Eviction Looms For Mom Of Three

A mom who serves as the primary caretaker for her three young disabled children is at risk of losing her home — and potentially being separated from her kids — as her eviction case grinds its way toward trial.

That mom, an immigrant from the West African nation Guinea who asked to be identified only by her last name, Cherif, lives in the second-floor apartment of a three-family house on Orchard Street between George Street and Gilbert Avenue.

Cherif has lived in that apartment for six years. Her sole source of income consists of Social Security disability benefits associated with her children — ages 3, 6, and 7 — whom she cares for full time, even as her own health suffers. 

This past Thursday, she and her legal aid attorney, Rachel Scotch, showed up to the third-floor housing court at 121 Elm St. for what they thought would be the culmination of a months-long eviction fight between Cherif and her landlord, a company controlled by Phyllis Counsel and Tameka Counsel Judd.

In an eviction lawsuit filed last November, the landlord argued that Cherif needs to leave because she failed to pay her $1,150 monthly rent in October 2024, her lease has expired, and she no longer has the right to occupy the premises. 

Cherif and Scotch have argued in court filings that the apartment suffers from a number of serious condition problems, including broken electrical fixtures. They have also described the landlord’s eviction lawsuit as constituting retaliation against Cherif for contacting the city’s housing code inspection agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI). And, in an interview with the Independent, they argued that the landlord deliberately turned down a rent-relief program lined up by Cherif’s case worker in order to expedite her removal from her long-time rented home.

LCI records, meanwhile, show that, as recently as Friday, the agency sent the West Haven-based landlord a notice of violation and order letter based on a Jan. 23 inspection of the property. That letter orders J&P Counsel Realty to register the property with the city’s residential rental business licensing program; to remove and replace bathroom flooring that has staples sticking out; to have an exterminator address a mice infestation; and to fix a problem with the gas valve next to the stove.

A separate set of Fair Rent Commission records provide further context of the long-standing dispute between landlord and tenant at this property. Those records show that Cherif filed a complaint with the commission back in March 2023 in which she pushed back on the landlord raising her rent by $250, from $900 to $1,150, in part because of conditions issues at her house, including mice, kitchen cabinets in need of replacement, and a window in need of repair. 

The commission wound up issuing the landlord a cease-and-desist order in June 2023, finding that the landlord had engaged in retaliatory behavior. The commission then allowed the rent increase to go through in a separate ruling, in November 2023, after the landlord had addressed the condition concerns.

Elwyn Brewster Quirk, an attorney representing landlord Tameka Counsel Judd in this matter, told the Independent that ​“the accusations made [by Cherif and Scotch] are not accurate.” She declined to go into detail as to which accusations are not accurate and why.

“As we have a pending case on the matter, I am not able to disclose any information to you at this time to refute what has been alleged,” Quirk wrote in an email. ​“However, if you review the LCI file, you can see that no legal action or fines have been taken against the landlord in the 2+ years that the tenant has been complaining to LCI. That in of itself should give you an idea of what’s happening in this tenant-landlord situation and what LCI may know of what’s going on in this rental situation.”

“I just want to leave this place,” Cherif said in a separate interview about her apartment at 259 Orchard. Dealing with everything — disputes with the landlord, an eviction case, caring for her disabled children, navigating unsafe housing conditions, handling her own precarious health — ​“is more than much.” All she needs, she argued, is a bit more time to find a new place to live that she can afford and that will allow her to stay with her three young children.

In a summary of 259 Orchard’s recent history of inspections, in addition to providing a copy of the Jan. 24 violation notice and order letter, LCI Executive Director Liam Brennan told the Independent that there was a September 2023 case ​“that appears to have been resolved successfully” after the property passed reinspection. In that case, the landlord addressed issues involving a smoke detector, an outlet plate, and a window. A subsequent November 2023 inspection, he said, resulted in a fail by LCI.

And in April 2024, still another inspection ​“revealed kitchen appliance problems, electrical concerns, and a chimney pipe issue.” A July 2024 followup inspection resulted in still another fail. ​“Since this was before our new ordinance,” Brennan wrote, ​“we couldn’t issue a citation at that time.” (Last October, alders passed an ordinance amendment setting up a hearing officer appeal process for landlords to contest civil citations related to housing code violations, in a bid to allow LCI to issue citations and pursue fines.)

French Interpretation Snafu; "Difficult To Place 3 Kids Together"

On Thursday, New Haven’s housing court judge, Alayna Stone, was all set to preside over the trial in Cherif’s eviction case — before running into a problem with the court-provided French interpretation that had been requested by Cherif, whose native language is French.

The interpreter called in to the courtroom via video, and was visible in a monitor just to the right of the judge’s bench. After a few minutes, it became clear that the interpreter could not hear what the judge, defendants, and plaintiffs in the courtroom were saying. 

“Madam interpreter, can you hear us?” Stone asked again and again before calling off the day’s trial entirely and continuing the matter to Thursday, Jan. 30.

After that aborted trial, Cherif and Scotch spoke with this reporter about Cherif’s history at 259 Orchard, her fight against this eviction case, and her concerns about what might happen to herself and her kids if she’s kicked out.

Cherif, who is working with a case worker from the state Department of Developmental Services (DDS), said that she is the sole caretaker for her three young children, all of whom struggle with disabilities. They are all nonverbal and incontinent; their other conditions range from asthma to autism, from hearing loss to nerve damage, global developmental delay to self-injurious behavior.

“I have to do everything,” Cherif said about her care for her children. ​“I cannot work, because who’s gonna watch my kids?”

This caretaking has taken a toll on her health; she has Bell’s palsy and high blood pressure. She said that a home health aide comes to her house on a regular basis — to check her own blood pressure. She said that she applied for a home health aide to help look after her kids; but, she said, the agency turned down her application because of the dangerous conditions of her apartment, including problems with the staple-protruding bathroom floor.

Cherif said that she fell behind on rent last fall when she started having to pay more for baby sitters and other care for her children as her own health deteriorated. She said she had lined up several months’ worth of rent relief with Clifford Beers. She said she had this money in place last spring, before she fell behind on rent; Cherif knew she was struggling to make rent, and this would have kept her up to date. 

But, she said, the landlord wouldn’t take the money.

Cherif said the landlord refused this rental help because they just want her and her kids to leave — even though she’s lived at 259 Orchard for six years, even though an eviction could lead to Cherif becoming homeless and the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) intervening. Scotch said Cherif no longer has access to those rental support funds which would have kept her up to date, if only the landlord had taken the money.

Scotch said that Cherif is currently on the waitlist for a Section 8 federal housing-subsidy voucher; she and her client are seeking from the court enough time for Cherif to get that voucher so that she and her kids can move out, and stay together. If they’re forced out of their long-time Orchard Street home soon, Scotch warned, Cherif’s three children might be separated; it’s ​“so difficult to place three kids together” if DCF steps in, she said, especially when those kids struggle with such serious disabilities.

Cherif’s eviction case is scheduled to go to trial on Thursday morning — when she and the landlord will have their chance to make their respective cases to the judge as to if and when Cherif and her family will have to leave.