What did Columbus officials learn from Latitude Five25 mess to help with Colonial Village?

Mark Ferenchik, Columbus Dispatch
·4 min read

The mess at Latitude Five25 and the relocation efforts local officials undertook to find temporary, then permanent housing for its residents was more than a test run for what they now face in a similar undertaking for Colonial Village residents.

When Columbus officials emptied the Latitude Five25 apartments on Christmas Day 2022, they needed to scramble to find shelter for 154 households after heat problems and burst pipes forced the evacuation of the twin towers at 525 Sawyer Blvd. The buildings also had problems with non-working elevators and other code issues.

It took 10 months for officials to find permanent homes for all Latitude Five25 residents, said Hannah Jones, the Department of Development’s deputy director for community development. The situation exposed fractures in a system that had no playbook to deal with such a crisis at such a scale.

This week, more than 860 Colonial Village residents were told by the apartment's management company that they needed to be out by Dec. 31. Capstone Real Estate Services said it needs to extensively renovate the troubled East Side complex off East Livingston Avenue between James and South Hamilton roads. The complex has been under court-appointed receivership since February 2022.

City officials told Colonial Village residents at Barnett Community Center on Tuesday night that the city will provide temporary housing through the end of March, giving priority to more than 100 families without heat at Colonial Village.

More than 860 people, hundreds of them Haitian immigrants, have been living in mostly abandoned apartments in Colonial Village on the East side. The Haitians were scammed into moving in and paying $1,200 for two bedroom apartments without heat, hot water, and some without electricity
More than 860 people, hundreds of them Haitian immigrants, have been living in mostly abandoned apartments in Colonial Village on the East side. The Haitians were scammed into moving in and paying $1,200 for two bedroom apartments without heat, hot water, and some without electricity

Jones said that among the things learned from the Latitude Five25 situation is to quickly link services to residents. At two resource fairs at Barnett Community Center on Nov. 16 and 17, officials gathered representatives from Franklin County Job and Family Services, immigrant and refugee agencies US Together and Community Refugee and Immigration Services, Columbus City Schools, Legal Aid of Columbus, and health care from Mount Carmel, Nationwide Children's Hospital and others.

"We have been quietly doing this work for a number of weeks," she said. "We had the ability to have time to wrap our arms around the situation."

The city has $400,000 left over from the Latitude Five25 efforts. Mayor Andrew Ginther's administration will be heading to Columbus City Council with a request for another $600,000 for a total of $1 million to help relocate Colonial Village residents.

The total cost of temporary housing and relocation services could be as much as $6.6 million, according to a Nov. 6 motion by the city against the complex in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Asked if there was anything city officials learned from the Latitude Five25 relocation that they wouldn't do this time, Jones said, "I can’t pinpoint a thing we wouldn't do. I don't know that there's a perfect way to do it."

One difference this time is whether permanent homes can be found for everyone because of the immigration status of those from Haiti and asylum requests, she said.

"We can't say we can permanently rehouse everybody," Jones said.

"Hopefully, they'll be able to work and live in the community. We're trying to manage expectations of what we can do. We have to get everybody in a safe place," she said.

Hundreds of Haitians had been living for months in Colonial Village apartments without heat and hot water and lacking official leases. A network of human traffickers brought the asylum seekers to Columbus from Florida, collecting cash rent for the units and giving them bogus rental agreements.

Jones estimated that 50 to 85 tenants have legal leases and that the city has retained R. H. Brown & Company for relocation services for them. The company provided the same services for Latitude Five25 tenants this year.

But while there are similarities between the Latitude Five25 and Colonial Village situations, there are also differences, said Shannon Isom, president and CEO of the Community Shelter Board.

The main one is that there are so many immigrants this time, she said, with different needs and language barriers, people in many cases without work or credit histories in the United States, making it more challenging to find housing.

"We know that we have upwards of 800 people. That's one of the bigger issues we have, knowing we have a larger number of people to take care of," Isom said. "We know we have a large number of children. We don’t know the number."

Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein also said that in the Latitude Five25 case, the city filed and won a contempt action against the New Jersey-based owner. On Nov. 14, his office filed an action against Colonial Village's mortgage holder, EFM Transfer Agent; its receiver, Kenneth Latz, Senior Managing Director of Riveron ETS LLC; and its former property manager, Hayes Gibson; seeking to hold them in contempt of a court order mandating improvements in living conditions at the apartments.

"At the end of the day, the common theme that permeates the situations is accountability for the ownership at Sawyer Towers (Latitude Five25) or accountability through the receiver, lender and property manager at Colonial Village," he said.

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Will lessons from Latitude Five25 guide Colonial Village response?