Rental ruckus
Real estate investor Rodney Brenneman had no intention of becoming a spokesman for the rights of renters when he bought the ravaged remains of a one-story St. Bernard Parish home in 2006 with the intention of a quick renovation and sale.
One year — and one lawsuit — later, the suntanned businessman from Lakeland, Fla., has emerged as an unlikely bullhorn for low-income and often non-white renters in the post-Hurricane Katrina battle over who will return to the quiet, driveway-lined subdivisions that have long defined the parish.
“The people most in need, which are those who can’t afford to buy a single family home, are the people being discriminated against,” said Brenneman, one of 25 out-of-state investors who bought 80 St. Bernard properties through their business, Your Home Solution Louisiana. Last month, the company filed a lawsuit against the St. Bernard Parish Council accusing it of violating the constitutional property rights of owners who choose to rent, lease or offer lease-to-own houses in the parish.
The lawsuit seeks to overturn a post-Katrina rental regulation requiring property owners wishing to rent or lease properties to first obtain a “permissive use permit” from the St. Bernard Parish Council for properties that weren’t rentals before the storm.
The ordinance “requires property owners who wish to rent or lease or lease-to-own their property undergo an intimidating, irrational, oppressive and indefensible process,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Henry Klein in the federal lawsuit filed in March, only two weeks after the parish settled a suit alleging a previous version of the ordinance that limited the permit to those renting to non-relatives was racially discriminatory.
While U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Vance stopped enforcement of the ordinance at the properties in litigation with a temporary restraining order April 3, the 25 investors and their tenants say they have lost significant amounts of money and time to heavy-handed attempts from the parish to pressure owners to stop renting.
Enforcement already has pushed at least three tenants to move out after eviction was threatened and utilities were disconnected. Under the rules, fines of up to $250 “for each day of unpermitted rental, lease or occupancy” were also levied on owners and tenants.
“The power people gave me running water but they won’t give me lights because they say the parish won’t give them permission. Now there is a notice of condemnation on the house,” said Zachary Alveris, who paid $1,500 in rent to Your Home Solution Louisiana before he realized the newly renovated Chalmette home he had secured for his girlfriend and two daughters lacked electrical power.
Alveris, who was refused power shortly after moving in his plush sofa and boxes of Pocahontas-themed toys in February, was given a full refund on his rent and said he plans to restart the lease on his Plaza Drive rental now that the courts have ordered parish officials to turn the lights back on.
“Really and truly I don’t feel comfortable there, but I need somewhere to live,” said Alveris, who has been living with his mother in her Harvey home since being evicted. African-Americans such as Alveris make up 70 percent of the 54 Your Home Solution Louisiana renters, said Brenneman.
The YHS plan was to renovate the properties and “quickly sell” them for between $135,000 and $165,000, said Brenneman, an investor and an employee of the parent company, Your Home Solution Management, which manages investor-owned properties in Central Florida and the New Orleans region.
In addition to the St. Bernard properties, the company has built homes in Slidell, Lakeview and eastern New Orleans.
Brenneman estimates the 25 investors have spent $8 million on rehabbing the 80 St. Bernard homes.
Foiled by a market nearly buckling under the weight of thousands of vacant, renovated homes for sale and a national mortgage crisis, Your Home Solutions decided late last year to rent the unsold St. Bernard homes until the market improved. The decision to rent the units was made out of economic necessity, said Brenneman.
Of the 80 YHS homes, only one has sold. Another two are set to close this month and 54 are rented. Nine homes haven’t been renovated because the investors have fallen short on construction dollars, and 14 finished homes remain vacant and available for rent or sale, according to YHS documents.
The 14 vacant homes are a small percentage of the uninhabited plots lining St. Bernard streets, where nearly 6,000 homes have been demolished and are awaiting sales through The Road Home. In Chalmette, 224 homes are being marketed by Realtors, according to Latter& Blum.
Brenneman said investors didn’t comply with the St. Bernard permit requirement because “its criteria was so unreasonable and there were no assurances that we would even get the permits.” The requirements for public approval include applying to the parish Planning Commission for a review, notifying by certified letter all property owners within 500 feet of the proposed rental and publishing a public notice for three consecutive weeks.
“It was an unreasonable amount to ask of an investor who has already put his life savings into building houses for people who needed places to live,” said Dan Brenneman, father of Rodney Brenneman and owner of six Your Home Solution rental properties. Brennenam, who is a complainant in the lawsuit, said he spent “nearly a million dollars” on his properties, scattered among various Chalmette subdivisions.
“I am about tapped out,” he said. “My tenants are receiving eviction notices. They are working people with families who are getting notices that they are being evicted. How can I give them refunds when I am almost out of money?”
St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro Jr., who introduced the year-and-a-half old ordinance as a member of the council, declined to comment because of the litigation. St Bernard officials say the ordinance is intended to “stabilize” post-Katrina property values and protect the character of parish neighborhoods.
“Our critical task is trying to stabilize real estate values and the neighborhoods for the people who own property here,” said District A Councilman Ray Lauga Jr.
Lauga said the council has approved all 25 of the permit applications it has received and is now trying to move along “several mixed-income developments.”
“If you can meet the four criteria for the permit, there is no reason to deny it,” he said. “We aren’t treating renters any different than anyone else.”
Meanwhile, those caught living behind yellow lawn signs that mark homes that were never given permission to be rented feel as if they have been persecuted because they can’t afford to buy a house.
“I feel embarrassed because I am the only person in the neighborhood with a sign on the lawn, the only person who has to deal with inspectors coming in and making us feel like we shouldn’t be here,” said Mary Manisfield, who has lived with her husband, daughter, son and grandson in a newly renovated ranch home in Chalmette since January.
Manisfield lived in a Meraux trailer park before Katrina. After the storm ripped her trailer apart, the Manisfields moved into a Federal Emergency Management Agency-managed park where they lived until leasing the Your Home Solution rental. She has been fighting to stay in the house since an eviction notice landed on her door Feb. 4.
“My grandson has a yard to play in for the first time,” Manisfield said. “It’s the best place we’ve been and we are not going to just pack up and leave.”•
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