Boise shuts down motel for ‘deplorable’ conditions. Here’s what inspectors found

After Boise inspectors found “deplorable” conditions at a motel, they ordered the business to shut down, displacing about 30 tenants, according to the city. A shelter director who visited the site told the Idaho Statesman it shows the consequences of the current housing crisis.

The city became aware of the situation at the Travelers Motel at 5620 W. Fairview Ave. on June 28 when another local business complained about debris, broken down cars and dilapidated buildings on the property, according to a timeline city spokesperson Maria Weeg provided to the Statesman.

City compliance and fire inspectors visited several times in July and discovered that the interior was in bad shape too, city records show. The buildings — which in some units had rotted out floors and no running water, according to records — were so badly deteriorated that the city forced the motel to close with a notice posted on Friday, July 28.

City building and fire inspectors also found substandard electrical, plumbing and mechanical work that was done without permits, Fire Marshal Mike Bisagno told the Statesman in an email. One unit had a broken sewer pipe that allowed raw sewage to pool on the ground, he said. Rooms had black mold and no smoke detectors, he added, and in some cases, floors were open to the crawl space underneath.

“It was like walking into a movie set. It was so strange that this could be happening in 2023 in the city of Boise on Fairview Avenue,” said Jodi Peterson-Stigers, director of Interfaith Sanctuary, a Boise homeless shelter. “How does that happen?”

She visited the motel as part of Our Path Home, a partnership between the city of Boise and organizations that help the homeless population. She wasn’t sure if the occupants were people who have been homeless but she said they were not familiar to her and other homeless advocates who went to the property. Some had been living there for a while, she said.

Peterson-Stigers said the answer to her question about what enabled this situation lies with the housing crisis in Boise. “It’s what allowed this to happen,” she told the Statesman. Despite the “terrible conditions,” tenants she talked to were paying $1,400 to $1,800 a month to live at the motel, she said.

“I don’t know how you can take that kind of money and not make the necessary fixes to make it habitable,” she said.

And though the residents had funds to pay for their rooms through sources including disability checks and Social Security, and they have been able to find new places to live, she said, it seemed that they had ended up there because of barriers to housing like past evictions.

A building inspector wrote in an unsigned report that five children lived at the motel, and that the Fire Department contacted the Department of Health and Welfare about the situation because “the living conditions for them were nothing less than deplorable.”

The city also found evidence of “rampant drug use” and “suspected criminal activity,” according to an email Weeg provided that Fire Inspector Forrest France wrote on July 25.

Boise police visited the motel July 26, police spokesperson Haley Williams said in an email to the Statesman. Officers conducted welfare checks on residents and arrested someone for a probation violation, she said.

The closure was first reported by BoiseDev.

Dave Allen, 36, who owns the Auto Express auto body shop next door, told the Statesman that he has watched people make drug deals, then walk back to the motel. He’s also seen a man from the motel urinate on the fence between the properties, he said. But he added that the people who lived there didn’t really bother him.

The city building official had ordered all occupants to leave by 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 3 in the July 28 order, Bisagno said.

But on Wednesday afternoon, the motel already appeared vacant. Many of the windows were broken. Some of the rooms had signs on the doors dated July 29 that told tenants to vacate by 11 p.m. July 31. A sign out front still promised that there was a vacancy and flashed the word, “Motel.”

The office had a closed sign, but an older woman and man answered the doorbell. The woman told the Statesman that they planned to fix and reopen the motel. She declined to identify herself but referred to the motel as her property.

The motel is owned by Titli Honey LLC, according to Ada County records. The company was formed in 2015 with Honey and Beena Patel listed as members, according to business records filed with the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. The business has been listed as inactive since 2020, when it did not file an annual report.