The house on Crescent Street, as seen from online property records.
DERBY — The City of Derby has paid about $29,000 to temporarily house families displaced after the apartment house they were living in was condemned.
That dollar amount is expected to increase by the end of January, according to statements made by officials at the Jan. 9 Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen meeting. Two tenants remain in a hotel while searching for a new place to live.
The city plans to place a lien on the property to recoup costs.
The apartment house at 23 Crescent St. was condemned by Derby Building Official Carlo Sarmiento in November due to health and safety concerns. The house was in severe disrepair, and raw sewage was flowing into the structure.
Prior to the condemnation, the property had been on the Derby blight list, where owners face fines of $100 a day.
The apartment house had been owned by NIB Properties, a limited liability company. Court documents show the property went into foreclosure in 2017, a process that concluded in December 2019, according to court records.
While the city was within its rights to declare the building unsafe for occupancy, Derby fell short of its obligations to the tenants living there, according to Elizabeth Rosenthal, a lawyer with New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Inc.
She said Sarmiento and the city failed to follow the state’s “Uniform Relocation Assistance Act’s (URAA).”
When people are displaced from a residence because of a city action — in this case, code enforcement — the city is required under the law to help the people with advisory assistance and financial benefits so that they can find a new place to live.
That includes picking up the tab for a hotel room, and giving people money to be used to find a new place to live. Click here for a nonpartisan legislative report on the law.
Rosenthal said Sarmiento initially offered to put one person up in a hotel for a night, which is not what the law spells out.
Rosenthal stepped in to represent five tenant families. She went to court to file a temporary injunction for one of the tenants, Paul Hayes, because Derby put him up in a hotel room but then kept telling the hotel they would stop payment, according to Rosenthal.
“No one from the city, or the Building Inspector Carlo Sarmiento, provided (tenants) with information abut his rights as a displaced tenant under the URAA; no City official advised Mr. Hayes that he could or should seek relocation assistance, offered him any Notice of Displacement, or Application for Relocation Assistance,” according to court documents filed by Rosenthal.
Rosenthal and city officials have been meeting to discuss the city’s responsibilities under state law. She also said the two remaining tenants have been searching for permanent housing, which she said she is documenting. They’re not on vacation, but trying to routine to a normal family life.
“Things have been going better. We’re all trying to work together and I appreciate that,” she said of city government’s representatives.
Some of the tenants could have ended up in homeless shelters had it not been for the safety net of the state law.
Rosenthal said tenants often don’t know their rights under the law if they are displaced because of a government action — and cash-strapped local governments aren’t exactly shouting it off the rooftops. Her legal aid organization has represented tenants in similar situations in New Haven and Hamden.
Rosenthal suggested Derby government establish a written policy regarding how to proceed when a code-enforcement action displaces residents, including where residents can be temporarily housed. Having a detailed plan in place could save money, she suggested.
Alderwoman Barbara DeGennaro brought up the relocation expenses for the Crescent Street property at the Jan. 9 Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen meeting.
“What’s the limit that we’re at? What’s the limit where we can stop paying or is there a limit?” DeGennaro asked.
URRA does not set a limit on how much a city pays for temporary or emergency housing, Derby Corporation Counsel Vincent Marino said. However, there are court cases that set 90 days or four months as a reasonable amount of time to put people up.
So, at this point, the city has agreed to house the two remaining tenants until Jan. 31.
Rosenthal confirmed Marino’s characterization.
“What you’re seeing is expenses associated primarily with the emergency housing of these displaced persons,” Marino told Derby elected officials, “and the city has been working as best that it can to find permanent housing for these displaced persons. From eight families we are down to two,” he said.
DeGennaro then asked where the money to pay for the hotel is coming from.
Derby Finance Director Keith McLiverty said some of the money was taken from the legal line item of Derby’s budget, and that the city will have to request action from the Derby tax board as well.
McLiverty estimated Derby will pay $40,000 for temporary housing, and will additionally have to pay $4,000 to each displaced tenant that goes toward permanent housing, as spelled out in state law.
Marino said the bank that foreclosed on the property has sold the property to an investor who is going to fix the dilapidated property. The city will place a lien on the property to get its money back.
McLiverty said the Crescent Street situation has cost the city not just money, but hours of work by city employees.
“Once it’s done I think we are going to sit down, do a tabletop, and come back with how we have to change the process,” McLiverty said.
In an email Jan. 10, Andrew Baklik, Derby Mayor Rich Dziekan’s chief of staff, said the city attorney is working on an updated “relocation plan” that will be make its way to the Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen.
“Once the temporary emergency housing situation is over and once the displaced tenants are relocated, a priority lien will be placed on the Crescent Street property and hopefully the city will be able to recoup some or all of the money we have expended keeping these residents from being homeless over the holidays,” Baklik said.
