Clock ticks on Northeast Side apartment evictions, as tenants to meet with Council
As the clock ticks down to a potential mid-summer eviction of a Northeast Side apartment complex by a new management company, a group of tenants met with Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin ahead of Monday's council meeting in search of possible solutions.
But it remains unclear what the city could do to help the roughly 100 residents in dozens of units at the Sandridge Apartment Complex, located just north of Champions Golf Course. The residents received notices in early April that they had 60 days to pack up and move — forcing them into one of the most tight and challenging housing markets in decades, but that has since been extended by 30 more days.
"Both Council President Hardin and Councilmember (Shayla) Favor met with a few residents of Sandridge Apartments," Hardin spokesperson Nya Hairston said in an email Tuesday morning. "They told the residents that this is a top priority and they are working through every channel to help until a legal solution is found."
City Council is also putting members in contact with several organizations that could potentially provide housing assistance, Hairston said. Residents had initially asked City Council for a cease-and-desist order against the management firm, but Hairston said two weeks ago that the council had no authority to stop the complex from vacating units.
Residents, some of whom have lived there more than a decade, have said they don't know where they can go. Many are paying rents that were set years ago, and haven't been increased since.
Asked before the meeting with Hardin if there had been any developments since The Dispatch last reported on their predicament a couple weeks ago, resident Al Drink, 76, responded: "Nothing, nothing. they've made no offer. Supposedly a group of the tenants went over and were offered to stay at $1,025 a month" with no repairs, but Drink and others haven't received such an offer.
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"I haven't spoken to the management over there since the tenants brought that back," Drink said Monday afternoon.
Drink, a retired construction worker, pays $525 a month for a two-bedroom unit with a washer and dryer and off-street parking — a rate set over a decade ago by the longtime owner. That owner passed away about two years ago, and the ownership of the complex is still listed by Franklin County in her name, Drink said. However, a new management company said recently the property had changed hands and the sale was about to close, Drink said.
"They still haven't cleaned the property," Drink said, referring to outdoor litter. "... I think that's intentional."
The group is also trying to determine if they will get back security deposits, some of which date back many years, Drink said.
"They said they didn't know anything about security deposits," which were typically equal to a month's rent, Drink said Monday.
The new management firm, Carlton Equities LLC, of Lakewood, New Jersey, didn't answer their telephone when The Dispatch attempted to reach them during business hours.
S. Yolanda Robinson, with the Black Caucus of Central Ohio, a group that advocates for Black residents and is pushing for reparations for their historic treatment in the United States, attended the meeting with Drink. She said rents have reached a breaking point, and there is nothing to indicate when it will get better.
"Politics is not working for us," Robinson said during in a break in the council meeting Monday. "... It seems like it's of the developers, for the developers, by the developers."
@ReporterBush
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: City apartment tenants to meet council president Hardin over evictions
