, over 50% of the current tenants were never asked to sign such Agreements, never paid any subscription fee to the corporation, and their tenancy is governed by the HUD Model Lease – which is the lease Carabetta uses at all its properties. The ability of these tenants to sign a Resolution dissolving a corporation that they may not even be a member of is highly questionable.
“The tenants need the ability to regroup, to amend their bylaws, elect truly representative directors and officers, and to meet, collectively, before deciding issues as important as selling the property and dissolving the cooperative and corporate structure. The decision should not be based on signatures solicited by an entity directly interested in the outcome of the ‘vote.’”
HUD regional Counsel David Furie told the Independent that the petitions won’t have legal standing.
“Whatever legal action is taken concerning the property must be duly authorized by the appropriate officer of the cooperative in accordance with the by-laws,” Furie wrote in an email. “We understand that there has been considerable difficulty in identifying the elected and incumbent officers and directors of the cooperative and otherwise reaching the members so needed corrective action can be authorized. Accordingly, this petition may be an effort to do that.” Furie stated that HUD has “no preconceived redevelopment plan” or developer for the property.
Mayor Toni Harp has called for Congressional hearings into how HUD allowed private managers to allow both Antillean Manor and Church Street South to deteriorate while still funneling millions of dollars a year to them (combined) in rental subsidies.
Carabetta officials couldn’t be reached for comment for this story. In interviews for a previous story, the company and HUD reported they’ve been negotiating for two years over a plan for the complex’s future. Two ideas are being thrown around: Demolishing the entire complex all at once. Or demolishing half, rebuilding there, then demolishing the other half. The first scenario would involve moving all the households into new lodgings elsewhere; the other would involve moving half of them. Carabetta wants HUD to help it obtain government financing not only to demolish and rebuild Antillean, but first to purchase and rehab other low-income housing nearby for the families’ new lodgings. As with the crisis at Church Street South, the plan would require HUD to allow the households to use their Section 8 subsidies — currently tied to Antillean Manor apartments (through “section-based” certificates) — elsewhere.
Antillean Manor tenant Gregchelle Griffin (pictured with water damage in her apartment) said she, too, refused to sign the Carabetta petition.
She said the petitioner summarized the document to her but held it in a way that she couldn’t read it.
“I’m from the streets,” she said. “I know when someone’s trying to talk to you quickly — like a used-car salesman.”
Previous coverage of Antillean Manor:
• Clean-Up Crews Descend On Antillean Manor
• The Next Church Street South?