After a long, drawn-out battle with her landlord and former friend, Woodycrest Avenue resident Carmen Vasquez was evicted from her home earlier this month. 

Last September, Vasquez received a letter from Miriam Rodriguez, managing agent for Alliance Housing Associates II, informing her that her lease was being terminated. Rodriguez accused Vasquez of failing to submit documents needed to recertify her public assistance eligibility.

Then, in a January 2007 letter to her tenant, Rodriguez notified Vasquez that, because she had refused to schedule a recertification interview, her public assistance would be terminated and her rent raised from $277.00 per month to the full market value of $1132.

In January, a Bronx County Housing Court judge upheld Alliance’s motion to evict Vasquez. In the judgment of possession entered against Vasquez, which she signed, she is listed as owing $10, 326.00 in back rent.
Nearly seven months passed between the January court decision and the day—August 9—when Judge Pierre Turner issued the ruling that finalized the eviction.  It was a time period that witnessed many twists, turns, and allegations.

Vasquez made several arguments for why Rodriguez’ efforts to evict her were improper: She contended that, in fact, she did submit documents needed to recertify her Section 8 eligibility, but Alliance did not submit them to the department of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.) before deadline. She argued the $10,326.00 in rent arrears was an erroneous figure, since it was calculated based on the market-value figure she should never have had to pay in the first place. Vasquez further said her signature on the judgment of possession is invalid, because she was confused and misinformed about what the document said. And she suggested her landlord had continued to accept rent payments after terminating her lease.

Her eviction was stayed in Bronx County Housing court several times, and Vasquez sought assistance from attorneys, media, and community organizations. In July, one of those organizations—Nos Quedamos—accused Rodriguez of deception; project manager Lucy Martinez said that, in order to gain information about a meeting of Alliance tenants being held at the group’s Courtland Avenue office, Rodriguez called Nos Quedamos pretending she herself was a tenant. Rodriguez denied this accusation, saying she was not even familiar with the organization.

“I have been in business for many years,” Rodriguez wrote in an emailed statement to the Horizon, “and have never disguised myself in order to gain information that pertained to me or my business.”

Nos Quedamos also contacted Judge Turner to support another of Vasquez’ claims: that Public Assistance was, in fact, still paying her rent directly to her landlord. In a letter dated July 5, Nos Quedamos assistant project director Ruth Lopez wrote: “There [are] discrepancies in the way the monies are not being collected through the management office.

 Public Assistants [sic] has been sending the checks directly to the managing office, however many of the checks have not been cashed by the managing office.” 

Yolanda Gonzalez, executive director for Nos Quedamos, said a person who works at HUD was the source of this information. 

Rodriguez did not return requests for comment on the question of whether or not Alliance had refused to cash any of Vasquez’ Public Assistance checks. She concluded the same email in which she denied being familiar with Nos Quedamos by writing: “At this point I have consulted with my attorneys and been advised not to respond to further questions.” 

On Friday August 3, city Marshals finally arrived at Vasquez’ apartment to evict her, and changed the locks to her home. However, that same day, Judge Pierre Turner stayed the eviction and ordered all parties back into court the following Monday to hear Vasquez’ arguments for why her home should be restored to her. During the August 3 hearing, the attorney who had previously been handling her case—Joseph Altman—was unavailable, so she was represented by Eric Pilotti, whom Vasquez said she had never met before that day. There appeared to be very little discussion of the heart of Vasquez’ claim—that Rodriguez had improperly raised her rent to market value.  After roughly 15 minutes, Turner ruled against all of Vasquez’ arguments except for one: that her eviction was improper because Alliance had continued to accept rent checks from Vasquez after terminating the lease. On August 9, Turner decided against Vasquez on that argument as well, finalizing the eviction.

In many ways, the battle between Vasquez and Rodriguez—former friends who first met 25 years ago in Brooklyn—seems to illustrate that getting to the bottom of landlord-tenant disputes can sometimes be very difficult. For instance, Vasquez’ allegation that she submitted her recertification papers to her landlord in a timely fashion is hard to prove—or disprove:  It a tenant’s responsibility to turn in the necessary documents to his or her landlord, who in turn must submit them to the city.  “There is no higher responsibility that a landlord has,” said HUD spokesman Adam Glance.

But in cases where there is a dispute over whether the landlord or the tenant is to blame for missing the recertification deadline, HUD does not play referee. “We will cut off the subsidy based on what the managing agent gives us,” Glance said.

Even establishing whether or not a tenant is still being subsidized by HUD can be a roundabout process: When Marcelina Vasquez called the agency on behalf of her sister, in the presence of this reporter— to find out if in fact HUD was still paying Carmen’s rent—she was told to contact her managing office.

What is clear is that Vasquez’ eviction has caused—and coincided with— great stress and instability in her life.  Her daughter, Megan, had been staying with godparents in Long Island for months because Carmen did not want to subject her to the anxiety of waiting for city marshals to come and evict her. Now, Megan is preparing to start school amidst great uncertainty in her mother’s living situation.

And, days before being evicted, Vasquez was diagnosed with tumors in her legs. Surgery to remove them was successful, and the tissue proved to be benign. But Marcelina Vasquez said the past few months have drained Carmen to the point where she doesn’t even want to talk about her situation anymore.

“We have to struggle for even the little things,” Marcelina Vasquez said. “Everybody just tries to deal with it, and remember that it’s just an unfortunate incident and it is what it is right now.”