Renters claim years of landlord neglect

By Tom Barton

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    DAVENPORT, Iowa (Quad-City Times) — Alexas Donelson walked down two half-flights of stairs, making sure to duck around the insect-covered strip of flypaper hanging from the ceiling, to a water-soaked, carpeted hallway.

Donelson paused just outside the doorway to the three-story, 12-unit apartment building’s laundry room. Her 4-year-old daughter’s Crocs squished on the dark, damp, mildewy carpet.

Dark, dirty standing water filled the basin of a washing machine. Pools of water had turned the laundry room’s vinyl floor soft and spongy, and leaked into the hallway.

The situation was the same at the identical three-story, wood-framed apartment building with brick veneer next door.

These are the living conditions at the Crestwood Apartments on E. 37th Street in Davenport. Conditions have gotten so bad, renters face an uncertain deadline as to whether they will have to relocate to new housing as city officials determine whether sufficient repairs have been made to what has clearly become substandard housing in the Quad-Cities.

Back upstairs, Donelson pointed to cracks in the ceiling near the patio door to her two-bedroom apartment at 3721 College Ave. in Davenport, as well as recently patched section of ceiling in the middle of her living room.

“When it rains, it leaks really bad from like the top corner, and then in our bedroom it leaks really bad also,” the 27-year-old said. “I’ve put in maintenance requests online and nobody has been in to even look at it or try to fix it” for about a year.

Donelson said she had to call the city to get the section of ceiling of patched, only to have requests to patch other cracks ignored.

“You could literally stand under it and take a whole shower,” she said. “That’s how bad it (was). When they replaced it, they just put plywood up and then repainted. So not really fixing it.”

Outside, the complex of six apartment buildings looked as though recently battered by a storm. Several broken windows were boarded with plywood, duct tape and stones. Furniture was spewed across the parking lot.

Shingles were tattered and torn off, and sections of roof exposed.

Overgrown plants took over the sidewalk leading up to one of the buildings. A railing pried loose from a wall lay in a stairway.

How we got here For roughly two years, Davenport renters have lived in apartment buildings infested with mold, mildew, rodents and insects, with leaking roofs and plumbing, missing or inoperable smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, exposed wiring and “questionable” gas-fired furnaces.

City officials say they’ve performed numerous inspections and ordered repairs to compel the out-of-the-state owners to respond to the substandard housing conditions to little effect.

Now, conditions have deteriorated to the point where approximately 70 low- to moderate-income households — many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, are elderly or have a disability and rely on government assistance and benefits — face having to find a new roof over their head, possibly within two weeks, amid an affordable-housing crisis.

A representative for the property management company, Headway Management, LLC, reached by phone Thursday said the company was working to make repairs, and workers could be seen Thursday cleaning up the property.

“We are trying to work with the city internally to not have these apartments closed down,” said the company official, who declined to provide their name and further comment. “We are trying to be as proactive as possible with getting the items attended to.”

The city will perform a follow-up inspection scheduled for 9 a.m. on Aug. 2, at which time all violations “shall be corrected,” or the buildings condemned by the city and ordered vacated.

“At that time, I will know a lot more detail on where we stand with the progress that has been made and the plan of action that has been in place and formed with the city, and where we can stand if going forward,” the representative said.

Attempts to reach the properties’ owners have been unsuccessful.

An uncertain deadline Davenport Mayor Mike Matson said the company has hired new property management for the Crestwood Apartments, had remedied issues with building smoke detectors, fixed some leaking plumbing and sought bids for roof and parking lot repairs.

“I don’t know, to be fair, if it’s going to be enough,” Matson said by phone Thursday. “There is an effort, we can debate the level, to try and get them fixed up so we can move forward with this place. That said, we’ll see” what the Aug. 2 re-inspection reveals.

“If some of these places are OK, and we’re going to let them (continue to be rented), then I don’t see there is any issue,” Matson said. “If they’re unsatisfactory because of health and safety, it could be the middle of the month” that renters may be forced to move.

“They’ve known about about this since 2019,” Donelson said while taking a break from packing her and her daughter’s clothes into a hamper and laundry basket and boxing up family portraits and other belongings for a move Friday to a new two-bedroom apartment off Elmore Avenue in Davenport.

“Now, y’all expect us to move out with not even a month’s notice,” Donelson said. “And they’re not giving deposits back. … It’s horrible. They’re not living like this. So why should we? It’s not right.”

While able to secure rental assistance from the Salvation Army through federal block grant dollars received by the city of Davenport “for a major upgrade” to new housing, Donelson and many other Crestwood residents have criticized what they view as a delayed and lax response by city officials.

Alex Kornya, litigation director and general counsel at Iowa Legal Aid, said the group is providing free legal services to at least 20 Crestwood tenants.

“We are in the process of conferring with them on what to do next,” Kornya said Thursday. “In general, I think our clients have rights both against the city and the landlord. Some of the buildings involved do probably have very serious habitat issue, which frankly should not have been allowed to get this bad.

“I wish we could have been involved much earlier in the process, but we’re going to do our best to make sure everyone understands what their options are,” Kornya said. “That might include further advocacy or litigation. We haven’t made the decision yet.”

Matson said the city has “been inspecting and pushing” the owner to make repairs, but is “frustrated.”

“This is a terrible situation,” he said. “We’re talking about ordinance changes that would address a person who owns an apartment and the level of deficiencies – that we take action sooner. We’ll see where that goes. I just started that conversation” with city officials.

Inspection history

Inspection reports obtained through Iowa Open Records requests show the city tried for months and on multiple occasions to re-inspect Crestwood-owned units, beginning early this year.

Previous inspections had revealed an apparent reoccurrence of violations that were noted – and remedied – nearly three years earlier.

In late May of 2018, a city inspector noted 14 violations, including absent smoke detectors, missing screens and mold and mildew.

By the end of June of 2018, Crestwood was in compliance. The city’s boilerplate certificate of compliance indicated, “… this building(s) and all units herein have been improved to meet or exceed the minimum standards … therefore, you are hereby commended for maintaining the minimum property maintenance standards.”

During another inspection in November of 2020, records show, 20 violations were noted.

Appointments for re-inspections in January, February, March and May of 2021 were cancelled by the property manager, according to city records.

Scott County property records indicate the Crestwood apartments are owned by the same Minnesota-based group that owns apartments on Heatherton Drive.

The Heatherton Cooperative, which shares an address with the Crestwood Cooperative, bought 12 units at 3539 Heatherton Drive for about $1.2 million in 2015.

In years prior to the sale, the area of Heatherton Heights, including Heatherton Drive, was a frequent target of neighborhood enforcement and improvement efforts by Davenport Police.

On May 27, the city of Davenport issued a 60-day notice for Crestwood Apartment owners to make repairs or vacate the apartment units.

Management then posted letters on tenants’ doors informing them that he property owner had put the leased premises up for sale. As a result, their leases were being terminated and tenants had to relocate by Aug. 1. Failure to do so “could result in legal proceeding to regain possession of the leased premises, which in turn may incur attorney cost and court fees that you could be held responsible for,” the letter reads.

The notice was dated June 19; however, residents say the notice wasn’t posted on their doors until July.

While happy to see improvement, many Crestwood residents say the efforts are too little and too late.

‘Ripping and running’ Fifty-year-old Alicia White, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her 11-year-old son at 3706 Esplanade Ave., held a breathing machine given to her by doctors for wheezing as she packed her belongings for a move to a new apartment this weekend. Like Donelson, she too has secured relocation assistance from the Salvation Army and Scott County. The latter is providing tenants with one month’s rent.

It is unclear to White, who works as a hostess at Olive Garden, and her doctors if her health conditions are a result of her living conditions, but she strongly suspects that it is the case.

Doctors wanted her hospitalized, but White said she was forced to delay treatment out of fears of not having a roof over her head.

“I’ve been ripping and running,” White said of securing new housing. “I just couldn’t deal with my health right now, and then come home and all of my stuff is on the front yard and then I have nothing.”

While city, county and nonprofit officials are trying to help with relocation, they do so amid an affordable housing crisis in the Quad-Cities. Last year, the Quad-City Housing Cluster said almost 12,000 low-income households in the area can’t afford a roof over their head, given existing wages and rents.

Almost 10,000 households in the Quad-Cities are paying more than half their incomes toward housing costs, according to the consortium of for-profit and nonprofit housing service provides, lenders and developers.

The group unveiled a 10-year plan last fall seeking to address a gap of 6,645 affordable units for extremely low-income households earning 30% or less of area median income, or no more than $21,810 annually.

Lori Elam, community services director for Scott County, said while some Crestwood renters have had success finding other housing, others have not, because the rent that’s required is more than the $600 or $620 a month they’re currently paying.

Others, Elam said, have had difficulty getting utilities set up in their name. She said Community Action of Eastern Iowa was assisting helping tenants, who have either lost their job or had their hours reduced due to the pandemic, pay back bills to get utilities established in their name at a new rental unit.

“Folks are kind of piecing things together to provide assistance to renters, but we don’t have enough affordable housing places,” Elam said. “Some folks receive (Supplemental Security Income) checks of $774 to $784 (from Social Security) and pay $600 a month in rent, which doesn’t leave much for basic needs. Some folks get food stamps.”

Elam noted the county is working alongside the Salvation Army and Humility Homes & Services to work with tenants “to get their needs met in the easiest way possible.”

“We are all working together to try to help these folks,” Elam said.

Nowhere to go Danicka Melhorn, 33, said she has been unable to find housing outside of Crestwood Apartments — searching more than 40 properties as far away as the outskirts of Chicago — due to her and her husband not being able to work and make three times the amount of rent for other housing in the area.

“To rent a three-bedroom house here in Scott County, you would have to make $18 an hour,” with rents for three-bedroom housing ranging from $1,300 to $1,500 a month “for a decent place,” Melhorn said.

The couple and their three children live in a two-bedroom apartment, paying $620 a month. Melhorn said the pair are unable to work in order to care for their two autistic sons.

“There are no day cares that take care of elopement-risk kids with ADHD and autism and the behavioral disabilities,” Melhorn said.

As such their only source of income is the two monthly disability checks of $794 they receive for their autistic sons as well as $7,000 in SSI back pay for one child and a $900-a-month child tax credit.

“By the 15th of next month, we’ll have $3,000 and nobody that will rent to us,” Melhorn said. “Money is not an issue for a lot of these people, it’s property.”

She said the family of five has tried to settle for a two-bedroom, but housing providers have a strict two persons per bedroom occupancy standard. The couple have three children, ages 3, 4 and 7.

“We’re lost,” she said, adding rain water “pours” through a crack in her apartment ceiling by a patio window, is infested with roaches and she has repeatedly asked management to replace carpet that has been worn down “to bare concrete” in her children’s room.

“We have the money,” Melhorn said. “We have places willing to (help) pay (rent), but we don’t have physical properties to put that money towards.”

— Reporter Barb Ickes contributed to this story.

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