City Life organizers target Urban Edge

Yawu Miller

After Marie Smith’s 40-year-old son and his girlfriend had a loud fight in front of her Walnut Park apartment, she says Urban Edge, the community development corporation that owns and manages her building, initiated eviction procedures.

She has had other complaints against her, but she says the fight had nothing to do with her. Neither the son nor his girlfriend live in her unit.

Her bags were packed when fellow Urban Edge tenant Brenda Rodriguez knocked on her door last week and asked to see a copy of the eviction agreement she signed with Urban Edge.

“They made me sign the same agreement with the same words,” Rodriguez told Smith. “You have to bring this letter to City Life as soon as possible. If they give you a 14-day notice, you still have a right to go back for mediation. I know. I’m an organizer of Urban Edge tenants.”

Along with 14 other volunteer organizers, Rodriguez went door-to-door last week in an effort to persuade Smith and other tenants in the 822 units Urban Edge owns to sign a petition affirming their rights to organize and negotiate with the Egleston Square nonprofit.

The tenants, with the help of City Life/Vida Urbana, are hoping to keep the right to have clothes washing machines and dryers in their buildings, to own pets and to let tenants be informed of their rights to meet with housing advocates in the event of an eviction. The organizers say many tenants, like Smith, are unaware of their rights.

The tenant activists also plan to ask Urban Edge to bring their buildings up to sanitary code, to require that their security guards comply with Police Department rules and require tenants to pay $2 a month on top of their rent into a tenant association fund to pay for tenant advocacy.

Urban Edge Executive Director Mossik Hacobian says City Life has not discussed its current organizing drive with him.

“The only time I have heard about this is through reporters,” he said. “We have requested for a month a meeting with City Life to talk about how we can serve our tenants better.”

City Life/Vida Urbana organizer Cheryl Lawrence said her organization will meet with Urban Edge only if there are tenants present.

“We responded and said that we would meet with the tenants and Urban Edge,” Lawrence said. “The issue is not between us and them, it’s between the tenants and Urban Edge.”

The Urban Edge organizing drive fits in with City Life/Vida Urbana’s drive to unionize tenants of large property owners. The nonprofit has formed unions in more than 30 buildings.

Tenants in Urban Edge properties have long been complaining about conditions in their buildings, according to Milagos Marte, who has lived at 11 Walk Hill St. for the last five years. A letter from the management company earlier this year telling the tenants they could no longer keep pets in their units or use clothes washing machines brought tenants together for a series of meetings.

“People were complaining about a lack of respect from Urban Edge,” Marte said. “They were complaining about maintenance and security problems.”

Hacobian disputes the tenants’ claims that their units are in bad repair, noting that his development company has a policy of responding to calls for repairs within 24 hours. While he refused to comment on any specific cases of eviction, he said the nonprofit issues eviction orders only as a last resort.

“Ninety-seven percent of our tenants pay their rent on time and don’t bother other tenants,” he said.

State Rep. Liz Malia, who has visited some Urban Edge units with Lawrence, says she has seen serious maintenance issues including leaks.

“A lot of these problems arise because affordable housing isn’t a priority at the federal and state level,” she said. “What I see now is that the funding for support services is not where it should be. And I don’t know whether Urban Edge has outgrown some of its reach.”

Founded in 1974, Urban Edge is widely credited with reversing much of the urban blight that plagued the Egleston Square area in the ’70s and ’80s. “Urban Edge has made an incredible difference in the quality and quantity of affordable housing,” Malia commented.

But tenants contacted by the Banner complained of persistent maintenance problems, including black mold, cracking ceilings and leaks in their units. One tenant, Gladys Padilla, was hospitalized with respiratory problems after her apartment was infested with mold. Tenants also said they have been followed, photographed and videotaped by security firms employed by Urban Edge.

Malia said some of the problems Urban Edge is having with its tenants could stem from a lack of communication or staff training for its property managers.

“I don’t see them as being malicious or coming at this issue from a negative viewpoint,” she commented. “There really have been some issues with how they respond to residents.”

It was the Oct. 14 eviction of Minerva Martinez that brought tensions to a head when four activists were arrested as they blocked the doorway to Martinez’s unit. The color photograph on the front page of the Jamaica Plain Gazette of housing activist Betsaida Gutierrez being handcuffed made it clear that City Life/Vida Urbana was engaged in the struggle against Urban Edge.

While Minerva Martinez’s eviction was halted, City Life/Vida Urbana’s campaign to organize Urban Edge tenants has gathered some headlines and momentum. They currently have 120 signatures and are shooting for 200.

After the signatures are collected, City Life hopes to present them to Urban Edge, draft an agreement for a tenant union with tenant leaders, then bring the issue to tenants in the 1,540 units Urban Edge manages for a vote.