Tenants from shuttered Española apartment complex sue city and former landlord

Mar. 2—More than a year after Española police officers forced Samuel Herrera out of his longtime home at Santa Clara Apartments, he still lacks housing.

He was one of dozens of residents who struggled for months to find a place to live after Española city officials in November 2022 abruptly condemned one of the region's few low-income apartment complexes and required the owner to clear it out. Many of the residents were elderly or disabled. Some lived in motel rooms until their temporary federal housing assistance expired, and then they moved into cars.

Herrera is now staying with a friend in Albuquerque, he said. Others evicted from Santa Clara Apartments are paying far higher rent prices at new homes. It's been "an awful nightmare," he said.

Herrera and 15 other residents of the shuttered complex now want their day in court. They recently filed a lawsuit against the complex's out-of-state owner, John Bosley, and the city.

In a 35-page complaint filed Tuesday in state District Court, the tenants allege the longtime Wyoming-based owner of the federally subsidized complex allowed it to fall into disrepair through "years of mismanagement and gross neglect." They also accuse the city of violating their constitutional rights by illegally evicting them and failing to secure the property, leading to losses of belongings they were forced to leave behind.

Along with the city and Bosley, the lawsuit lists several property management companies owned by Bosley and Judy Bustamante, a former manager of Santa Clara Apartments, as defendants.

In the year after the city condemned the building and forced out its tenants, the complaint alleges, the defendants stood to gain financially: Bosley by selling the property and getting out of his debt to the federal government; and the city by replacing low-income housing with higher-priced residences that could increase its tax base.

City officials and Bosley declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Former Española City Manager Jordan Yutzy declared the apartment building "unfit for human habitation" after a public hearing in November 2022, with testimony from city employees about fire code violations, electrical problems, rampant crime and open drug use.

The tenants allege in the complaint they weren't notified of the hearing, despite having a "property interest" in the complex and a constitutional right to due process before they were evicted.

After Yutzy notified Bosley the day after the hearing of the city's decision to condemn the property, the complaint alleges, officials failed to follow the city's nuisance abatement ordinance, which calls for the city to determine the cost of repairs and requires the owner to make them if the cost is less than 50% of the property's value.

The testimony about nuisance issues at Santa Clara Apartments focused on violations and "life safety" issues that had been documented in reports by inspectors from the city, the State Fire Marshal's Office and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2021 and 2022. The reports cited damaged walls and doors, dirty flooring, exposed electrical wiring, a lack of fire safety or security equipment and used needles found on the facility's playground.

The tenants argue in their lawsuit there were no structural defects discussed during the condemnation hearing, and city officials never considered requiring repairs to the building.

After the city's Nov. 8, 2022, decision to condemn the building, a placard was displayed at the complex notifying tenants they had until Nov. 22 to vacate it or risk being arrested or fined.

Herrera organized a meeting between some of the tenants and city officials Nov. 8. He said Yutzy and Mayor John Ramon Vigil assured the residents they would not be "thrown out on the street," and the city would complete needed repairs if Bosley did not.

Yutzy confirmed the meeting in an interview several days later and said he had assured the tenants the city would not be boarding up the complex or shutting off utilities in the coming week. He said, "We are not going to kick them out."

But Nov. 22, 2022, two days before Thanksgiving, at least seven Española police officers, including Chief Mizel Garcia, were at the complex, ordering the remaining tenants to either leave by 5 p.m. or be taken to jail, the lawsuit states.

The tenants allege the officers were "disrespectful and hostile," cursing at them to "get your [expletive]" and "get the [expletive] out."

Although some tenants said they were assured that day by city officials any property they left behind would be secured for them to retrieve later, the complaint alleges they returned to find their things — "furniture, family heirlooms, jewelry, computers, printers and stereo equipment" — were stolen or destroyed.

City staff assisted many tenants in securing housing aid vouchers for motel rooms, but after the subsidy expired the following February, some, like Herrera, were still left without a home.

"Here we are homeless, staying in our cars and inconveniencing people we know to ask if we can shower or spend the night," Herrera said in an interview at the time. "How humiliating. I never thought in my life I would be in this situation."

Bosley sold the property in 2023, the complaint states, alleging he negotiated a payoff that was much lower than his remaining debt to the Department of Agriculture.

A June 2023 letter to Bosley from officials from the Department of Agriculture's Rural Development housing program cites the agency's approval of his request to make a $90,000 payment "in lieu of foreclosure" on the property. According to a January 2023 statement from the department, Bosley still owed almost $1.3 million from a $1.6 million loan taken from the department for the property.

A lien of more than $160,000 placed on the property by the city of Española in early 2023 was removed by the end of the year, though the city did not provide any proof of payment of the lien in a public records request.

Yutzy placed the lien on the property Jan. 23, 2023, according to a notice that cites the recovery of the costs of "removal of a ruined, damaged or dilapidated building" as well as services like security and wreckage. On Dec. 21, 2023, current City Manager Eric Luján signed a release of the lien.

The City Manager's Office did not answer an email inquiring about whether Bosley or anyone else paid off the lien.

Attorney Richard Rosenstock, who is representing the 16 tenants in the lawsuit, called the situation "appalling" in an interview Wednesday.

"There was nothing that couldn't be fixed — nothing about the structure of the building at all," Rosenstock said. "They were required to make [Bosley] make repairs, and they didn't."

Rosenstock said he and his partners were connected with former tenants in the fall, with the help of some community organizers from the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, to help with the lawsuit.

"The conduct of the city was cruel," he said, "and the conduct of Bosley Management was totally indifferent ... and cruel, too."