Dorchester tenants fighting landlord

Dorchester tenants fighting landlord

The ceilings are leaking, raw sewage is flowing into the basement apartments and the residents complain that the air in the two multi-family buildings is making them sick.

The tenants of 17 Winter Street are fighting back with the familiar tools: calls to the Inspectional Services Division and withholding rent. But they're also using a newer tool -- a tenant's union.

In February the tenants of the Dorchester apartment building, mostly single working mothers, sent a letter to the landlord seeking repairs for longstanding maintenance problems, a freeze on evictions, long term leases and a negotiated settlement for rent held in escrow.

Much of the dispute centers on maintenance and the tenants' complaint that the landlord has been sending contractors to their homes, often without their foreknowledge.

Tenant Leah Morgan says the landlord himself entered her apartment in February while she was in the shower.

"My son said, `wait, my mummy's in the shower,' and they just drilled the lock off my door," Morgan said.

Building manager Keith Sherman says the tenants regularly report maintenance issues to the Boston Housing Authority, which administers the Section 8 vouchers the tenants use to pay their rent. The BHA then withholds rent.

"The write us up," he said. "We knock on their doors and they won't let us in. Our ability to get work done is only as good as our ability to get into the unit."

The conditions in the units, Sherman says, are largely caused by the tenants themselves.

"The BHA rents are held back for issues that you or I wouldn't worry about so much -- a hole in a screen, a crack in a wall..." he commented.

Tenant Ruby Drayden, however, says the conditions in her unit are serious. In addition to bare cement floors (the carpeting was removed after the sewage back-up), Drayden's bedroom window, which faces an easily accessible flat roof, is nailed shut to prevent break-ins because it is lacking a latch.

Morgan said that she and other tenants who are withholding rent and calling the Inspectional Services Division to the building are specifically targeted by the landlord.

Morgan said Sherman entered her apartment with a video camera rolling to take footage of water damage. But repairs were not made to stop the leaks, she said.

"I'm stressed out," she said. "They keep coming in my apartment and looking at things, but they never fix anything."

Tenant Maude Henry said Sherman entered her apartment last Thursday without notifying her, despite a court injunction she obtained barring him from doing so without first contacting her attorney.

"Last week, they came in my apartment and changed my top lock," she said. "They said there was a drip in my apartment that was causing a leak downstairs, but the lady in the apartment downstairs said she never reported a leak."

Maintenance workers removed the carpeting in some of the units flooded with sewage, but have not yet replaced the carpet or taken measures to stop the flooding, according to Morgan. As a result, the air quality in the building is bad, she said.

"The whole building is getting sick," she commented. "We're getting headaches, asthma attacks. The lady in apartment 2 had to be taken away in an ambulance."

The tenants' tenacity may pay off. Recently, several residents from the building attended a tenants' rights workshop sponsored by the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation. Now they're working with Catherine Mallory, an organizer from the NDC who is helping them to negotiate with the landlord.

While the tenants do not have legal standing to compel the landlord to keep their units affordable, their calls for repairs to their units give them leverage.

"Most of their problems are covered by tenants rights laws," said Mallory.

While the tenants allege the owner is trying to evict them, and point to work done to vacant units, Keith Sherman says the owner has no intention of evicting the residents or raising their rents.

"We haven't gone to any of the tenants with increases in more than a year," he said.

Sherman says the average rent in the development is $850 for a two-bedroom unit, including heat and electricity. With rent withholding and payments held up by the BHA, he says, his receipts are closer to $650 per unit for the 32-unit development.

Mallory introduced City Life/Vida Urbana housing organizer Steve Meacham to the tenants, who helped them to organize a tenants union. The tenant union is a key strategy City Life is using with tenants throughout the city.

"We've been following a campaign that's fairly successful that uses collective bargaining agreements between landlords and tenants," he said.

Keith Sherman says he looks forward to meeting with the tenants.

"We'll be happy to sit down with them," he commented.

Photo (Ruby Drayden, Maude Henry and Leah Morgan)