Latitude Five25 tenants to receive $10,000, more than a year after housing disaster
Tenants from the Latitude Five25 apartments, who had to be evacuated from their homes on Christmas Day 2022, will be able to claim around $10,000 per household from a settlement fund starting next week.
The long-troubled Near East Side housing towers had to be evacuated after water lines broke, leading to flooding. After other health hazards were discovered, including asbestos, residents were prevented from returning to their homes and the property was eventually put into receivership. Many residents lost belongings that they were unable to retrieve and some spent months living in hotels before they were able to get back on their feet.
The payments, of $10,067 for each of the 149 households affected, will be available on April 1, according to the city attorney's office.
Tenant Ann Barrett, 58, told The Dispatch she will pick up her check next Monday.
“It was a long wait,” said Barrett, who called 911 on Dec. 25, 2022, to report the flooding. She said she lost furniture, cookware, TVs and paperwork in the ensuing crisis.
But she found a new place sooner than most of her neighbors, moving into the National Church Residences' Bretton Woods senior community in the Northland Area on her birthday in January 2023.
Barrett said that despite the housing crisis and health troubles — including kidney failure for which she requires dialysis — she remains optimistic.
“I'm the type of person who, I don’t let nothing get me down, nor hold me back,” she said.
“While no amount of money will make up for what these tenants have been through, this settlement is a step toward making them whole," said Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein in a prepared statement.
Where is the money coming from?
The money comes from insurance proceeds after the city reached a $1.5 million agreement with lawyers for Lument Commercial Mortgage Trust, the financial institution that held the mortgage of the apartments, and the Legal Aid Society of Southeast and Central Ohio.
That agreement was first announced in January, but the affected households have not been able to collect their money until now.
Though the agreement releases liability to the lender, tenants still retain the option to sue Paxe Latitude, the former landlord at Latitude Five25, to recoup additional funds.
Who owns Latitude Five25?
Though owners can hide their identities behind limited liability corporations, or LLCs, Paxe Latitude’s owners may have been the same out-of-state individuals who held ownership in the Colonial Village Apartments, according to the city attorney’s office.
More than 1,000 people — many of them Haitian asylum seekers — were displaced from Colonial Village on Columbus' East Side in late 2023 amidst a human trafficking scandal and people living in units without heat and hot water. At the time the scandal came to light, Apex Colonial still owned the property, but had lost control of it to court-appointed receivers in early 2022.
“We believe that Apex Equity LLC is the overarching ownership entity of the two entities that owned Colonial Village and Latitude 525," a city spokesperson told The Dispatch last month. "Legally, there may be enough differences to argue they are not the same owners, but there appear to be relationships between the underlying guarantors of the loans issued for both properties and the management companies for both."
Latitude Five25 is for sale
The announcement about payments for Latitude Five25 tenants comes just after Columbus real estate firm The Robert Weiler Co. began soliciting proposals from investors to buy and renovate the towers.
The chair of the board of the real estate firm, Robert Weiler, Sr., was also the receiver of the Colonial Village apartments for about a year ending in April 2023, when another receiver, Kenneth Latz, took over.
The Latitude Five25 towers would need to be thoroughly rehabilitated before they can be lived in again.
The city has indicated it hopes to keep the towers as affordable housing.
“With tenant checks now on their way, we’re focused on the future of the towers and exploring every option to hold those responsible for this crisis personally responsible,” Klein said.
Melissa Benson, a spokesperson for Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, which is administering the fund for tenants, said her organization is pleased to be able to distribute the funds.
“We’re thankful for the combined efforts of Columbus City officials and Lument Finance Trust, who worked closely with us to ensure our clients received some compensation for their losses," Benson said.
Peter Gill covers immigration, New American communities and religion for the Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America at:bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.
pgill@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Latitude Five25 tenants to receive $10,000 in April
