Maya McFadden Photo
Edgewood neighbors Charlie Nixon and Julie Jaus meet with Alder Hamilton (second from right): When do we have to go?
Edgewood tenants turned to their neighborhood alder for help from potential mass evictions precipitated by the sell-off of rental properties owned by nonprofits controlled by incarcerated sex offender Rabbi Daniel Greer.
Three of those neighbors convened that meeting on Wednesday with Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton to discuss how their rented homes, which some have lived in for the past 20 years and take care of their elderly parents in, are being sold off by Greer’s nonprofits. At least a dozen multi-family houses in the Edgewood neighborhood have had For Sale signs in their yards and were posted on Zillow marked between $500,000 to $700,000.
Those three Edgewood neighbors — Charlie Nixon, Julie Jaus, and an Edgewood Avenue tenant who preferred to remain unnamed — met with Hamilton in Nixon and Jaus’s Maple Street apartment, in a home that two weeks ago tenants learned is listed for sale and under contract. Still, it’s unclear how soon they will have to pack up and leave.
Also in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting with Hamilton were Emerson Apartments Tenants Union leaders Alex Kolokotronis and James Blau.
Neighbors told Hamilton that some of the For Sale signs on the Greer company properties were abruptly removed last week with no explanation of whether that means the sales are complete or if the properties are no longer being sold. The real estate website Zillow shows the following Greer-nonprofit-owned addresses still up for sale or under contract: at 439 Edgewood Ave., 865 Elm St., 868 Elm St., 168 Ellsworth Ave., 178 Ellsworth Ave., 96 Hubinger St., 155 Maple St., 179 Maple St., 193 Maple St., 153 Norton St., and 51 Pendleton St. There are also still some For Sale signs posted at Greerville properties throughout Edgewood. However, all of the signs posted by real estate agent Jennifer Tebbetts indeed appear to have come down since the Independent’s last report on July 29.
All the while, Greer — who is still listed as president/treasurer/director of his various local housing nonprofits, including Edgewood Village Inc. and F.O.H. Inc. — remains in prison, serving a 12-year sentence after a jury found him guilty in 2019 of four counts of “risk of injury to a minor.” Click here to read more on the roughly $12 million in mortgage loans his companies recently received at the same time that they appear to have resolved various outstanding lawsuit with Greer’s former student and sexual-abuse victim.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the unnamed Edgewood tenant reported that her neighbor on Ellsworth Avenue, whose home is also listed for sale, was told she had to move out by Wednesday. But when the day arrived, communication with the landlord ceased. Now she continues to franticly pack up her home of the last year with the constant fear that marshals will show up at her door to move her out.
Nixon and Jaus said they were told by Sarah Greer, Daniel Greer’s wife and secretary/director of the nonprofit Edgewood Village Inc., that their house had been put on the market when they returned from vacation on June 20.
The next day they were told a prospective buyer wanted to visit. Nixon said the prospective new landlord offered the couple a chance to move to a third-floor apartment. But due to its higher cost (Nixon and Jaus currently pay $1,450 per month) and the difficulty of walking up several flights of stairs, Nixon and Jaus are looking elsewhere.
“We’re doing the best we can to be out, but we have no place to go,” Nixon said.
Nixon said he was told last Wednesday that the closing process for his home was delayed.
Hamilton said she is not surprised by the minimal notice of sell-offs by Greer’s team. As the neighborhood’s alder for the past 14 years, she said she consistently hears from and helps constituents who face trouble with these landlords and others.
The tenants speculated about why the sale signs were removed. This reporter did not get a response from real estate agent Jennifer Tebbetts by the publication time of this article on why signs were removed. Greer nonprofit representative Jean Ledbury also did not respond to an email request for comment by the publication time of this article.
“It’s about damage control,” Hamilton said Wednesday. “It’s coming out and it’s looking bad that they’re trying to shuffle all their tenants out. It’s starting to stink.”
When Nixon noticed last Wednesday that the property’s “sale pending” sign was removed, he went to the office to ask for an update and was told by a staffer that she had to ask her boss. He was also told by the same staffer that she could not provide him with her boss’s name.
The Edgewood tenant who attended Wednesday’s meeting and preferred to stay anonymous is an art teacher and refugee from Moldova. She currently pays $1,850 for the single-family home she’s been living in for 20 years with her five children, her elderly parents, and her husband. She came to New Haven 28 years ago.
She described the abrupt demand for her family to move as feeling like a second immigration. When she arrived with her three small children, they immediately moved into Greer-nonprofit-owned properties. She said their families had mutual respect for each other. She raised her two youngest in her current single-family Edgewood Avenue home, which required her to self-repair the floors, ceiling, and walls when she moved in. Her 14-year-old son is set to begin his freshman year at Hillhouse High School in the fall.
“We’re not trying to be difficult or get special treatment. We’re just asking for respect and humane treatment,” the tenant said.
Hamilton: "This is people's lives. They have to give you some kind of time, that's common sense as a human being."
This is the third time in two years that Jaus has experienced a situation like this. She previously rented homes on Blake Street, Humphrey Street with Nixon, and now Maple Street again with Nixon. (The previous two homes on Blake and Humphrey were not owned by Greer-controlled nonprofits.)
“We feel so defeated,” Jaus said.
Nixon, Jaus, and the Edgewood tenant have all since paid their August rent and were not refused payment, and so they plan to continue staying in place. “Until you tell me the building is sold, I’m going to pay my rent,” Nixon said.
Hamilton suggested they each keep receipts of their payments. She said while it isn’t illegal for a landlord to sell their property, she believes it is unjust that the tenants were not given advance notice and are now left in limbo, unsure of their move-out timeline especially with the lack of affordable rentals in the area.
When Hamilton asked if the tenants would be able to move out in the next 30 days, the Edgewood tenant responded, “I can’t even pack in 30 days because I work full time.”
“Somebody has to care about exactly that. This is people’s lives. They have to give you some kind of time, that’s common sense as a human being,” Hamilton said. She recommended that tenants turn to the Fair Rent Commission and see if there are any resources available.
The group discussed ways they might be able to score more time to move out and secure other living arrangements. The Edgewood tenant said she has been told by a lawyer that she could go through the eviction process to secure at least six months to find a new living situation, but that would mean she would have an eviction on record, dampening her chances of being able to easily rent in the future. She said she refuses to stop paying her rent.
She said she received a sewage bill on Tuesday she’s paid in the past. It would pay off the sewage until September.
Nixon asked if it would be possible to form a tenants union at Wednesday’s meeting. Kolokotronis informed the group that the city’s ordinance says a tenants union can only be formed by tenants of a property that has at least 10 apartments, or of “adjoining” properties owned by the same landlord that have at least 10 apartments among them. He said it may still be worth a try to bring attention to such a situation where tenants are struggling with the same landlord.
The tenants concluded by updating each other on their unsuccessful attempts to apply for and visit new apartments. They noted that each rental application costs $35 to $75, and the homes can’t be looked at until applications are submitted for each adult moving in. “We’re looking, but it’s impossible to find anything,” the Edgewood tenant said.
The tenants similarly said they have run into dozens of scammers throughout the process, and could easily have fallen for scams when feeling so “disrupted, overwhelmed, and not thinking straight.”
They also looked together at available two-bedroom apartments downtown costing between $3,000-$5,000. All of which were agreed to be unaffordable.
Nixon, a New Haven native, provides meals to several of his elderly neighbors, which is one of many reasons he hopes to find a new place in the New Haven area.
However, the couple said they are now also considering moving into senior housing wherever it is most affordable. The Edgewood tenant said though she is of age, senior housing is not an option for her because she’s raising her 14-year-old son.
“These situations have planted the seed that this could happen continuously,” Nixon said.