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BRIDGEPORT — Faced with eviction after a New York landlord bought her East Main Street apartment building, one tenant is refusing to leave quietly.
Leslie Caraballo, the organizer of the Monday rally against her landlords, said she has lived in her East End apartment with her daughter for the last five years and has never missed a payment. But earlier this month, she said she received a letter from new property owners warning her that she had just seven days to vacate the property due to a lapsed lease.
“I’m gonna fight it, and I’m gonna fight to stay,” Caraballo said.
In February, Yoso Properties, a New York-based real estate and property management company, bought four mixed-use buildings within 560 feet from one another for $4.86 million. Without any notice of the sales, Caraballo claimed, more than 25 tenants, including families, elderly residents and disabled residents, were served with similar eviction notices.
She was the only tenant in attendance. Many of the others, she said, were in housing court at the time of the rally fighting the eviction. In the last two months, the management company has filed complaints against five residents who refused to vacate.
Between the construction of a new soccer stadium, the opening of 420 luxury apartments and potential closure of two local elementary schools in the neighborhood, Caraballo said it’s clear that residents of 411, 420, 453 and 503 East Main St. are being pushed out.
Bridgeport State Sen. Herron Gaston — who attended the Monday rally along with City Council President Aidee Nieves, Councilwoman Eneida Martinez, school board member Joseph Sokolovic and former mayoral candidate John Gomes — agreed with Caraballo.
“I think this is an opportunity for gentrification,” he told CT Examiner.
According to Gaston, the company served eviction notices to tenants with lapsing leases and those on month-to-month leases, as it’s planning to renovate the newly purchased properties.
Caraballo claimed that the company made little effort to communicate with tenants before the Monday event. But after local officials like Nieves reached out, Gaston said, they agreed to delay the eviction process, allowing some residents to stay for another three months while they look for housing.
Gaston added that those who did not receive eviction notices will also likely have to vacate once their leases are up. While current rents for the properties range anywhere from $1,100 to $1,500 a month, he said, the owners plan to raise it to about $3,500 a month following renovations.
“The unfortunate reality is that, in Bridgeport, the average salary here is $40,000 to $50,000 a year, with some people even making less than $12,000 a year,” Gaston said. “They cannot afford to pay $3,500 a month.”
Gaston said the company also plans to incrementally raise rent for business owners leasing out storefronts, starting with an extra $500 a month the first year. Many owners said they are going to lose their businesses, according to Gaston.
Local businesses leasing the properties include a Guatemalan and Peruvian restaurant, a barbershop, gift shop, print shop, beauty store, appliance repair shop and a church, Iglesia Mahanaim.
While Caraballo, a volunteer with ACLU of Connecticut and executive director of her own nonprofit, Accomplishing Real Change, said she appreciated the additional three months of housing, she expressed disappointment that the landlords only stepped in to help after officials became involved.
“It shouldn’t have gotten to this point at all. That’s the conversation they should have had with us, and we could have all resolved this,” she said. “We’re tenants. Communicate with us.”
But even with the three month extension, Caraballo said, many tenants will likely still be unable to afford the costs of moving. If the new owners do not provide residents with relocation assistance, she said many can’t pay expenses like security deposits, first month’s rent and application fees.
Caraballo she said she can afford the $2,000 monthly rent increase, but that the eviction notice leaves her with no choice but to move. As someone who went to prison for her involvement in a 2007 murder, Caraballo said she’s lucky that the original management company allowed her to rent the apartment at all.
“How do you expect us all to find a place?” she said. “I don’t even know where I’m gonna go.”
Testifying in support of a bill earlier this year that would limit a landlord’s ability to consider criminal records when reviewing rental applications, Caraballo told legislators that she has already been rejected from numerous properties due to her incarceration.
Representatives from Connecticut Tenants Union and Make the Road Connecticut also attended the Monday rally.
Yoso Properties did not respond to a request for comment.