Homeless, Alexis Batton just wanted a place to live where she could safely raise her 3-year-old and a baby expected early next year. But when The Road Home placed her at Holladay Hills Apartments through Rapid Rehousing, she found a roach-infested place that she refused to inhabit.
Nonetheless, taxpayers are picking up the tab for the first three months’ rent and a security deposit.
“It’s so bad in there,” she said. “I can’t put a newborn baby in there.”
Batton, 21, and her daughter, Charlie, are staying at the Midvale family shelter operated by The Road Home. Her husband, she said, is incarcerated on a parole violation.
The Hillcrest High graduate had qualified for Rapid Rehousing, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program administered locally by The Road Home. In most cases, it pays a deposit on housing and the first three months’ rent. To date, Batton said, Rapid Rehousing has spent $2,400 on the unit, which sits empty. The federal program will also pay rent for September and October.
Batton said she told Road Home personnel not to rent the unit — apartment 17 — to anyone else through Rapid Rehousing.
“You are giving all that money to this?” she told The Salt Lake Tribune, showing smartphone pictures of roaches in cupboards. “Nobody should live there. It’s unhealthy for children.”
A spokeswoman for Holladay Hills Apartments, who identified herself only as Samantha, said she could not comment.
Nicholas Rupp, Salt Lake County Health Department spokesman, said the agency has received several other complaints of roaches at Holladay Hills.
Under HUD regulations, rental units must be inspected before they can qualify for Rapid Rehousing funds. Rupp said county health personnel have instructed Road Home inspectors on acceptable conditions for occupancy.
Rapid Rehousing is among the solutions that advocates point to as key to getting homeless people into stable, self-sustaining environments. But the challenges of the program are many in Salt Lake County, including a dwindling housing stock and landlords who get top dollar for run-down units.
Like most who find themselves homeless, Batton was excited to get a place of her own. But when she mentioned the roaches, apartment representatives pressured her to sign a 12-month lease and said the roaches would be eradicated.
On the day she arrived to take occupancy, however, Batton found the infestation was much greater than she first believed.
“I opened the cupboard and roaches were everywhere,” she said. “Even the refrigerator was infested.”
On advice from her attorney, Martin Blaustein, with Utah Legal Services, Batton returned the keys and did not take occupancy.
But because she signed a one-year lease, Holladay Hills could sue for an entire year’s rent. Under Utah law, Batton could be liable for attorney fees and rent for the period the apartment is not occupied for the remainder of the 12-month lease.
On Aug. 11, Blaustein wrote to Matt Minkevitch, executive director of The Road Home, questioning the program.
“I want to know why The Road Home gives taxpayer money to Holiday Hills when they know of the infestation?”
Responding to a Tribune interview request, Minkevitch emailed a prepared statement, which said that in recent years The Road Home had helped 3,000 households move out of the shelter into permanent housing.
“During that time, more than 75 percent of those who have moved into housing through this program have never had to return to shelter,” Minkevitch said.
He maintained that The Road Home inspects all prospective housing units “for safety and habitability.”
“The Road Home helps the family to meet the costs associated with moving in, as well as rent for a short period of time,” Minkevitch said. “The family is responsible for the lease agreement and making the rent for the months after that initial period.”
When it comes to landlord/tenant disputes, Utah law clearly favors the landlord over the tenant, Blaustein said. Eviction can begin three days after late rent. In many cases, tenants don’t know their rights and can’t afford attorneys. Once evicted, they have a record that could impede finding a new place — particularly in a rental market with a vacancy rate of less than 2 percent.
Amy Tabor, 42, provides an example of what can happen to a renter under Utah law.
In November 2015, she, her fiancé and two young sons got a place through Rapid Rehousing. The foursome moved into a Rose Park duplex. Nine months later, Tabor and her sons were evicted when she couldn’t make the $850 monthly rent for July 2016.
Their downward spiral began when her fiancé, who held a full-time job, returned to prison on a parole violation. Without an income, Tabor could not make rent. Eviction proceedings began several days later.
When a friend interceded to pay the late rent, Tabor was told that she would have to come up with $1,750 to meet the July rent, plus legal fees surrounding the eviction proceedings.
Kirk Cullimore, the lawyer hired by Real Property Management, which manages the Rose Park duplex, informed her that, according to the lease, she also would owe $84 a day until the duplex unit was occupied. Future wages could be garnished to pay the fees and penalties.
Blaustein said it’s a familiar story. “I call it the road to nowhere,” he said. “Chances are that a tenant who is not working can’t make the rent payment [on a Rapid Rehousing unit].”
They are then evicted and sued, he said. Under Utah law, the landlord can collect attorney fees and triple damages — three times the rent for each day the tenant overstays the eviction notice. Should the tenant get a job, those fines and fees can be garnished, up to 25 percent of gross income.
Road Home officials say the program works for the vast majority of participants. But when it fails, it can leave people back at the homeless shelter with significant debt.