CALAIS, Maine — After four months of effort, new homes have been found for all 26 elderly and disabled tenants of the St. Croix Apartments in Calais who needed to move after a federal agency took action against the landlord over substandard conditions.
“Going into it, everyone realized what a challenge it could be,” Rhonda Siciliano, a regional spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said recently. “Affordable housing is at a premium everywhere, but there was real concern about being able to [relocate the tenants] here.”
In January, her agency issued Calais landlord Aaron Gleich a notice of default, effective March 1, for failing to maintain the St. Croix Apartments to federal standards. The units were subsidized through the government’s Section 8 program, meaning HUD paid a portion of the tenants’ rents directly to the landlord. According to BDN archives, in 2015, Gleich received a total of $168,929 from HUD for the apartments, which are reserved for low-income elderly and handicapped tenants.
The St. Croix Apartments had failed three consecutive HUD inspections, done on Aug. 22, 2014, Feb. 18, 2015, and Aug. 12, 2015. Major safety violations cited by housing inspectors were a broken elevator and a fire alarm system that didn’t work properly. Other problems, according to HUD, included cracks or gaps in the walls, peeling paint, stairs with a missing handrail, overgrown vegetation, damaged door locks and inoperable appliances.
Former tenant Phyllis Stevens, 62, said Wednesday that the broken elevator was problematic for her and for other older or disabled residents. She used to help take care of some of the other tenants and was always going up and down the three flights of stairs carrying groceries for them, she said.
“Finally, my health got the worst of me,” she said, adding that she had back problems, knee problems and ultimately developed ulcers because of the stress of her living situation.
In fact, the living situation for the tenants was so bad that a group of them have filed a civil lawsuit against the property owner that is pending at Calais District Court.
“Generally I would say [the lawsuit] relates to the condition of the apartment building while the tenants were living there,” Katy Childs, a Pine Tree Legal attorney representing the plaintiffs, said Wednesday. “Right now I believe that the status is that it will be resolved when the judge makes his ruling.”
Sue O’Clair of MaineHousing, the independent state agency whose mission is to assist Mainers in obtaining and maintaining quality affordable housing, was one of the people who worked with the St. Croix Apartments tenants to find a new place to live. She said that 24 of the 26 tenants wanted to stay in the Calais area, but only 13 could find new homes there.
“What we were up against was the lack of housing in that area,” she said.
Two of the tenants wanted to move out of Maine to be closer to their families, but the remaining tenants were relocated to new homes in the Brewer and Lincoln areas.
“What is nice about it was that there were groups of people that chose to relocate in groups,” O’Clair said. “They were very close.”
But Stevens said the change has been hard for her, even though she likes her new apartment at Somerset Place in Brewer and said it is in excellent condition.
“I’ve got mixed feelings about it,” she said. “It’s not home — that’s for sure. The apartments are nice and lovely, but I like it and I don’t like it.”
Stevens, a Washington County native, moved at the beginning of June. She is enjoying Brewer, but she misses the other tenants of the St. Croix Apartments.
“I have stayed in touch with every one of them,” she said, adding that her best friend relocated to far away Toledo, Ohio. “We had a nice community there. Now we’re split up all over the country. We’re like family, and that’s why it was so hard. It’s all right up here in Brewer, but it’s lonely, too.”
According to O’Clair, all the tenants were relocated by the end of June. By the time the last tenant moved out of the St. Croix buildings, the elevator still was not fixed, she said.
“Most of them seem really comfortable where they’re at now,” she said. “Most of them feel like they’re in comfortable, safer housing and, for the most part, [are] happy where they are.”
Gleich, the New York City developer who owns the St. Croix Apartments, does not agree with HUD’s assessment of his Calais property. He said last week that he has no tenants at the facility currently but that he is hoping to get reinstated with HUD so he can rent his apartments again.
“We’ve been a good landlord the past 35 years,” Gleich said. “It’s a lot of hogwash. Housing and Urban Development is off base. … The place is in absolute perfect condition.”
That’s debatable, according to Stevens, the former tenant, and several others. It is true that the St. Croix Apartments meet Calais city ordinances and codes, according to City Manager Jim Porter, but that doesn’t mean the facility is automatically acceptable to the federal agency.
“That doesn’t mean it meets Section 8. They have their own standards,” he said. “They’re a little stricter than what our code is.”
According to Porter, it is a shame that the situation could not be resolved in a different way.
“To me, it’s a very big deal,” he said. “We’re struggling with population shrinkage as it is and affordable housing.”
As far as the city is concerned, ideally the St. Croix Apartments will be used for private rentals again, Porter said.
“My hope is that it can be used to its fullest capacity,” he said. “It’s not a bad facility. It no doubt needs attention.”
Gleich said he would like to re-open the complex up to tenants as soon as he gets “green lights” from HUD.
“There’s a tremendous need for that in this area,” he said of affordable housing.
But that outcome probably won’t happen in connection with HUD or Section 8, according to Siciliano.
“Our relationship with the owner was through the housing contract we had with him. When that terminated, our relationship with him terminated,” she said. “It’s unlikely that down the road we will be entering into any new contracts with the owner because of the history of his previous participation in our program.”