With apartments condemned, Annapolis families get stuck in hotel … – Capital Gazette

Several Annapolis City Council members won praise this fall for cracking down on alleged problem landlords. Members of the Housing and Human Welfare Committee, all Democrats, want to see landlords held accountable for not properly maintaining rental units.

What they did not want was for nearly two dozen Annapolis families to end up spending weeks or even months an Extended Stay hotels after units were condemned. That’s what happened to Harbour House resident Antwaneikikia Grant, who after spending Thanksgiving in a hotel, was grateful to make it home for Christmas.

She returned home to her Harbour House apartment complex Dec. 24 and was relieved to see that “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” But five weeks previously, when the city condemned her unit for bathroom mold and rodent infestation, that certainly wasn’t the case.

Inspectors found one closet’s contents shredded and the floor littered with mice feces. Grant and maintenance workers had filled holes in the wall with spray foam insulation, but somehow rodents were still getting in. It wasn’t until Grant’s landlord, the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis, provided a letter from an extermination service declaring the unit rodent-free, that the city agreed to remove an orange “unfit for human occupancy placard” from Grant’s door.

“I haven’t seen any mice yet,” Grant said, while cooking dinner for her six-year-old daughter Olivia. But she’s tired and frustrated by the process, which left her stranded in a hotel eating microwavable meals while the city and HACA debated whether the issues in her apartment had been adequately addressed.

“I feel like a got caught in the line of fire between the city and HACA,” Grant said.

Her apartment was one of 17 HACA units still condemned as of Dec. 21, according to city records.

After hearing an uptick in complaints from tenants and housing advocates, the Housing and Human Welfare invited residents to voice concerns about living conditions. The trio of alderman, all Democrats, were brought to tears at a Sept. 20 meeting after hearing horror stories about mold, rodents, plumbing problems and poor communication.

Four apartment management firms, including HACA, attended follow-up meetings and were publicly chastised for failing to maintain properties according to city inspection codes. Shape up, pay fines or lose your rental licenses was the clear message the committee intended to send.

But for Grant and about two dozen other families, efforts to hold landlords accountable have had an unintended consequence: They’ve either moved in with friends or relatives while their condemned apartments are repaired or been forced to stay in subpar hotels.

“It’s a real problem,” said Toni Strong Pratt, a housing activist who has helped several families. Some have been sent to live in unsanitary rooms, Pratt said and many, like Grant, are stuck transporting their children to schools. None have access to an oven to cook meals.

Brandie Boyd, a hair-braiding stylist with four children, waited more than three months for her home at Admiral Oaks to be brought up to code after she complained to the city about mold, roaches, snakes and extensive water damage. Her unit was condemned in August. In late October, several more units were condemned and multiple violations were issued for common areas during multi-day city inspections at the 159-unit complex, owned by Enterprise Community Development, a Baltimore-based nonprofit.

“We’re doing everything in our power to meet the city’s requirements and get residents back home as quickly as possible,” Enterprise Residential President Gayle Filo said in a statement.

Only one family from Admiral Oaks spent Christmas in a hotel, Filo said. Another was staying elsewhere.

She blamed the city’s “robust protocols for repairs” — including applying for permits to do significant work and the challenges of scheduling re-inspections — for the delays and said Enterprise was “working closely with families to make sure that any timelines pose the least disruption to their lives.”

Admiral Oaks initially sent Boyd, her fiancé and their children to the Extended Stay America hotel on Womack Drive. There she spotted what appeared to be mold on the bed skirts, layers of dust and a red stain on the mattress. She sent pictures and videos to Pratt, who reached out to Anne Arundel County Council President Lisa Rodvien, who represents Annapolis. In an email to housing outreach team supervisor Michael Anderson, county Health Department Director Don Curtain called the Womack Drive Extended Stay, “one of our favorites.”

“We investigate every complaint that we get,” Anderson said.

Anderson said an inspector visited Boyd’s room and identified the stain as juice, not blood, but did order management to have the mattress cleaned or replaced, as well as general housekeeping.

All Anne Arundel County hotels are inspected annually, however, since 2017, the Womack Drive Extended Stay has been on a list of properties that receive quarterly visits from the health department, Anderson said. The hotel was placed on that list at the request of Anne Arundel County Police. As long as the health department continues to receive complaints and inspectors find issues related to crime, pests and sanitation, hotels “never really come off,” he said.

The Admiral Cochran Drive Extended Stay is not on the list, Anderson said. Boyd and her family were moved there after a week. But with children at three different schools and no bus service to the hotel, her fiancé often had to take off from work at Whole Foods to drive them.

“He could have lost his job,” Boyd said.

Boyd and Grant praised the school system for being flexible and providing as much support as it could. Melinda Spence, a pupil personnel worker at Eastport Elementary School, has helped multiple displaced Harbour House families, Grant said. (Spence declined to comment but said in an email she was grateful for the resident’s kind words.)

“My daughter needs a routine,” Grant said. “She needs stability.”

Grant and Boyd also criticized their landlords for failing to communicate clearly while both were in hotels. When Boyd returned home, she was surprised to learn she was responsible for paying rent while she was staying in the hotel, despite receiving no communication from Enterprise.

“I owe almost $8,000,” Boyd said. “I don’t know what I am going to do.”

Grant was so confused as to what was going on with her apartment after three weeks, she went in person to HACA’s office. When she expressed frustration with being stuck at the Extended Stay, Grant says a receptionist asked her, “Don’t you like having your bed made every day?”

“First of all, it’s not that nice a hotel,” Grant said. “Second, I just want to go home.”

HACA Executive Director Melissa Maddox-Evans described the problem as a vicious cycle: The city appears to be enforcing tougher, more subjective standards, but the authority has no money to make repairs. The city turned down HACA’s request for $1.5 million in maintenance funding. Federal appropriations to the authority have decreased, and on an average month, HACA is collecting no more than 60% of its rental payments.

“We are running a $400,000 to $500,000 deficit each month,” Maddox-Evans said. “We know what is needed. How can we pay for what is needed? That’s the real issue.”

HACA has also asked the city inspectors to streamline the condemnation and inspection process and provide more guidance on getting units back up to code. “The city has refused,” Maddox-Evans said. Instead, the standards seem to vary by inspector. In the case of Grant’s unit, Maddox-Evans said at a follow-up inspection, the city requested a letter from HACA’s pest control provider asserting the apartment had been adequately treated and was now rodent-free. HACA had never received this request before, Maddox-Evans said. While they went back to get documentation, Grant and her daughter spent longer in the hotel.

“We would love for the city to work with us on this process,” Maddox-Evans said. “We have got to come up with a plan to help these families. They are stuck in the middle.”

A city spokesperson deferred questions about the city’s condemnation procedures to the City Code. The code states that a unit may be condemned because “it is so damaged, decayed, dilapidated, unsanitary, unsafe or vermin-infested that it creates a serious hazard to the health or safety of the occupants or of the public;” however, the code does not include any specific language to address the condemnation process.

In a statement, City Manager Michael Mallinoff said during November and December, the city’s Office of Community Services helped six families find “urgent hotel accommodation.”

“The goal is to ensure residents have hotel reservations or other accommodation for the whole period they need, and as well access to other support services,” Mallinoff said.

DaJuan Gay, the Ward 6 alderman who chairs the Housing and Human Welfare committee, said he believes the city can do more. That includes spelling out the responsibilities landlords have to provide safe, adequate housing for their tenants while their units are condemned; requiring travel stipends to help get children to schools and improving communication between the city, landlords and tenants.

“Across the board, the accommodations don’t meet the needs of the tenants,” Gay said. “We are sending our most vulnerable residents into terrible situations. We need some set guidelines for what has to take place when they have to be relocated.”

The city’s Office of Law is drafting new legislation, Gay said, but attorneys are still looking into relevant state laws regarding landlord-tenant relations, and that’s caused a delay.

He acknowledged that putting public pressure on landlords had the unintended consequence of displacing families. His hope, however, is that landlords will do more to keep their apartments up to city codes and avoid another rash of condemnations.

“It’s at the tipping point,” Gay said. “Now the question is, ‘Are we able to hold landlords accountable?’”

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