Chuck Williams moved to Rose Park Plaza Apartments in 2022, an affordable housing complex he still calls home. Yet that home, he said, has been regularly disrupted with last-minute renovations and poor bookkeeping. He said his landlord overcharged him hundreds, which he ultimately got back after taking them to court.
He wasn’t the only tenant facing difficulties at the 112-unit complex, which is owned by New York-based corporate landlord Capital Realty Group. Other tenants have complained of their privacy has been regularly invaded and say they’re dealing with poor living conditions like mold, leaks and broken appliances. When Williams heard of others who had challenges with their corporate landlord, he knew he wanted to join ongoing unionization efforts this summer, wanting to stand up to “bullies.”
“Things need to change,” Williams told around 30 tenants gathered Friday. “We’re going to do what we can to make sure that it happens. This is affecting myself and my girlfriend and our newborn baby. This is not right. He shouldn’t have to come home to these kinds of conditions.”
So Williams and his fellow renters are joining together to form the Rose Park Tenant Union. Shouts of “Bargain now,” “We have your back” and “That’s not right” prevailed throughout the hour-long rally on Friday as union members told their stories of living at the apartment. They’re the first majority tenant union in Billings, but they’re part of a larger trend of organizing across the nation and Montana pushing back against corporate landlords.
The union hopes to reach a collective bargaining agreement for more agreeable terms on the complex by sitting down with the landlord and going item-by-item for issues like a better repair schedule for tenants. Currently, the property only has one maintenance person and was going through a third change in property managers in five years when the rally was taking place. The leasing office had been closed for almost two weeks when tenants were rallying Friday, according to posted signage on the door.
“Currently at Rose Park, we have no property manager, being forced to file maintenance issues through an app,” union president Sara Graff said. “The door to an empty office remains locked. They advertise on-site laundry with the same broken machines that were old and malfunctioning when I moved in six years ago.”
Capital acquired the property in 2017, with $7.3 million in government-backed financing supporting the acquisition. The company is one of the largest owners of subsidized housing in the nation, with at least 14,000 units in 24 states. In addition, the union alleges in a press release they received a tax exemption this past year having to pay less than a tenth of what they paid in past years. The income-restricted housing at Rose Park Plaza is meant for people who make less than 50% of the area median income in Billings, which is around $49,000.
Graff said when she moved in she noticed bulging drywall outside of her apartment’s entrance, in addition to water dripping down from the wall outside of the kitchen. The first shower she took, the bathroom’s heat lamp exploded over her head.
“It should have been a sign, but with my income, my options were limited,” Graff said. “Considering I was transitioning out of homelessness, I was sincerely grateful to have any house over my head again. Those were only a few examples of what the next few years would bring after improper bookkeeping, ignored maintenance issues, unaddressed safety concerns, invasive inspections, unlawful evictions, retaliatory practices and downright bullying.”
Others told stories of attempted and delayed renovations that happened this year and the past, leaving them without countertops and forcing some to relocate with little to no compensation as the renovations progressed this winter. Regular entries to the apartment without notice were common, according to some tenants.
Graff described the union as a “historical moment” for fighting for long-held demands.
The union is the seventh to unionize against Capital Realty Group in the nation as part of a push by the Tenant Union Federation, a national collective representing tenant unions. More than a thousand units are now unionized at Capital Realty properties.
Capital Realty could not be reached for comment. Though past reporting by Chicago-based outlet In These Times on unionization efforts said Capital Realty had previously verbally committed to a “non-retaliation notice” and that they would “recognize and meet in good faith with any tenant unions within the Capital portfolio.” However, tenants from all seven unions had recently shown up at a scheduled online meeting last week, with Capital Realty President Moishe Eichler failing to show up.
Recently, Capital Realty’s website has become restricted to the public, with the site now asking visitors to sign in immediately. Past archives of it when it was public are still available on the WayBack Machine though. At the top of its website this August, the accomplishment Capital Realty listed was for being ranked 1 for affordable housing acquired in 2019, with the company acquiring 4,542 housing units in the nation.
Issues at Capital Realty Group’s properties aren’t unprecedented. Local news outlets in Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., have all covered issues of tenant neglect on Capital Realty properties.
Corporate, out-of-state landlords that critics call less responsive to tenant concerns and maintenance needs have grown in recent years.
By the end of 2020 corporate entities owned at least 44% of U.S. rental housing, and that number has likely grown since.
At the same time, tenant unions in Montana and the nation have sprouted. Bozeman Tenants United, whose cofounder is currently deputy mayor in Bozeman, and Missoula Tenants Union both started in 2022. Bozeman Tenants United helped get the Rose Park Plaza union off the ground, after learning that for corporate landlords in the nation, Capital Realty was considered one of the worst.
“Tenants at Capital Realty buildings were in some of the worst conditions, getting screwed over the most,” founding director of Bozeman Tenants United Ben Finegan told the Gazette. “So my colleague and I came down here, talked to some folks, and discovered what’s happening here in Billings at this Capital Realty building is going on in a lot of other places. The tenants decided that they wanted to form a union, and then mid-July to a couple weeks ago they kind of got together, and pushed to form a union here.”
Roughly 60% of tenants at Rose Park Plaza joined the union, with the hopes that the rally Friday would increase membership. Kayla Matthews, the daughter of the union president’s said no one deserves to live in a home that isn’t worth fighting for.
“I’m here today to say that we do have real power,” Matthews, a member of the bargaining team, said. “We have the power of unity that we will not be bullied. We will not be taken advantage of. We will not be mistreated. People deserve to live safely and comfortably.”
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