An apartment fire in early August led to the displacement of dozens of Hartford families. Nearly 40 days after the fire, residents are asking the city to provide safer temporary housing.
About 50 families who were displaced from a Sherbrooke Avenue apartment building say they are currently residing in bug-infested motels without proper kitchens, and do not have microwaves or minifridges.
Sherbrooke resident and tenants union member Marisol Navarro said the city’s lack of urgency in finding proper housing is due to the apartments not being in one of the city’s more wealthy neighborhoods.
“They’re making us stay in dirty motels without kitchens and without refunding us for the food and everything else that we have lost,” Navarro said.
Residents said some of them have experienced health problems and hunger relating to the displacement and lack of kitchen access, amid expensive prepared and fast food costs, according to Connecticut Tenants Union Vice President Luke Melonakos-Harrison.
Few apartments were damaged by the fire, rather the sprinkler system and a string of subsequent burglaries caused most damage, Melonakos-Harrison said.
In the days after the fire caused the city to condemn the building, a string of burglaries left the vacant apartments ransacked and in further disrepair, Melonakos-Harrison said.
There is no clear timeline for when the property will be rehabilitated and residents will be able to return, Melonakos-Harrison said. However, in 2019 a similar situation unfolded.
“The same thing happened only a few years ago. The other side of the building had a big fire and they, in repairing that side of the building, did some renovations which allowed them of course to raise the rent on that side of the building,” Melonakos-Harrison said.
Tenants met with Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam on Friday, seeking an agreement with better housing conditions.
While no agreement was reached, the city hosted a “resource fair” on Wednesday, intended to connect tenants to social workers and charitable organizations and to provide the $4,000 moving assistance funds required by state law.
Under the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act, the city must provide appropriate housing for tenants displaced for more than two weeks by city action, including condemnation for unsafe conditions. The Act, established in 1971, allows the municipality to charge the landlord for fees incurred while temporarily housing tenants.
A potential lawsuit against the city could be embarrassing, Hartford City Councilmember Josh Michtom said.
Michtom supports the renters, who gathered outside city hall to protest unsafe living conditions.
“We’re going to lose this one in court. If any one of these people finds a lawyer, the city’s cooked. That is my opinion. I would say I’m not a lawyer, but I am a lawyer,” Michtom said.
Hartford has a track record of violating the rehousing law, and in 2016 paid more than $2 million to about 1,700 families for improper relocation.
Hartford officials are working with tenants and issued full relocation orders, according to city spokesperson Cristian Corza-Godinez.
"Our goal is to support residents throughout this transition, including assisting those who choose to wait for the completion of the landlord’s required building upgrades before returning to their original units on Sherbrooke Avenue," Corza-Godinez said.
