Proposed changes to the Riverside Apartment leases have residents there concerned that’s exactly what the apartment complex will become.
The proposed lease change – which creates a stricter guest policy for residents – comes in the wake of two violent deaths at the complex this summer, and residents’ subsequent plea for help.
On June 21, Jennifer Lewis was stabbed to death on a balcony at the complex.
On July 15, Bernice McFadden was shot and killed after a man opened fire into a crowd of people standing outside the apartment buildings.
After the second killing, residents packed Housing Authority and community meetings, demanding changes be made.
Now that some of those changes are coming to light, a handful of residents said they may take a step too far. The residents met with Housing Authority leaders Tuesday night to discuss the proposed changes to the lease.
“This is not a dorm. We are not children. This is not prison,” said tenant association president Malika Mosley. “Just because I’m poor doesn’t mean I have to sign people in and out.”
The new policy would decrease the number of days a resident can have overnight guests. Under the current lease, residents can have guests stay over 21 nights a month, maxing out at 30 nights a year. Under the proposed changes, they would be allowed to have guests stay over 14 nights a month, maxed out at 21 nights a year.
The real difference is with the sign-in policy.
Right now there isn’t one.
But under the proposed lease, residents would have to sign in overnight guests with the housing authority, something residents did not like.
“Any tenant I go out there and ask, they’re going to tell me this is stupid,” Mosley said to the Housing Authority’s consultant, Andrew P. Daniels, whose firm is helping the authority work on the redesign of the complex and creat suggestions to improve safety there after the two murders this summer.
“You’re not going to tell me who I’m going to have in my house,” Mosley said.
Daniels said that residents can request to extend the number of nights they can have guests.
Requested Changes
But Daniels said the new policy doesn’t dictate who the residents can have as guests. It simply allows the housing authority to know when there are outsiders on the property. The policy might also come with a stricter car registration policy, Daniels said, to ensure that guests are signed in.
In defense of the proposal, Daniels and Housing Authority Director James Finnucan said residents already agree to the more lenient guest policy when they sign their lease. Without the proposed sign-in policy, the existing guest policy is unenforceable.
Residents pressed the authority to make some security changes in the wake of the killings. That’s exactly what they’re doing, Daniels said.
“There is no perfect solution, considering their concerns,” Daniels said.
How can the Housing Authority more closely monitor just some of the residents, he asked. If they can’t track the good residents’ guests, then they can’t track the bad residents’ guests, Daniels said.
“We can not treat good residents and bad residents differently in terms of the rules,” Daniels said.
The housing authority at a meeting in July also suggested establishing a curfew and requiring residents to have ID cards for the units.
The last suggestion was debated Tuesday night, even though it was not one of the policy changes presented in the new lease.
Residents objected to the possibility that children as young as 7 might have to carry the ID cards under the proposal.
“This is not a police state,” said Naomi Wallace, the director of the complex’s community center.
“Anytime in this town they want to do this with everyone living in town, I will go along with it,” said Wallace. “Because this is happening all over, not just on Olson Drive.”
Security Guards
The handful of residents at the meeting Tuesday said they wanted other measures taken to prevent violence in the apartment complex: specifically they wanted security guards back.
The apartment complex used to have security guards patrol the grounds, but when the grant money that funded the program ran out, the guards were eliminated.
“You are going about it the wrong way,” Mosley said. “Signing in a guest is not going to change people coming onto the property. You need to know who’s outside of the apartments, selling drugs. Who’s outside the apartments shooting people.”
“If there’s a criminal coming into my apartment to sell drugs, he’s not going to sign in,” Mosley said.
Residents have 30 days to submit responses to the proposed lease changes, which Daniels said can be done in writing or at the Housing Authority’s next board meeting.
Other changes to the lease include the Housing Authority’s payment options. Under the new lease, cash will no longer be accepted as a form of payment.
The new lease would also require people younger than 15 to be accompanied by an adult if they are on the complex grounds after 11 p.m. All guests would have to be with a resident if they were on the grounds after midnight.
To read more stories about the Riverside Apartment Complex click the links below:Satellite Housing Authority Office Opens At Riverside
Residents Skeptical At Ansonia Housing Safety Measures
Riverside Residents: We Need Jesus
Riverside Residents to Ansonia: DO SOMETHING
