In 2007, Laura Schreier wrote an article warning that an alleged slumlord, Emmanuel Ku, was targeting Hartford.  Ten years later, 2,300 health and safety violations plagued the Ku owned, 150-unit Clay Arsenal Renaissance Apartments (CARA). With CAC’s help, residents organized to put an end to Ku’s poverty profiteering in Hartford.

CARA resident leaders – Joshua Serrano, Teri Morrison, Yulissa Espinal, and JesLyn Seyon – led other residents in a yearlong No More Slumlords campaign that included numerous hours of door knocking, action research, and multiple meetings with one another, HUD, and City officials.  On May 31, 2018, HUD officially notified Ku and CARA residents that HUD was abating Ku’s federal contract.  HUD will give CARA residents housing choice vouchers to relocate anywhere that accepts the voucher within or beyond Hartford.

Obtaining mobile vouchers are a big win for many residents who felt trapped at CARA.  Because HUD’s contract with Ku was project-based, the subsidy was with the apartments and not the tenants. CARA residents who moved out would not have a subsidy. The mobile vouchers now give residents the freedom they desire to seek safe and sanitary housing for their families.  However, due to a broken housing system, Hartford now stands to lose 150 units of guaranteed Section 8 affordable housing.

Prior to coming to Hartford, Schreier warned that in 2003 Ku’s 11 buildings in New York City had 1,400 code violations. However, by 2007 Ku had purchased two more buildings.  An affidavit indicated that the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) cited Ku’s 13 buildings with 2,953 code violations according to one source.

Although Section 219 of the National Housing Act – which prevents owners with housing code violations from buying HUD properties at auction – prevented Ku from purchasing additional building in NYC, the lack of a national database of housing code violations allowed Ku to buy in other states.  In 2005, Ku purchased the Trade Towers in Birmingham, Alabama, for $4.2 million through HUD foreclosure auction, and CARA in 2009 for $2.4 million also through foreclosure auction.

According to a study done by the Center for an Urban Future, more than 120,000 affordable housing units nationwide were lost to foreclosure and disrepair from 1995-2005.  CARA’s 150 units will now be included in the numbers of permanently lost affordable housing because Ku passed through HUD’s system, despite his miserable track record.

While some see mobile vouchers as a way of deconcentrating poverty, the voucher system is not without its challenges. “For one thing, tenants are forced to reapply for the vouchers under new, stricter standards,” argue tenant advocates, “For another, it can be hard for them to find landlords that will accept the vouchers. And the vouchers themselves are more dependent on the vagaries of annual funding.”  According to the study above, “roughly 28 percent of vouchers are returned to the New York City Housing Authority each year because their holders couldn’t find an eligible apartment and willing owner in time.”

CAC is now partnering with Greater Hartford Legal Aid, Open Communities Alliance, and Connecticut Fair Housing to make sure that every tenant who seeks legal representation or advocacy gets the help needed to jump through the system’s many hoops and obstacles.

Media Coverage:

• Fox 61 Coverage of the May 31 press conference: Click here

• NBC: Hartford Landlord Loses Federal Contract: Click here

• Hartford Courant articles on housing campaign:

o “These Tenants Took On A Millionaire Absentee Landlord And Won”

o After Years of Mismanagement and Neglect, Federal Authorities Will Terminate

Notorious Landlord’s Contract in Hartford Note: this article is incredible reporting on

Emmanuel Ku and worth the full read.

o So Long To An Unwelcome Landlord

o HUD Secretary Upholds Pledge to Assist Beleaguered Tenants