Española tenants union sets sights on improvements after leader's eviction case victory

Jan. 3—Monica Mendez chuckled as she read over a website promoting Las Lomas Apartments in Española.

The complex, she read, "offers all the rewards and comforts of high-class living."

Living at Las Lomas since 2019, she has faced "one thing after another," Mendez said — from broken promises to broken appliances to surprise fees. She has broken down and cried several times.

Her apartment is filled with duct tape. It's stuck to the refrigerator and floors, holding together and hiding things that need to be fixed.

Mendez is a member of a recently formed tenants union with more than 20 residents at the complex. After a small legal victory for its leader last month — Santa Fe County Magistrate Morgan Wood dismissed an eviction case against Dylan Schwaegel on Dec. 21, citing "serious concerns" about utility charges and late fees — the group is setting its sights on more substantial demands in the new year.

Alianza Tenant Union, created in 2023, says a decline in quality at Las Lomas has been accompanied by steep increases in rent and other fees.

Mendez notes a swimming pool and a weight room have been unavailable to residents for years, and a laundry room that had been closed has reopened — but only during weekday business hours.

Requests for repairs and replacements in apartment units languish for months or years, she and other residents have said, and management has deemed work orders complete without making any improvements.

"It's just a shame those of us who have been living here as long as we have, have not been treated with respect," Mendez said. "It's like we don't matter."

Las Lomas manager Mary Lewis has declined to comment on the tenants union or its allegations and did not return recent phone calls seeking comment.

In late October, the complex sought to evict residents from five units, including Schwaegel.

Wood dismissed Schwaegel's case without prejudice, noting the complex could refile its eviction petition with more documentation.

Schwaegel said in an interview he was "glad the judge saw through this pretty quickly and dismissed it right off the bat." Still, he said many issues he and other residents have with Las Lomas management remain unresolved.

Four tenants lost their eviction cases in November and December. The complex alleges they owe between $6,000 and $8,200 each, according to petitions, while Schwaegel owes just over $700.

One of the evicted tenants was Mendez's 28-year-old daughter, Anna Labadie.

"I really couldn't help her in the way I would have liked," Mendez said. "During her hearing, I was there and I just felt so frustrated for her, because I couldn't do anything, and she couldn't represent herself the way she needed to."

Labadie — a home caregiver — hit hard times during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Mendez said, and again recently, when she lacked clients and could not make full rent payments. Mendez said she attempted to make a $1,500 payment on her daughter's balance in recent months but the complex declined it.

Schwaegel also said the complex's management has been unwilling to work out payment plans with tenants and has refused to accept funds from housing aid programs to cover debts.

"That suggests to me that their strategy is to try to force people out whenever they get the chance," Schwaegel said.

In response to an eviction filing in October, Debra Viera filed pages of email correspondence with Las Lomas' management from recent years.

Throughout the summer months of 2020 and 2021, Viera pleaded with the property manager — then employed by Premier Real Estate LLC — to replace her air conditioning unit, her emails show. She wrote she had waited for years, with assurances the unit would be replaced, while her rent continued to increase.

"My apartment is unbearable with no air," she wrote. "Stays over 90 degrees all through the night."

Schwaegel and other tenants have filed consumer complaints with the state Attorney General's Office against the complex and its parent company, Cornerstone Residential. The residents have requested an investigation of the complex and California-based utility billing company Multifamily Utility Co.

After the complex began using the billing company in July, Schwaegel's utility charges more than tripled each month, according to a ledger of his account at the complex, which he provided to the court.

The Attorney General's Office is reviewing the complaints, spokeswoman Lauren Rodriguez said.

The right to organize tenants unions, enshrined in the New Mexico Uniform Owner Resident Relations Act, is not a new concept, said Cathy Garcia of the nonprofit Chainbreaker Collective.

"This is a right that has always been on the books," she said. "It's just that no one ever thought we really needed to use it."

The Santa Fe-based group has helped establish organizing committees, or unions, at Las Palomas Apartments and the Country Club Gardens Mobile Home Park in Santa Fe in the last year, enabling residents to work together to address problems with a landlord, such as rent increases or maintenance.

"It's one thing to be able to show up to a City Council meeting with a sign, but the really hard part of organizing is sitting down and talking to your neighbor," Garcia said. "Folks have to be able to trust each other to talk about what is a very challenging, vulnerable and sometimes humiliating thing, which is, 'I don't have enough money for rent,' or 'I have cockroaches in my apartment.' "

The economic blows from the pandemic created "a new receptive audience" for the group's tenant organizing, Garcia said, which can be seen in local political results as well.

She pointed to a Santa Fe City Council District 3 precinct where Chainbreaker has been active in recent years, saying its election turnout in November, when voters decided on an excise tax on sales of high-end homes, was 50 voters, compared to the 2009 municipal election turnout of five voters.

In recent years, the portion of people in the U.S. who are "rent-burdened" — paying more than 30% of their income on housing — reached a majority for the first time in the last year, according to a January 2023 report from Moody's Analytics.

Since the end of a pandemic-related statewide moratorium on evictions in 2022, eviction filings have returned to, and even surpassed, pre-pandemic levels. Santa Fe County filings have continued to rise in recent months, even as cases have decreased statewide.

The county saw at least 71 eviction filings in December, a 40% increase from the number of cases filed in December 2022 and 11% higher than the number filed in December 2019.

Garcia said she is seeing more interest in political action on housing affordability and tenant rights.

"That conversation being elevated more and more is also due to organizers, not just in the city or state, but nationwide," she said.