“Tenants Deserve Respect”

by Dereen Shirnekhi

Hope Vaughn, alongside Richie Machuca and husband Gregory Edwards: We’re holding up our end of the tenant-landlord deal.

Q Ave Tenants Union leader and Fair Rent Commission member Hope Vaughn joined several neighbors in rallying outside of a Quinnipiac Avenue apartment complex — as they pushed back on rent increases and called on their landlord to address building concerns related to heat, rodents, and mold.

Their landlord, meanwhile, says that those rent increases are nominal and that apartment conditions are fine.

Vaughn is a member of the Q Ave Tenants Union chapter of the Connecticut Tenants Union. She and her neighbors live at the 40-unit apartment complex at 1275-1291 Quinnipiac Ave. and 530-554 Eastern St.

Those apartments have been owned since 2018 by Kings NH LLC — a holding company that used to be controlled by Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg. In September 2024, the LLC switched managers, and is now controlled by a former Ocean employee named Yohay Levram, who runs a separate local property management company called Hammock Home Management.

Seven tenants, including Vaughn, spoke at a Friday press conference held outside the Quinnipiac Avenue apartments. They described having spent stretches of winter without heat or adequate hot water and finding mold and rodents in their apartments.

The rally took place a year and a half after this same tenants union picketed Hammock’s Orange Street offices downtown, as they raised concerns about mold and mice and trash and called on Hammock to negotiate a lease with their union.

Some of the tenants who spoke up on Friday said they are on month-to-month leases, and that they were not given the option to sign year-long leases after Hammock took over. At Friday’s press conference, they also rebuked Hammock and Levram for calling tenants to notify them of rent increases over the phone.

According to Connecticut Tenants Union (CTTU) Vice President Luke Melonakos, the Q Ave Tenants Union represents more than 70 percent of tenants across the 40 apartments.

“We’ve been doing our part,” Vaughn said, by paying rent. Now, she said, it is Hammock’s turn to fulfill their part of the rental agreement. “We want to be treated fairly.”

Vaughn is the vice president of the Q Ave Tenants Union. She’s also a member of the city’s Fair Rent Commission (FRC), the city agency charged with reining in excessive rents. CTTU said that tenants had been filing complaints with the FRC due to the rent increases.

On Friday, Vaughn said that she received a phone call from someone who said he had been hired as a third party by Hammock, who was notifying tenants of their rent increases. Vaughn said that with her, the caller “never got to the increase part,” as she notified him of her position in the union. She said that she has heard from other tenants that increases range from $45 to $200.

Vaughn also said that she had reached out to Levram before Friday’s press conference but hadn’t heard back.

CTTU President Hannah Srajer addressed Levram and Hammock: “Come to the table,” she said. “All we want is a meeting to sit down and continue the negotiations.”

Srajer called on management to reach out and set a meeting with the union by May 13. If not, she said, the union “will continue to do what we have to do.”

Landlord: “I Think We’re Doing A Pretty Good Job”

Levram confirmed to the Independent that Vaughn had reached out to him ahead of the press conference, but described it as a “pretext to the manufactured protest today, which I do not consider to be an act of good faith.”

“My door is always open to my residents, and I was definitely going to reach out to Miss Vaughn to set a meeting,” he said.

“I think we are doing a pretty good job,” Levram said in a phone interview with the Independent and later email response to questions. “We care.”

Levram said that the rent increases were “nominal” and that the tenants receiving increases as part of Hammock’s annual lease renewals had not seen rent increases in two years or more. He claimed that there were no open work orders and that the building has a superintendent who “handles work orders in a timely fashion.”

“Any insinuation of neglect, of any sort, on our part is flatly untrue,” he said. “I hope that you will see that a controversy is being manufactured by non-tenants who are driven by ulterior motives.”

“How is it possible to not have heat?” Levram asked. He noted that boilers break down, but said that they had replaced two of them.

“It’s frustrating because nothing wrong is happening,” he said. “It’s not easy to manage properties.” Levram said that “good multifamily landlords are a crucial link” in the housing ecosystem and “should be supported.”

“There were some bad players around,” he said. “I understand the social responsibility around this. I deeply care on a moral and professional level to provide the best services that I can.”

“Our hearts are in the right place,” he said.

Levram also said that most tenants who were up for renewal had already renewed their leases. He did not respond to questions about why rental increases were being communicated over the phone rather than in a written notice and why so many tenants were on month-to-month leases.

Tenant: “We’re Human Beings”

Richie Machuca has been living at the Quinnipiac side of the apartment complex for almost two years in a two-bedroom apartment with his 10-year-old daughter. Machuca said that he enjoys living in his apartment and gets along with his neighbors, but conditions at the apartment remain a problem.

Machuca said that he has seen rodent droppings and mold in his apartment, and that he went stretches without heat. “I had to spend close to two weeks with my fiancée because it was too cold,” he said.

Machuca is on a month-to-month lease. He said he hasn’t received a call about a rent increase. He said he has trouble getting in contact with anyone. “If you try to call, you have a better chance of talking to Trump,” he said.

“We’re human beings,” he said. “There’s families here, there’s kids here. You make it impossible for anyone to want to stay here.”

Avery Amacher, who is on a year-long lease, has lived at the apartment complex for nearly a year. She said she hasn’t had a working oven since she moved in and went the winter without heat.

Amacher said that it’s her first time living alone, as she spent years taking care of her sick mom. “I’m very proud of my space,” she said. “It’s really frustrating to know the people who own it don’t respect it.”