A mass eviction of Glendale tenants at an apartment building located at 623 W. Dryden St. is sparking legal action.
Most residents have lived in the building for 20 plus years, said Andy Kenareki, who has lived there for 35 years.
“I was brought home from the hospital here,” Kenareki told the News-Press. “I grew up here, so it’s always been home.” After being raised in the apartment complex, Kenareki now lives there on his own in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse unit for $1,045 per month.
Following the purchase of the seven unit building by a new owner, New Space LLC, in early June, Kenareki and other tenants received 60-day lease termination notices in late June, forcing them out of the building by Aug. 31. For reasons unknown to Kenareki, two units were given a Sept. 30 deadline to move out.
Kenareki described the overall feeling of the building’s residents as “shocked and blindsided,” emphasizing the difficulties of finding a new place to live with such short notice in the current housing climate. While the building isn’t technically designated affordable housing, it is less expensive than some affordable housing in Glendale.
He also emphasized that many of the tenants in the building are seniors or on disability.
“They don’t really get out much. Their entire life is this building,” Kenareki said. “It’s been incredibly, incredibly stressful and scary for a lot of people.”
While Kenareki and fellow tenants of the building have reached out to their management company, Specialized Reality, “multiple times” to ask for an extension on their time to move out, they have been declined every time “with no explanation … with absolutely no compassion and no ability to work with us,” Kenareki said, adding that this left many tenants feeling “hopeless.”
Tenants were given the city’s minimum requirement for relocation compensation: two times the market rate for a two-bedroom, which is $2,222 plus an additional $1,000, Kenareki said.
With only two tenants — one of whom being Kenareki — having found a new place to live as of Aug. 21, Kenareki’s attorney Zhana Aivazi with Metis Law Group told the News-Press she is prepared to “vigorously” defend tenants in a possible lawsuit brought on by the building’s landlord if they do not vacate by their deadline. While she is willing to work with management on this issue, she is prepared to fight for tenants to get them additional time to move out or potentially look into them keeping their units altogether.
The eviction notice came with a number of permits and cited renovations as one reason for the eviction. Kenareki said that both the building’s past and previous owners have delayed and ignored “major maintenance issues” such as roof leaks, broken and crumbling steps that led to the parking garage, and plumbing issues which led to toilet sewage overflowing from occupants’ toilets into their units.
Aivazi also said that the former owner of the building told tenants that maintenance was the tenants’ responsibility.
“Whether that’s in a lease agreement or not, that is against public policy and it wouldn’t even be valid,” Aivazi said.
Based on the living conditions the tenants were subject to at the building, Aivazi also plans to pursue a habitability affirmative civil case.
Additionally, Aivazi said that Glendale should adopt additional protections to renters so landlords cannot use renovations as a “loophole” to kick out long-term tenants like Kenareki.
Kenareki echoed feelings of being “pushed out” of his community and feels “abandoned by the city in a lot of ways.”
“We know that housing is a business and people make money off that, but it’s also a necessity, not a luxury,” Kenareki said. “When people have lived in a building for 20 to 35 years, you have to balance wanting to potentially make money with somebody’s ability to live and it definitely feels like a lot of things have failed us as long-term tenants.”
First published in the August 26 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
