Hard-Luck Tenant Hustles To Stay Put

A spate of bad health and worse luck led to Lucas McClendon falling behind on rent at his Sherman Avenue apartment.

Now he’s scrambling to catch up and stay in place as his building’s new owner — an affiliate of the local megalandlord Mandy Management – seeks to kick him out. 

McClendon, 45, currently lives with his brother in a second-floor apartment in a five-unit house that stands just behind a parking deck near the intersection of Whalley Avenue and Sherman. 

In late January, his landlord — the Mandy affiliate ABCD Investments DE LLC– filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to evict him for ​“lapse of time” on his lease. 

That means the landlord is trying to move McClendon and his roommate(s) out because they have overstayed their oral month-to-month rental agreement, which expired in December and which the landlord declined to renew.

The lawsuit comes as the governor’s pandemic-era, eviction-limiting executive orders are set to expire on Feb. 15. Eviction lawsuits are already on the rise across the state and nationwide, with tenant advocates fearing that the lapse of the governor’s eviction-prevention measures may result in a wave of compounded hardship for tenants already struggling to stay housed during the ongoing pandemic.

“I’m just trying to get my living arrangements together,” McClendon told the Independent during a recent interview in his living room about his eviction case and about the difficult stretch that led to him falling several months behind on his $1,050 monthly rent.

That includes health scares and urgent doctor visits related to his diabetes; the draining of his savings last year as he and his brother cared for their mom after her heart attack; the recent deaths of his mom and his aunt; the difficulties of living off of a limited fixed income while unable to find safe and steady work during the pandemic; and his so-far-in-vain attempts to successfully navigate various pandemic-era renter support programs.

“It’s been rough,” he said, as the radio behind him filled the room with a song sampling Grandmaster Flash’s ​“The Message.”

“All of that is just like this,” he said, raising his hands above his head and then pressing slowly down, indicating the accumulated pressure of having to deal with too many health issues and money troubles and family losses all at once. 

Added to that list is now a pending eviction and the daunting prospect of having nowhere else to go. He said he plans on reaching out to New Haven Legal Assistance Association soon to see if a defense attorney can help defend him in his eviction case, as well as help him complete his application to the dwindling UniteCT renter relief program. McClendon said the next step in this eviction case is a court-ordered mediation session with the landlord scheduled for early March. 

"We Want Nothing More Than To Resolve The Matter"

Asked for comment on McClendon’s eviction case in particular, and more generally on working with low-income tenants to catch up on rent, Mandy Management’s Yudi Gurevitch said, ​“We go to great lengths to work with our tenants who want to pay their rent but can’t due to hardship – including discussing all available options such as UniteCT’s program or other payment plans. 

“In this case, the property was purchased in September. Our standard practice is to visit with each tenant and inform them of the sale and distribute important information such as how to put in work orders, where to pay the rent, etc. If we are unable to meet with a tenant in person, we leave the paperwork.”

He said Mandy Management made ​“every effort to reach Lucas McClendon but we were unsuccessful and had no choice to but to file a Notice to Quit Possession after three months of nonpayment of rent.”

In late December, Gurevitch said, a UniteCT application ​“was filed on Mr. McClendon’s behalf” by a community agency after the notice to quit had been served. ​“In order to file a non-payment of rent notice vs. a lapse of time notice, a case number is needed from UniteCT, which we didn’t have at the time of our filing.”

He said the UniteCT application has been assigned to a ​“case auditor and hope it gets reviewed quickly. If Mr. McClendon is approved, we will rescind the Notice to Quit.

“However, the funds from UniteCT are only a short-term solution. We always try to work with tenants to prevent evictions, especially during the pandemic to keep people in their homes. We want nothing more than to resolve the matter with Mr. McClendon.”

"Lapse Of Time" Lawsuit

According to public records posted to the state court database in this case, the Mandy affiliate filed the eviction lawsuit on Jan. 26 against McClendon, two other named defendants, and two anonymous defendants. 

That lawsuit came roughly four months after the Mandy affiliate purchased the three-story residential building for $525,000 from a holding company controlled by East Haven-based landlord Gerald Mastrangelo, who had owned it for nearly a decade.

In the late January legal complaint, Mandy-hired attorney Vikki Legnani wrote that McClendon’s oral month-to-month lease had expired, that the landlord had served him with a notice to quit on Dec. 21, and that the tenant(s) were told to vacate the premises by Jan. 25.

“Although the time given in the Notice to Quit possession of the premises has passed, the defendant(s) still continue(s) in possession thereof and refuse to vacate the home,” Legnani wrote. 

The landlord therefore seeks possession of the property.

On Tuesday, McClendon filed a legal appearance in the case, as well as an answer to the eviction lawsuit.

“I have applied for UniteCT,” he wrote, referring to the state’s ongoing pandemic-era renter relief program. ​“I have contacted [U.S. Rep.] Rosa DeLauro for assistance in processing my UniteCT application.”

Tenant: "I Don't Know What's Gonna Happen"

Having just gotten back from one doctor’s visit and preparing for another the following day, McClendon told the Independent on Wednesday that he has spent most of his adult life living around this area of Edgewood Avenue, Whalley Avenue, and Chapel Street.

Why?

“I make sure I’m in the vicinity of the hospital,” he said, gesturing south towards Yale New Haven Hospital’s St. Raphael’s campus.

“For me, being diabetic, that’s the reason why I’m living in the area. I make sure I’m close to a hospital.”

Because Mandy Management affiliates own many properties in the area, he said, that often means renting from Mandy.

He said he and his family have lived in Mandy-owned buildings before — and he has already been evicted twice by the landlord he now once again finds himself renting from. (“It didn’t have anything to do with rent,” he said about the previous evictions. ​“Rent was always paid on time.” There are no extant records on the state housing court online database for any other evictions McClendon has been a part of.)

McClendon said his experiences with the private-equity-backed megalandlord haven’t been the best.

‘Mandy just wants the money,” he said. ​“He doesn’t care about anything else.”

He said he and his late mom had a good relationship with his previous landlord.

“Every month the rent was paid,” he said. ​“Gerry didn’t have to worry about rent with my mother. He would come along and bring us Christmas cookies” during the winter holidays.

“They were like that,” he said, clasping his hands together. ​“It was beyond landlord and tenant. They had a friendship.”

McClendon said trouble with his previous landlord began last year when he started falling behind on his $1,050 rent in the wake of a few family tragedies.

His brother was hit by a car, and soon thereafter moved into the Sherman Avenue apartment.

His mom then had a heart attack last summer while in the apartment with Lucas. (“She was in my arms right there on the couch,” McClendon said. ​“By me being here every day, it’s still just … Every time I open the door, she’s sitting right here.”)

He said his mom was in the hospital on life support for roughly a month before she passed away. He said he and his brother were in the hospital alongside her every day. ​“Two, three months went by with that, and rents not paid because I can’t find her bank card,” and back rent started piling up.

McClendon said he turned to the Community Action Agency for help, but had trouble securing rent support because he never received a copy of his lease from his previous landlord. He said he tried to apply for UniteCT last year, but didn’t realize until months later that he needed his landlord’s participation as well in order to complete the UniteCT application.

“I’m thinking my stuff is being processed, but it wasn’t.”

All the while, he wasn’t able to work and was living off of a Social Security disability payment of roughly $500 per month, which he said a social worker recently was able to help get increased to over $700 a month.

“I worked when I wasn’t supposed to,” McClendon said about past attempts to hold down a full-time job. ​“I worked to the point my diabetes took over.” He said he’s done ​“warehouse work” a few times in recent years. 

But he’s never made it past the 90-day probation period, often because he’s ended up in the hospital with ketoacidosis from his diabetes — and when he gets out, the job is no longer available.

“I get discouraged,” he said. ​“I just got my Social Security.”

After Mandy bought the building last year, he said, he was over $4,000 behind on rent. Later that fall, his new landlord served him with the eviction notice.

The last time he, his brother and his mom were evicted, McClendon said, they tapped into savings to stay at a hotel, and then were taken in by his aunt. ​“Other than they, we would have been out on the street,” he said.

His aunt has subsequently passed away. With his mom gone now, too, yet another eviction lawsuit on the books, McClendon said his future is uncertain.

“I’m just like, I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” he said.

He said his brother is applying for Social Security disability payments as well. If he succeeds and the two are able to pool their incomes, ​“then we can be able to pay and stay here,” he said. If their landlord will still have them.

Legal Aid: Not Asking The Landlord "To Provide Free Housing"

New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Director of Litigation Shelley White said that McClendon is not alone among tenants at the edge of poverty who fall behind on rent because of several setbacks hitting at once.

In her experience representing low-income tenants facing eviction in housing court, those setbacks often include a car suddenly breaking down and a tenant’s inability to get to work, or the death of a family member and a sudden loss of income — as well as the need to pay for a funeral. 

“I do think that’s why we need to always have in place eviction diversion programs not unlike UniteCT,” she said.

“That’s why we’re distressed to see the UniteCT program may not last much longer.”

While that program is specifically geared towards people who have fallen behind on rent during the pandemic and pays out large chunks of back rent — up to $15,000 — as well as back utilities, White said that, in general, the tenants she represents often need around $1,000 to get caught up to avoid an eviction.

“I certainly hope that even if we don’t continue to have a program as big as UniteCT, that maybe we can manage to find money in the state budget” to ensure that tenants living on the edge of poverty have access to some kind of direct financial assistance to help prevent eviction.

Asked for her thought on how a landlord should respond when a low-income tenant has fallen months behind on rent — a question often raised by Independent commenters — White replied, ​“No one is asking the landlord to eat the money or provide free housing.” 

Rather, she said, tenants are more likely to be able to stay current on rent going forward if there is a well-funded state program backing them up in case they miss a few months because of hard times. 

She also pointed out that bringing an eviction action against a tenant costs a landlord money too. It costs to hire an attorney, to file the legal documents, to go to court, and then to repaint and and fix up an apartment before reletting to a new tenant.

“It makes much more sense to try to keep a tenant who has a temporary situation” causing back rent to pile up, she said.

And White said that New Haven’s rental housing market is increasingly populated less and less by mom-and-pop small-time landlords worrying about not being able to make a mortgage payment if a tenant doesn’t pay rent.

Instead, it has become dominated by large-scale professional investor-landlords, who bring in money from all over the world to maximize profits in New Haven’s low-income, often federally-subsidized rental market.

“They want to make a profit. I definitely understand that,” she said. ​“But these are people’s homes. This is where they live.” These big investor-landlords likely have ​“potentially losses” built into their budgets for renters who fall behind, she said. But for tenants, an eviction is a life-altering situation, and one not easily recovered from.

See below for other recent stories about New Haven eviction cases working their way through housing court so far in 2022.

• Eviction Of Hospitalized Tenant, 74, Upheld
• Judge Pauses Eviction Amid Rent-Relief Qs
• Amid Rise In ​“Lapse-of-Time” Evictions, Tenant Wins 3‑Month Stay
• Leaky Ceiling, Rent Dispute Spark Eviction Case