BY WALTER ELLIOTT
EAST ORANGE – The 12 families who were forced out by state and city officials here Sept. 26 are into their 15th day of temporary housing here at the Ramada Inn as of Noon Oct. 10.
Noon is usually the hotel’s daily checkout time but the City of East Orange, for now, is paying the hotel’s rent.
Six people of the 12 dislocated families were taken to West Orange’s Wilshire Grand Hotel Oct. 5, only to be brought five miles back to the Ramada by Noon Oct. 7. Wilshire staff told the City of East Orange and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs that the rooms used were previously reserved for the Oct. 6-9 weekend.
Those who were displaced from 65 South Harrison St. here are operating with the understanding that the city is paying for their temporary housing. They were told by Ramada staff that their building owner, Harrison Construction & Management, of Spring Valley, NY, had been paying the rent here until Noon Oct. 4.
They do have a lot of questions. When they can go back to 65 South Harrison, even to get valuables and/or documents is just the first and open one.
They were for now told by city authorities that they cannot return until the building structure has been secured. One of the 15 families called up the city’s housing inspector, saying that she saw cracks developing in an apartment wall.
“Our construction engineer saw cracks in the foundation (Sept. 28) and deemed that the building was a hazard,” said Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green past Noon Oct. 4. “We evacuated the building, arranged temporary shelter and notified the building owner.”
65 Harrison, at the southwest corner of Harrison and Freeway Drive, is listed as a four-story building holding up to 17 apartment units. Records do not show the building’s age but it does appear to be from the late Victorian Era, in keeping with the contemporary apartment buildings and mansions along Harrison of that time.
Harrison Street has since had two waves of apartment and hotel buildings; one from 1910-40 and the current wave starting in 2010.
Records do show that Harrison C & M was formed May 5, 2005 and bought 65 So. Harrison for $850,000. It appears to be operating off-site by Estate Realty Group, of New City, NY, since June 14, 2018.
The city housing inspector gave 65 So. Harrison 24 hours notice to grab what they need and go. A tenant’s cell ph0ne recording showed people leaving with garbage bags full of items walking across an avenue closed by the East Orange Police Department. CoachUSA buses on the 24B route were among the diverted traffic.
The video clip also showed NJ DCA workers supervising and a PSE&G utility crew cutting off power to the building.
The City of East Orange uses the Ramada Inn as its emergency housing go-to. Municipalities are required to have an evacuation plan under NJ DCA supervision.
65, So Harrison, going by a records search, has been having infrastructural problems for some time. The last DCA inspection, dome Aug. 10, resulted in 172 code violations to Harris and Estate. A December 2016 inspection drew 108 violations. (It is not known whether there were overlapping violations.)
Some of the 15 working class families in 65 So. Harrison started noticing and pointing out problems in October 2022. they told in their Noon, Oct. 4 press conference before the Ramada Inn that they noticed gas leaks, leaking ceilings, molding walls, inoperable windows and more.
“The floor is not level,” said Judith Judge, a mother of three. “The light switches keep going on and off. I can see little flames coming out from the switches in the utility box.”
“I’m very stressed right now,” said Douglas Oliveria, who had lived in two rooms with his wife and children. “No one from the city is helping us.”
The 18 men, women and children at the Evergreen Place press conference presented one view of their problems in addition to “the city isn’t helping us.” In English, Spanish, French Creole and Portuguese, they called on the state to raise the $2,000 daily fines against landlords with code violations to be raised to $3,000 or $4,000.
A couple compared their woes to that of 75 Prospect St. – a quarter mile north and within view of the conference. The 75 Prospect Street Tenants Association had recently resorted to petition for a court-appointed receiver for the 1925 landmark apartment building. The receiver would then make the repairs that the owner and manager had not done so far.
They want violating landlords to go to jail – which is where Mayor Green and a handful of city officials appeared.
“We’re not going to put these people out on the street,” declared Green. “I put my team together this morning and we’re reaching out to the tenants and the hotel management.”
Although it was not clear who the individual was from Harrison C&M, Green added that “The landlord has an arrest warrant out on him, He has a court date with us.”
Oliveria, told “Local Talk” late Oct. 9 and students from the Rutgers Law School looked to see how that can assist with their case.
A spokesperson for Harrison told a reporter late Oct. 4 is that they are working with the tenants and hotel about the payment.
