About 25 people packed into the Family Outreach office located in a commercial building owned by Eagle Crest Management, AKA Jamie Cherewatti, to strategize a response to sudden eviction notices for all the tenants living in Echo Village Apartments located next door, 24 units of -- by Amherst standards anyway -- affordable housing.
A little less than half the crowd was made up of a (Section 8) tenants and the rest was a fusion of government and non-profit personnel from the Amherst Schools, Amherst Housing Authority, Planning Department, Legal Services and even the NAACP.
Also hard to miss was former Echo Village tenant, who said he was "paid to leave", Motown Benny. Although at one point in the meeting he was asked to stop talking and "get down off his political soapbox."
Motown Benny (Johnson)
The good news was tenants did not have to abide by the 3/31 deadline demand to vacate the premises. But that is the trigger date for Mr. Cherewatti to start legal eviction proceedings in Housing Court, and then of course it's up to the judge to decide.
Eagle Crest claims all tenants can "reapply" for tenancy on April 1st (no foolin) as long as they have moved out by March 31. Although one official reported Eagle Crest must give 60 days advance notice before implementing a rent increase to Section 8 tenants, which he has not done. The management firm has, however, giving notice of "termination."
The really bad news is that Cherewatti can indeed raise the rent and that will price all Section 8 tenants out of the market anyway. Said one frustrated official, "Our hands are tied on so many levels."
Six weeks ago Cherewatti purchased the property, assessed at $2.1 million, for $3 million, and is now raising rents the same 30% or so he overpaid. Just business.
Although, you can't put a price on a positive public image.
10 comments:
AMAZING!!!!
UMass can hit students with a $2000 legal bill for not moving out when they are told to -- yet a private landlord can't. Gotta love UMass....
Off topic but I need to say this: According to the Gazette, Katherine Appy neglected to renew her psych license and neglected to take the CEU courses that she was required to take in order to do so.
OK, she had an excuse. I am sure that people who neglect to renew their drivers' license and neglect to pay their traffic & parking tickets do as well -- but they get arrested.
And she claims this happened back in 2003 -- which means what, that she was practicing without a license for 9 years? Maybe quite well, but how is this different from the person whose drives quite well but doesn't have a license?
And this would mean that she was elected in the midst of all of this -- which makes one wish that Catherine Sanderson was a whole lot more evil and willing to both find out stuff like this and to publicize it. She wouldn't have,she is too nice a person, but I digress....
Free market, baby, free market.
You're right Ed, it's off-topic. Never seems to stop you though.
Wow. Motown Benny is amazing. Look at that suit!
He did not bring his plastic bucket however.
Did it ever occur to any of you idiots that I really don't care what you call me anymore? Or that it says more about you than me?
I read the Gazette article as quoting her saying that when she realized that she hadn't done the required CEO work, she then immediately did it -- which by basic understanding of grammar indicates that she hadn't done it back when she was supposed to have done it.
So she had breast cancer and a marriage falling apart -- life is tough and s**t happens. If she wasn't practicing at the time, that would be another thing, but I am presuming that she was making critical judgments about other peoples lives. Writing reports that had a great deal of impact to the lives of other people.
And she shouldn't have been doing that if she wasn't capable of dealing with much more simplistic licensing paperwork. In other words, even if she had taken the CEU courses when required and only neglected to submit the paperwork -- and the Gazette story indicates that she also hadn't taken them -- if she couldn't do this because of the trauma of the cancer and divorce, I question her ability to do more serious things.
But I ask again, if someone dealing with a double mastectomy and a divorce neglects to renew her driver's license, doesn't pay her traffic tickets and parking tickets, and continues driving on a daily basis -- when the APD sees her driving through town every day and knows that she doesn't have a valid driver's license, well does the APD have a policy of not arresting her for it?
Is it a case of you don't have to renew a license if you have problems in your life? Wow -- think of where that could go. And if she has that level of problems in her life, should she be practicing without supervision????
Remember that you don't even need a college degree to have a driver's license, but that you need a doctorate (actually the same doctorate I have) to be a Psychologist. The bar is higher, the expectations are higher, and I argue that she didn't meet them.
Again, if she instead hadn't renewed her driver's license, would that have been as been as nonchalantly ignored as this?
One thing we can all be sure of, is that Ed will keep up with his CEU courses. Would anyone want to hire him? That's another question. But we can rest assured that all of his i's will be dotted and t's crossed. He will remain, forever more, fully credentialed, which, of course, will enable us all to sleep better tonight.
I'm feeling better already knowing and trusting that Ed will always be fully CEU'd! Way to go Ed! You are my hero!
So........A landlord isn't allowed to raise his rent?
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