It’s been a year since the residents of Latitude Five 25 apartments on the Near East Side were evicted from their apartments, and four years since a judge cleared the way for those tenants to reach a settlement that included $1.5 million. A month has passed.
A judge could soon approve the settlement and the money could be distributed.
But the tenant hasn’t seen the money yet.
“It was horrible,” said Angela Canode, who lived at Latitude Five 25 for two years.
Kanode said the lawyers representing the tenants have not kept them updated on what is going on. “Everything I learned was through the news,” she said.
Since May, Kanode, 48, has lived in a privatized Skyview townhome in a former public housing complex on the South Side. She said her rent is $992 a month, she is dealing with medical issues and she is applying for rent assistance.
“I’ll be happy when it’s all over,” she said of the wait.
Another former Latitude Five25 tenant also wonders when the money will come in.
“We have a legal (right) to be compensated for what we have experienced over the past year,” Martin Holloman wrote in an email to the Dispatch.
What’s stopping Latitude from reconciling?
Melissa Benson, lead attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Columbus, which represents former tenants, said Friday that her organization has asked an environmental judge in Franklin County Municipal Court to sign the settlement.
“The paperwork is there for them to approve. The judge is reviewing it,” she said.
In August, a federal bankruptcy judge in New Jersey rejected a bankruptcy claim by the owners of New Jersey-based Pax Latitude’s Latitude Five 25 property, allowing a trustee to repair the property and provide compensation to former tenants. This paved the way for a $1.5 million settlement.
Franklin County Environmental Judge Stephanie Mingo also fined the owners more than $4.3 million in contempt in February.
“These guys are bad actors.”
“My heart aches for them over the past year,” Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said of the evacuated tenants. “It was a long process. It didn’t help that the previous owner ran into bankruptcy court in New Jersey, which delayed things.”
Klein said his office is investigating whether to hold the owners personally liable through civil litigation. “They’re the villains,” he said.
Two 15-story towers at 525 Sawyer Blvd. Evacuated on Christmas Day 2022 due to heating issues and burst pipes. As a result, 154 households were evacuated. These buildings also had broken elevators, asbestos, and other code issues.
Lument Finance Trust, the financial institution that held the mortgage on the apartment, agreed to a $1.5 million settlement, an amount calculated by Pax Latitude and the tenant’s lawyers.
Lument’s attorney, Steve Tigges, said in August that the insurance money would be used to pay the tenants.
Where did Latitude’s tenants land?
After the Christmas Day evacuation, many residents were evacuated to hotels and emergency shelters. As of June, 16 people were still living in the hotel. There is no one left in the hotel now.
The property will be taken over by New Perspective Asset Management. The company’s owner, Dana Milligan, said former tenants were not allowed inside the tower to retrieve items from their apartments. The company has retrieved some items and returned them to tenants, but some furniture and other large items remain because elevators in the tower are not working, she said.
“You can’t carry anything heavy down the stairs,” Milligan said. She said she hopes that once the property is sold, the new owners will be able to repair the elevator and make those items available to tenants.
“This is a huge disaster, so I don’t think it’s going to make everyone happy,” Milligan said. “Sympathetically, we wanted to get something to them by Christmas.”
mferench@dispatch.com
@MarkFerenchik
