Connecticut seniors bust through corporate landlord lies to win rent control

Residents outside the Town Hall meeting ahead of the vote on a Fair Rent Commission. | Photo via Center for Housing Opportunity

What do you do when a corporate landlord buys your complex and starts busting your multi-racial, multi-generational community? First, you mobilize your community and public opinion, then you push back with everything you’ve got. In two break-neck months of mobilizing by working-class tenants, Windward Village exposed a lying landlord and forced their government to build a Fair Rent Commission.

Built in the 1970s, Windward Village is one of the largest apartment complexes in Niantic, a small New England village anchored on the Long Island Sound with a population that doubles each summer to accommodate summer business. The vast majority of the 60-unit complex is either retired, elderly, or disabled. It forms the heart and soul of a working-class community.

Landlord lies

In late June, this community was targeted. Without a word of consultation, the buildings were sold to Alpha Capital Funds. Over night, the community began to receive terrifying notices that rents were increasing by up to $1,000. For the few residents who could get the new landlord’s call center on the phone, they were told they had to “pay or move”—allegedly, the new landlord couldn’t afford to keep rents so low. In Connecticut, where housing stock is 100,000 units short of the people’s needs and homelessness is on the rise again for the third straight year, the choice of “pay or move” really means “pay or live on the streets.”

At the same time, Alpha Capital’s social media accounts began to loudly brag about the great profits to be made once the elderly and disabled residents were swept out and replaced with “young professionals” and “higher-quality tenants.” Alpha’s business model is a wrecking-ball. They work with large financial firms to acquire multifamily properties to quickly “renovate,” increase rents to the breaking point, and then sell off the property.

In recent transactions, Alpha publicly boasted about how they buy buildings with only a sliver of their own capital, then arrange for the remaining 75% of the cost to be paid for with “bridge loans” from unnamed “debt funds.” These “bridge loans” are very aggressive, high-interest mortgages. These mortgages are not meant to be sustainable and instead force Alpha to move with great speed to get the renovations finished and rents increased, so they can sell the property, pay off the mortgage, and move on to their next property.

The CEO of Alpha Capital, Tyler Smith, has made public remarks that would make it seem like this failed bodybuilder and college drop-out has pulled himself up by his bootstraps and has built an empire out of thin air with his pugnacious attitude alone.

In reality, Smith is a henchman for the hedge fund managers that use him to do their dirty work. With each new building he buys with borrowed money, he is boxed in by fund managers that trap him in a position where all he can do is bust communities by raising rent. In fact, when the fund managers see that he is botching a project and catching too much heat, they tell him to cut his losses and move on.

As the renovations began—which involved contractors being forced to pour chemicals and cleaners into drains as part of Alpha’s corner-cutting business model—and as the demands for severe rent increases began to sink in, the residents of Windward began to talk to each other.

Things went from bad to worse on July 9, when tenants noticed the fire trucks. That day, the building’s alarm system malfunctioned. Because the fire department, just like the tenants, couldn’t reach the absentee landlord over the phone to resolve the issue, the fire department had to stand watch throughout the night to keep the community safe.

That was the final straw. The next day, nearly all of the 60 units filled the common room to organize. As they shared information, they discovered there are other Alpha victims. About 20 minutes east, in the City of New London, Alpha was in the process of busting three large apartment complexes in the exact same way. Those communities of color, just like Windward Village, were being subjected to the terrorism of aggressive rent increases and neglect. The residents learned that this corporate landlord has a disgusting and well-documented record of racism and community busting. Greater action was needed.

The struggle for fair rents

In that packed community room, Windward Village drew upon over 100 years of community struggle and resolved to create a Fair Rent Commission, a democratic body that regulates rents in a community. Over the last year, dozens of towns have created Rent Commissions. Just a few short months ago, the tenants’ union and mobile home residents successfully mobilized to establish a Commission in Willimantic. That could be done here.

The success of Fair Rent Commissions (locally, FRCs) in Connecticut shows that communities can protect themselves from industrial landlords when they successfully connect their economic struggle for fair rent to their political struggle for human and civil rights.

The first FRC was established by popular demand in the City of Hartford after the state government abruptly stripped communities of their right to control rent by outlawing rent control in 1959. Rent control became widespread in Connecticut during the 1940s in response to the working-class gains in New York City years earlier.

From 1918 to 1920, tens of thousands of renters in New York City engaged in tenant organizing and rent strikes to fight 300% rent increases and evictions that were harming working-class communities after the First World War. In response to this tenant organizing, the City created the country’s first rent control laws. Other communities followed suit. In 1921, the District of Columbia’s rent control laws were upheld by the Supreme Court. Equipped with that lesson, working-class communities in Connecticut joined the nationwide movement to adopt rent controls and establish rent boards of their own.

Rent control expanded dramatically during the Great Depression and Second World War when FDR cracked down on profiteering, and, by the 1940s, over 80% of apartments were rent-controlled.

Because landlords couldn’t make profit on their apartments anymore, many sold them to their tenants. As a result, home ownership and cooperatives reached historic rates. When the war ended, the landlord industry tried to repeat their WWI rent-increase playbook so they could rebuild their businesses. To accomplish this, the industry began to decry rent control and threatened to withhold investment on new suburban construction if rent control was not killed. In 1947, President Harry Truman believed the landlord propaganda and started to attack the New Deal price controls on rent.

The National Fair Rent Committee was established to protect rent control. The goal of the Committee was to protect rent control by organizing cities and neighborhoods, block-by-block, in support of the legislative fight. This Committee had membership numbering in the tens of thousands, including people from working-class organizations like the AFL-CIO, NAACP, CPUSA, and tenants’ unions from across the country (at least 85 from New York City). The Committee elected New York City Mayor LaGuardia and instructed him to appear before Congress, delay the roll-back of federal rent control, and to give local communities time to mobilize.

Establishing an FRC was the response to these attacks in Hartford, Conn. Any tenant could go to city hall and request a public hearing, where the FRC would shine light on the landlord’s business, ask questions, and review evidence on behalf of the public. For example, the commissioners would review the landlord’s financial records and would consider the plight of the family being crushed by a rent increase and decide whether the increase was fair for that family. If the rent was unfair, Hartford would put people before profit and block the increase.

As one might imagine, the large industrial landlords immediately sought to stamp out Hartford’s FRC before it could catch. As these challenges were gaining steam and the first FRC was being shut down, a statewide Conference on Human Rights and Opportunities was called in 1967. Governor Dempsey, who could no longer ignore the mass peace and civil rights protests enveloping Connecticut, called the conference in response to Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech. The conference boldly called for an end to the war in Vietnam and a renewal of people-first policies at home. This conference showed the broader Connecticut community that the economic issues related to rents were directly connected to a struggle for human and civil rights.

From this Conference, a powerful wave of civil rights protections began to be adopted by the state government, including the creation of the Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. The CHRO was given the power to investigate acts of discrimination in housing. On paper, working-class communities were now shielded from the horror of a landlord’s racism and neglect. In practice, large landlords continued to use their old powers as landowners to neglect properties, jack up rents, and drive working families from their homes long before the CHRO could respond.

In 1969, the state government was forced to close the landlord loophole and formally recognize a community’s power to create an FRC. The FRCs were explicitly created to give the people local power to challenge both the landlord’s economic power to use rent as a tool of oppression and the landlord’s power to neglected properties. For the first time, working-class communities could now block evictions and use the FRC to block the landlord from getting paid until they fixed up buildings.

Since 1969, FRCs have expanded with every social crisis. The first wave occurred in the 1970s and ’80s, times when rents increased dramatically. With each expansion comes new rights and powers—such as the right of an FRC to drag landlords into court when they ignore orders and additional protections for the elderly and disabled.

The most recent expansion occurred in response to the COVID-19. In 2022, FRCs became mandatory in every large town. The expansion continues today, and FRCs have been used by tenants unions to force landlords to the bargaining table.

Working-class solution for Windward Village

Over the course of two months, the residents of Windward Village mobilized their community to push back against their landlord. Through a series of meetings, trainings, and mass actions, the residents forced their small community to establish an FRC in record time. Working-class allies were called in from around the state to meet, mobilize, and educate the movement.

In mid-July, the residents of Windward invited organizers from Alpha’s other buildings to town, and they invited the press, too. Trina Charles with Step Up New London shared how renters on West Street, Greenway Road, and Faire Harbour Road in that town were responding to Alpha.

They shared Alpha’s method for attack and division and how Step Up organized tenants to use FRCs, landlord-tenant law, and public complaints to push back. Had Alpha followed the law by issuing written rent-increase notices, or was the company just blowing hot air to scare people into leaving their homes?

Beth Sabilia with the Center for Housing Equity and Opportunity of Eastern Connecticut shared how renters in Hartford forced Alpha to sell their building after it became known that the company was intentionally forcing Spanish-speaking renters of color into eviction. Sabilia ended her remarks with a call to action: “We need to value each other over the almighty free market.”

Inspired by this expression of solidarity, Windward residents began speaking. Residents with gray hair stood up and said they could not afford to stay in their homes if they had to pay the astronomical rent hikes demanded by Alpha. Renters in wheelchairs explained how they were forced to wait out in the rain for a neighbor to happen to pass by and open the door because Alpha couldn’t be bothered to install automatic doors.

Dan MacKenzie, a member of the Board of Selectman, said he was horrified by what was happening and resolved to do everything within his power to protect the community from Alpha, including supporting a Fair Rent Commission and having the item put on the agenda as soon as possible.

Once the applause died down in reaction to MacKenzie’s pledge, he said that the regular ordinance-drafting process meant a Commission would take a year to establish. The collective began discussing MacKenzie’s pessimism concerning immediate results. One elderly resident stood up and said that everyone should go to the next town meeting to demand action now. The call for prompt action caught like wildfire; one year was too long, change was needed right away.

A Republican state representative stood up next and said they welcomed the idea of going to the town meeting but that collective action would be too burdensome and confusing. They recommended the group slow down and appoint two people to go to the meeting to share the group’s experience.

The collective discussed this idea, too, and immediately dismissed it. If the community was going to speak collectively, it meant that everyone was going to speak, no matter how long it would take.

A second meeting was set, and everyone was given homework. The people who came to the meeting were going to set out to petition the rest of the building, they were going to call to get an FRC motion set on the town agenda, and they were going to mobilize local legal aid attorneys to help educate the community about FRCs.

The community circulated a petition and, within one week, it had already been signed by half the residents of Windward Village. It demanded prompt intervention by all levels of government to safeguard housing as a human right.

The residents of Windward Village invited two speakers to address their coalition about the horrors of homelessness and how FRCs can be used to address human needs. The director of the New London Hospital Center, Cathy Zall, has been working with the homeless for several decades.

She spoke on the crisis of elderly homelessness and shared that the homeless center rarely saw homeless seniors until rents started soaring in the wake of the pandemic. On the day she spoke, over 40% of the residents of the shelter were senior citizens.

A lawyer with Connecticut Legal Aid, Chris Carlson, revealed that evictions and rent increases are driving the elderly into unsheltered homelessness at alarming rates. He shared federal data showing that Connecticut leads New England when it comes to the number of senior citizens living on the streets and in their cars. Prompt intervention, he said, is needed to safeguard the vulnerable and poor. He explained that large landlords in towns with FRCs charge less rents because they know they may be held to account.

The second meeting ended with residents speaking directly to the cameras and community leaders assembled. Jean Church, 87, lives in Windward Village with her special needs daughter. At her age, she said she cannot go back to work, but she cannot afford rent. She accused Alpha of being heartless and asked community leaders to do something. At one point, Church alleged that Alpha’s workers were caught pouring paint down the drain. This remark caused First Selectman Dan Cunningham, who also serves as the town’s water commissioner, to leap out of his chair and express complete disgust toward what was happening to his town’s elders.

In an unexpected turn of events, Cunningham got up after the speakers had finished, stood in the middle of the assembly, and said he had failed to safeguard his community’s senior citizens from Alpha. He asked for the community’s forgiveness and pledged to push for a vote at the very next town meeting.

Energized and with just days to prepare, the community resolved to mobilize everyone they knew to attend the hearing. Once the cameras, reporters, and Republican state representative had left the assembly, the community hosted a civil rights lecture and Q&A. There, the community was educated about exercising their right to speak at a public meeting. In addition, the community educated themselves about how an FRC works so they could go back to their neighbors to prepare.

Can’t wait a year

On Aug. 7, the Fair Rent Commission was on the agenda, right after a review of the town’s pension program and right before a discussion on the East Pattagansett Street sidewalk project.

A cohort of about 20 people brought signs to the town hall: “Housing is a Human Right!” “We Can’t Wait a Year!” Some of the younger organizers started picketing next to the entrance. An 80-year-old resident moved the group to both sides of the main street, near the intersection; the elder explained that the people showing up to the meeting already knew what was happening. The people needed to slow traffic and let everyone else know what was going on.

For an hour, the elders cheered when a Windward Village or Board member pulled into the parking lot. They invited passing mothers with strollers to join the meeting and celebrated every supportive horn- honk. When a man in a large truck rolled down his window and began lecturing seniors about sidewalk safety, the cohort laughed and told him to come to the meeting because the sidewalk project was on the agenda, too.

Inside, organizers were busy helping speakers fill the room and register to speak. When the meeting hall ran out of room, chairs were put in the lobby and television screens were set up.

For over an hour, one-by-one, the residents of the town spoke in support of a Fair Rent Commission. They were joined by others: A working woman explained that essential workers like her could not afford to live in town any more if rents keeping increasing unchallenged. A Vietnam War veteran explained that he was forced to go overseas for the country and all he wanted in his old age was for the community to give him somewhere to live. A college student said an FRC would help him stay in town once he graduated.

A small landlord who rents a few units in town got a thunderous applause when he came out in full support of the FRC; he got an even greater round of laughter when he asked if we could also talk about the sidewalk project.

Not a single person spoke in opposition. Not a single industrial landlord came to the hearing to explain the benefit of increasing rates of homelessness to pad their profits.

In a town where the Selectman meeting typically runs for 15 minutes, the message was clear and unprecedented: The town had to act promptly. Two days later, the ordinance was published, and a vote was scheduled to approve it.

Alpha Capital responded to this community democracy by targeting the tenant organizers with harassing texts and emails and by threatening not to renew their leases. The landlord cut off the ability of some residents to pay with paper check and dictated that seniors—many of whom don’t have computers—start paying their rent through the company’s broken website. The tenants were organized, though; they had learned their rights weeks ago and knew they were protected from retaliation.

On Aug. 20, the final hearing and vote were held. Residents who had not previously shared their experience were empowered to come forward. For nearly 45 minutes, residents of Windward shared how they have been victims of retaliation and how Alpha was refusing to agree to reasonable increases. Others shared how they have been getting harassing calls several times per day telling them to pay or move. Another shared how over half of her mother’s Social Security goes toward rent and she can’t reach Alpha on the phone.

Phylis Lawrence, 84, recalled Alpha’s plan to gut the community and clear out the “lower-quality” tenants. Her response: “We are all desirable.”

The FRC was adopted unanimously. Selectwoman Carlson said she voted for the FRC because “there is something very wrong with big business coming in and having an unjustifiable rent increase.” Selectwoman Cicchiello said the public mobilization helped her vote for the FRC and that “it took a lot of courage for people to come out and speak in public” against their landlords. Chairman Cunningham, who expedited the process after attending the mobilizations, said, “It takes courage to speak truth to power,” and the FRC will “provide a forum for fairness.”

In the coming days, the FRC will go into effect. The town will appoint Commissioners and, for the first time, Alpha will be called to account for its behavior at Windward. The company will have to open its financial records to the public and try to explain with a straight face how its block-busting will benefit the community. Will the hedge fund managers pull the plug and muzzle Alpha Capital? Time will tell.

In recent days, the Connecticut Examiner‘s Ally LeMaster has reported that Tyler Smith forced his employees to submit false testimony to the State Assembly. Posing as tenants, six of Smith’s employees lied to the legislature as part of an effort to block a bill that would end no-fault evictions in the state. There, the employees were sent to pose as tenants who praised Alpha’s ability to evict their neighbors.

The residents of Windward Village have tied their economic struggle to their political struggle for human dignity. Just as they have drawn on the diverse history of working-class struggle to establish FRCs and combat industrial landlords, they are also providing an example to others. In one of their meetings, an elderly tenant stood up and said that the struggle against Alpha Capital is “a gift to future generations.”

“We will prove to you…that we are animated and united by common ideals and aspirations, with courage to affirm our beliefs, faith in the people and the future, and a willingness to sacrifice for a better world, which we are confident is in birth.” –Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (New York City, 1952).

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CONTRIBUTOR

Louis Henry