New Owner, Same Treatment
As of October 1st, U.S. Bank sued CBZ Management and owner Zev Baumgartner of the buildings they had originally lent money for that are now in a state of disarray due to Baumgartner’s criminal neglect of them. The U.S. Bank elected to place a receiver as temporary owner of the buildings, the receiver being PMI Aspire. Initially, tenants of Edge of Lowry and Whispering Pines were hopeful that this meant they would be seeing improvements on the property, and were eager to meet with the new temporary owners. The court receivership began touring the buildings this past week to inspect the property for needed repairs.
Unfortunately, the reality of what this group would do next more closely resembled a continuance of the same abuse they had dealt with under Baumgartner. As the court receivership knocked on doors to talk to tenants, each family received different information – some being told that they would have to immediately pay the full rent they were paying before despite no changes having been made yet to improve conditions, in rental amounts ranging from $1350 all the way to $1850. Some were told that if they wanted to move, they’d be given a month to do so. Others were told that they were expected to pay or face immediate eviction. Some tenants had thorough inspections while others attempted to show the disarray, only to be told that it would be surveyed at some later time. The information given to various tenants varied widely and people were confused and worried, especially given the fact that Zev Baumgartner had been continuing to charge many of them with online portals as recently as October 1st, with automatic payments causing they’re accounts to rack up thousands in charges, even after the abandonment of the buildings.
When our outreach members were on-site, as we have been for many months, and attempted to talk to the receivership directly to clarify the information, we were instead told we were trespassing. When tenants asked us to host a meeting later in the day to discuss the various differences in communication, armed security confronted our team and said that they were told we weren’t allowed, although they didn’t understand why – they were just following orders from the court receivership. This was false, given that tenants are allowed to have guests at any privately owned apartment complex, but these tenants were being treated as criminals with one-sided expectations of tenancy.
As of Friday, October 11th, tenants were still living in the following conditions: lack of water, lack of electricity with entire floors having no light, lack of air conditioning/heating, kitchens that don’t function, washer and dryers that don’t function, holes in the wall/ceiling/floors, mold, mice, bed bugs, cockroaches – any possible condition that you could imagine. Yet still, on Friday, October 11th, tenants at Whispering Pines received a letter posted on their door saying that rent for October was due immediately and November rent would be due on the first. This did not take into account the fact that, once again, many of their accounts had already been charged by Baumgartner for October rent. Now, less than two weeks later, they were expected to pay full rent for an entire month and pay again with less than a month to accrue funds, all while still living in squalor. This will likely result in involuntary houselessness due to many tenants being unable to pay three months worth of rent in one month’s time. Additionally, this letter told them that they would only be accepting check payments, despite the reality that many of the tenants had been paying cash or with money orders because they do not have bank accounts.
Those that want to leave are desperate for support with applying to new places, especially after some have spent over a thousand dollars in application fees all to be denied due to the current address and the racist rhetoric deeply affecting the perception of them as renters. Everyone is feeling trapped, worried about being expected to pay incredibly high rental fees for incredibly low quality housing.
The tenants under the new U.S. Bank/PMI Aspire receivership are clear – we are more than willing to pay our rent when we know that it will be going towards the maintenance of the building. As of right now, they are rightfully fearful of this new ownership only being there to continue to profit off their vulnerability. They demand a meeting with new ownership to clarify differences in what individuals have been told, to discuss terms of the new lease in a way that acknowledges their needs as well as tenants, and to allow sufficient time for repairs to take place and rent payments to be earned before threatening eviction.
People, Not Political Pawns
Also on Friday, October 11th, Presidential candidate Donald Trump to add fuel to flames as he spoke of Aurora as a whole being taken over by gangs. He used inflammatory, AI-generated images of shadowy figures in arms in a doorway, claiming that these were and would be apartments under a Biden-Harris administration. They posted faces of a handful of arrestees with alleged ties to Tren de Aragua and purported that these few represented the entirety of those living at the complexes, and not only that, but the entire migrant population of Aurora. His harmful words threaten to escalate the already vulnerable lives lived by these tenants, who have had their lives threatened, let alone lost jobs and housing opportunities, since the beginning of this since-debunked rumor.
Here, we see politicians side with money interests, like a greedy, immoral, neglectful and racist out-of-state slumlord who can afford a team of lawyers and PR team. We see this corruption at all levels – local, state, and federal – from Danielle Jurnisky, to Lauren Boebert, to Donald Trump. These are all people who are more than happy to put lives at risk with the lies seeping out of their thin-lipped mouths just to garner votes. Their actions might affect them this year, an election year, but will be sure to affect the tenants for decades to come. People are losing jobs that they’ve had for years, or having their hours suddenly cut and told to lie about being Venezuelan. Children are afraid to go to school due to bullying and confusion around images of their parents’ faces on the news and TikTok, sometimes just because they were videoed standing at the complex, with these images then juxtaposed with those of strangers carrying firearms.
While Trump was in town, the tenants talked through several forms of community safety and support, and then elected to have a community “fiesta” with tenants as maestras of traditional Salsa and Rumba dancing, grilled food and games for children from Colorado Students for Palestine, more entertainment from Homies Unidos, an opening ceremony and smudging of people with a limpia by Danza Mexika Community, and additional supports from National Immigration Law Center and Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. In the face of flagrant hate, migrant tenants chose to showcase joy as resistance, surrounded by community to back them up. We celebrated the long-standing cultural richness of the area and how Aurora is proud to be home to such diversity. It is now critical that we transform that joy and support into true justice for those at ever-increasing risk.
For that, tenants demand transparency from the new building owners and the City, and not last-minute door notices that offer them no support and only imminent threats of displacement. They demand to be part of the conversation that affects their lives, part of the solution, and are willing to work hard to get there. They demand meetings and joint cooperation on the new lease so that the landlord must also be contractually liable to uphold their end of the agreement with large-scale repairs and tenancy retention before pressing the tenants for thousands in more funds towards housing that they never benefit from.
Migrant justice IS housing justice. ¡HASTA EL FIN!
Leave a Reply