Thugs Hijack Condemned Apartment Building In Foreclosure After City Boots Four Dozen Residents Over Health, Safety Issues; Bank Left Holding The Bag

In Springfield, Massachusetts, The Republican reports:

• The living conditions inside two Locust Street apartment buildings, which the city condemned Thursday, had deteriorated dramatically during the past few months. Things got so bad that on Wednesday, when a number of city agencies conducted an emergency inspection of the properties at 244-252 and 258-262 Locust St., they found near-lawless environment inside, a scary free-for-all in which squatters were living rent-free or, even worse, paying rent to people who had no business collecting it.

• “Thugs took over the building and were offering units to rent,” said Geraldine McCafferty, director of the municipal Office for Housing. As a result of the condemnation, about four dozen people were evicted in Housing Court procedures and a California-based bank was ordered to put them up in a hotel for a week while they search for more permanent housing.(1)

• Although McCafferty said that corner of the city’s Forest Park neighborhood has long been depressed, the property’s most recent woes began when its owner, Riverview Apartments went into foreclosure.

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• Over the past few months police began responding to an increasing number of 911 calls regarding the property, and complaints made to the Office of Housing started coming in as well, McCafferty said. The emergency joint inspection, in the works for about two weeks, found that property’s central fire alarm system had been ripped out of the building.

• Inspectors found a number of other code violations as well included a leaking roof, and waste oil and raw sewage in the basement, according to David H. Cotter, deputy director of the city Department of Code Enforcement. Some of the apartments were in horrible condition and could not be fully inspected due to such hazards as garbage, feces and exposed electrical wires, Cotter said.

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• The failed properties on Locust Street and a number of others like them in the city are byproducts of the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis that unfolded with it’s puncture. During the bubble, investors from outside the area saw what were highly-inflated property values for Springfield.

For the story, see Springfield officials say conditions in Locust Street apartments has been deteriorating for months.

(1) A companion story (see Springfield condemns Locust Street apartments; Judge orders bank to put tenants up in hotel) reports:

• [City lawyer Lisa] DeSousa told [Housing Court Judge Robert G.] Fields the conditions there were the most appalling she had seen during her career as a housing lawyer. “There were collapsing ceilings, no working plumbing, no functioning stoves or refrigerators (in some units),” she said, faltering. “I’m sorry, your honor, I’m struggling because this is actually the worst I’ve ever seen.” The courtroom was packed with couples, mothers, children with pacifiers and the aged, all awaiting to hear where they would lay their heads that night.