By Encarnacion Pyle
Cockroaches and mice scurry across the carpeted floor where Luul Botan’s three young children play.
The bathroom and kitchen faucets leak a steady stream of water. Some of the kitchen cabinets are broken. The drawers stick. And the front door doesn’t close easily, leaving the 32-year-old mother fearful that someone might break into their North Side apartment at night.
“The conditions are horrible, and the management at Capital Park apartments doesn’t care how bad it gets,” she said last week through a Somali interpreter.
Botan said she fears that her children, who are 5 years, 1 year and 4 months old, are being sickened by the insects and mouse droppings. She said she asked the manager five times to replace a missing screen in the living-room window of her second-floor apartment in the complex on Agler Road.
“I’m so afraid my daughter will fall out when she runs over to watch children playing outside. It’s so dangerous,” she said.
During the past several weeks, dozens of Capital Park residents have called the city of Columbus about what they say is a worsening problem. With the help of Legal Aid attorneys and other volunteers, the mostly low-income Somali refugees have also begun sending letters to the management of the 314-unit complex owned by Volunteers of America, requesting repairs that many have already asked for.
“The tenants in this case are stepping up, asking the landlord merely to do what Ohio law requires: Keep the rental property fit, habitable and up to code,” said Benjamin D. Horne, a managing attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Columbus.
Most of the residents were resettled by the federal government from refugee camps in Kenya, he said. They have little knowledge of their rights.
If the repairs aren’t completed in a reasonable time, the law allows the tenants to put their rent into an escrow account with Franklin County Municipal Court until the work is completed, Horne noted.
“Unfortunately, for many owners, it’s all about the money,” he told about 30 residents at a meeting on Thursday.
Residents have complained about broken garbage disposals, closet doors that won’t close, electrical problems and holes in walls. They have reported problems with inoperable stove burners, toilets that keep running, windows and doors that don’t lock, and water damage to baseboards and walls.
During a walk-through, Khadro Ali, 31, showed Horne a 12-by-4-inch hole in a wall caused by water damage.
David Burch, a spokesman for the national office of the Volunteers of America in Alexandria, Va., said some complaints went directly to the city, which has sent 32 code-violation notices in the past three weeks.
“We repair things as soon as residents bring them to our attention,” he said. “So far, we’ve rectified 17 of the violations, and we’re working on the 15 that are still outstanding.”
Dana Rose, the city’s code-enforcement administrator, said the problems are minor compared with some other properties and should be things that Capital Park can repair. His officers plan to meet with Capital Park staff members within a week to see how widespread the problems are, he said.
Volunteers of America bought the complex in 2000 and did a $4.5 million renovation two years later, Burch said. Government sources, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, provided the funds for the renovation.
The 45-year-old complex is slated for another makeover in three years, he said, when it is eligible for more federal funding.
“Our primary goal is taking care of our people and making sure they have decent housing so they can build a successful life,” he said.
In response to an allegation by tenants that the Capital Park manager is billing them for routine maintenance, Burch said Capital Park charges only for damage caused by residents.
Horne said that’s not what tenants tell him.
“The tenants often pay because they are afraid of being evicted, and they don’t understand that tenants should only be billed for repairs that were caused due to their negligence or misuse of an appliance,” he said.
Shamso Arab, 53, said she recently was billed about $600 for damages she didn’t cause and repairs that haven’t been made. She said the manager entered her apartment without notice, took photos and sent her an eviction notice after seeing that Arab had disabled the smoke detector.
“I just don’t understand,” she said in Somali. “The smoke detector was beeping all the time, and no one at the office or the fire department would show me what to do.”
In Arab’s apartment, the bathroom sink and toilet aren’t properly attached and rock back and forth, she said. The windows don’t completely close, and rain pours in, causing significant water damage. And the stove and refrigerator often don’t work, leaving her family with no way to make dinner.
“We’re just asking them to be human, to do the right thing,” Arab said.
source: The Columbus Dispatch
