Residents of an apartment building on Cleveland’s East Side are calling for help from the city in getting the property’s owner to fix their apartments.
“We need a place a stay and we call our councilmen, everything, and they came through and everything but we need somebody to help us,” said Larry Wilkins, a tenant at 2910 Hampton Road. “We need water. We need lights. In the hallways, the lights are off.”
The problems started about a year ago, according to Wilkins, when ownership stopped “doing what they should.”
Wilkins’ building is currently owned by a company called Aliarse Holdings, LLC, which owns 14 properties in Cuyahoga County.
“The owners here have disappeared,” said former Cleveland City Councilmember Jay Westbrook.
Westbrook is part of the Morelands Group, which advocates for and works to protect Shaker Square’s residential apartment corridor.
Westbrook and the organization were involved in a campaign last year to force fixes at other apartment buildings near Shaker Square, which led to the passage of legislation, called Residents First, aimed at combatting absentee landlords in Cleveland.
Westbrook says he’s been working with the tenants on Hampton Road for six months to get something done.
“All that builds up are trash, taxes and unpaid bills and it’s all on the backs of the tenants,” Westbrook said.
Water at the building was shut off Friday, electricity has been off for longer, according to Westbrook.
Tenants have filed numerous complaints with the city, including for heating issues, inoperable toilets, lack of running water, piles of debris and trash lying around, unresponsive ownership and other interior & exterior maintenance issues, city spokesperson Tyler Sinclair said.
Despite the city issuing code violations in response, landlords have not addressed the issues.
"The property owner is an out-of-state and out-of-touch LLC who clearly has no intention of making repairs," Sinclair said. "The jig is up now as they’ll have to answer to their neglect in court."
The property has changed hands five times since 2017, according to records on the county property tax website. The most recent sale, for $2.1 million, came in June 2023, which tenants say is about the time when conditions at the building began to deteriorate.
The ward’s current Councilmember, Deborah Gray is among those pressuring the owner to make repairs.
“The city is involved,” Gray said. “They have been out here. But it’s the property owner and the owner’s responsibility to take care of the needs of the building and the needs of the tenants.”
According to Gray, inspectors from the city visited the property Tuesday and tenants may end up needing to be relocated.
The city has also filed a 54-count criminal complaint against the ownership group, said Sinclair.
"The City will be contracting with a plumber to attempt to restore water service and will continue to offer as much help as we can to assist the tenants temporarily as they figure out their immediate next steps – which likely will be relocating to more stable housing, as the owner’s lack of ongoing maintenance has created a hazardous and unsustainable living situation for tenants," Sinclair said. "We have also asked the Red Cross for assistance."
