Tenants Ronald Jones, Jerry Gordon and Joanne Blanchard, from left to right, walk along a street near Cleveland's Shaker Square. The city recently passed legislation designed to help tenants like them who are struggling to get absent landlords to respond to requests for repairs and services. (Ygal Kaufman / Ideastream Public Media)
Jerry Gordon is finally moving out of his apartment in The Residences at Shaker Square.
He loves the area: the accessibility, the transit access, the restaurants, the proximity to his hospital, but after 14 years of dealing with management turnover, rent hikes and maintenance issues, the 65-year-old said he just can’t live like that anymore.
"Just think about it now; I have to go pick up my medication," said Gordon, who struggles with heart failure. "If the elevators are not working, I have to walk down six flights, go get my medicine and walk back up."
Jerry Gordon said he is moving out of his apartment building after years of problems were ignored by his landlord. (Ygal Kaufman / Ideastream Public Media)
And he’s not alone: 74-year-old Ronald James said he left the apartment building after two years of elevator outages, leaks, water shutoffs and pests like rodents and roaches. They both said they alerted the apartment about the issues but management ignored them for years.
"They feel that as long as we can delay the process, we don't have to spend the money," James said. "Maybe people will eventually get tired and drop their complaints."
As is the case with many properties across Cleveland, The Residences at Shaker Square is owned by an out-of-state limited liability company, county property records show. That makes it difficult to hold someone accountable when things go wrong, James said.
"It's very easy for them to hide behind these out-of-town corporations to keep housing court from knowing who actually owns the buildings," James said. "And then they feel like they don't have to respond to problems.
Ronald James lived in the same building as Jerry Gordon but moved out after he said his complaints over multiple issues were ignored. (Ygal Kaurman / Ideastream Public Media)
But that will change soon, the city promises, after Cleveland City Council last month passed Mayor Justin Bibb's Residents First legislative package, a sweeping housing code overhaul aimed at holding out-of-state and absent landlords accountable to provide livable conditions through measures like requiring a point of sale inspection when vacant properties change hands and mandating that LLCs employ a local agent responsible for tenants’ issues.
City officials say the legislation is designed to protect renters, who make up nearly 60% of Cleveland’s population, according to 2022 Census data.
Joanne Blanchard, who lives at Hampton House in Shaker Square, is among those renters.
This winter, she said she and her neighbors went months without heat, even as temperatures dipped into single digits with extreme wind chill. She had to continuously run a space heater and call off work because she was worried about leaving her 17-year-old dog alone.
"It was a daily siege of calling, calling, trying to find... who do we call?" Blanchard said.
When she reached someone they would tell her they'd send someone to turn the heat on. "And that never happened," Blanchard said.
Joanne Blanchard lives in a building that she said lost heat during the winter. It was difficult to figure out who at her complex to call to get the heat restored, she said. (Ygal Kaufman / Ideastream Public Media)
Blanchard is part of Morelands Group, a tenant advocates organization on Cleveland's East Side, that spoke before city council earlier this year. She’s optimistic for actions and results, she said.
"I think this will work," she said. "We just want to see things follow a certain standard. We don't want people delaying and delaying — taking things out of Cleveland and not putting anything back into it. This is a wonderful city, and it deserves respect."
Cleveland’s plan to tackle the decades-long issue caused in part by redlining and exacerbated by the 2008 housing crisis is an ambitious one. On Cleveland’s East Side, where the city’s Black population is more concentrated, a recent city study found in the last 20 years LLCs bought the majority of homes, said Building and Housing Director Sally Martin O'Toole.
This legislation is a potential solution to problems that exist far beyond Rust Belt cities like Cleveland.
"We want to restore equity in these neighborhoods that have been robbed of it," O'Toole said. "They've been robbed of generational wealth. And that's unacceptable in Cleveland."
Some property owners aren’t happy with the legislation. Mike Valerino of the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors said he’s concerned the city doesn’t have the bandwidth to enforce all the new policies, which could delay sales and further contribute to deteriorating housing stock.
Some council members have raised similar concerns. In response, the city administration added 20 inspector positions to the Building and Housing Department budget to help with timely enforcement.
Valerino also said the added burden on landlords could drive up rent costs.
Affordability is already an issue for some. Gordon said his rent has gone up more than $300 a month in his time living in his building; something that he struggles with in retirement on a fixed income.
O’Toole said it will take time as the city works to implement the new policies.
"It didn't happen overnight, it's not going to be fixed overnight," she said. "But we're on the right path. We're starting to deploy these policies, and we are staffing up."
But tenants like Gordon are done waiting. He said he has to give up his home of more than a decade in pursuit of something better and healthier, and it just feels like a loss.
"The things that I'm seeing now sound great, but look at what I done went through up until now," he said.
Ideastream attempted to contact the owners of the apartment buildings mentioned in this story. The Hampton House did not respond, and no information could be found on Ohio's Secretary of State business registry about the LLC listed as the owner in county property tax records. The registered agent for the LLC registered to The Residences at Shaker Square refused to pass along contact information or say who owns the building.
This story was originally published by WKSU/Ideastream Public Media on March 18, 2024.