Payton Guion

@PaytonGuion

Following an APP.com investigation, the Department of Community Affairs is re-evaluating how it inspects and regulates rental housing.

State Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, has drafted legislation based on the investigative series.

The Press found a broken rental housing system in the state, in which landlords are able to get away with providing substandard housing.

Three months ago, Garden Spires was the epitome of the wretched housing many renters in New Jersey call home. Tenants at the Newark high-rise buildings lived without heat, among rat infestations and with stairwells soaked in urine. State officials, responsible for protecting these people, were doing little to help them.

An Asbury Park Press exposé uncovered these and myriad other problems in the state's rental housing industry. When state housing inspectors went to Garden Spires in January, they found more than 1,800 violations in the dreary brick buildings. They also found hundreds of violations in several other buildings they reinspected across the state, including two buildings in Asbury Park where inspectors found 187 violations.

Those inspections were done by the state Department of Community Affairs as an immediate result of the Press investigation, which revealed a troubled rental housing industry in New Jersey.

READ: State inspects troubled apartments after APP probe

"We're still doing cleanup based on your story," said Chuck Richman, commissioner of the DCA, which oversees rental housing inspections in the state.

But the department's efforts go beyond simply reinspecting rental properties mentioned in the investigation. The DCA is in the midst of overhauling several policies that Richman says would help protect tenants in the state.

Those include possibly shortening the time between inspections of multifamily buildings - currently once every five years - creating a hotline for renters to call if they have a housing issue, cross-referencing two separate inspection databases to address problem properties quickly, and requiring limited-liability companies that own multifamily buildings to disclose the names of all shareholders.

In the Legislature, state Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, has drafted a bill she said would tackle many of the issues the Press uncovered in its months-long investigation into substandard rental housing and lax government oversight.

APP INVESTIGATION: Renter Hell

The Press found that state inspections often overlook major health and safety issues, and landlords are able to avoid sanctions for substandard housing by hiding behind LLC shell companies. This goes on while the federal government pays more than $1.3 billion for annual housing subsidies in the state, money that gets allocated by DCA.

"The result is we have kids and families living in conditions they should never have to live in the United States of America," Beck said.

The senator has held talks with tenant advocates, housing experts and DCA officials about how the state can step in to protect renters. The result: a bill that would decrease the amount of time between inspections of rental housing, require more communication between the different entities that oversee rental housing in the state, make it easier for DCA to withhold rental subsidies and mandate that LLC owners provide current contact information. Beck said she plans to introduce the bill in May.

But while the bill works its way through the Legislature and the DCA irons out policy changes, many New Jersey renters continue to face substandard housing every day.

Part 1: Billions for squalor

Yanira Cortes, who previously complained of roaches, mold and safety concerns in her two-bedroom Newark apartment in the dilapidated Pueblo City complex, said she's seen no improvement in her living conditions in recent months. In fact, her situation has become worse.

"Now we're having a rat problem," Cortes said. "Right now, I'm trying to get out of here."

A resident of Garden Spires, who declined to give her name for fear of reprisal, said her building still lacks security, has broken elevators, is infested with rats, and still has homeless people sleeping in the lobby and urinating in the stairwells. All that even after DCA issued more than 1,800 violations there earlier this year.

There is one silver lining: Her heat, which was out during the winter, has been restored.

Part 2: Fighting the rats

"The biggest thing that came out of the article is that now they have heat and hot water," Bill Good, a tenant advocate with the Greater Newark HUD Tenants Coalition, said about residents at Garden Spires. "Maybe it's a signal something can happen."

DCA Commissioner Richman said many problems can arise in rental housing in five years, which is generally the amount of time between state inspections of multifamily buildings.

"It can be as long as five years, which is a long time," Richman said. "It can be, unfortunately, a high level of neglect by the owner. A five-year inspection cycle for housing that is primarily at the lower level of the rental community creates its challenges. We're looking at how to change that cycle."

Part 3: Protected by the law

Richman declined to give specifics on how exactly DCA might change the inspection cycles but indicated it may try to shrink the amount of time between inspections. One step the department is taking is to cross-reference two inspection databases so fewer apartments fall through the cracks.

In addition to the roughly 1 million units the DCA inspects every five years, it also takes an annual look at about 22,000 units that are part of the state's Section 8 program, which provides government rent subsidies for low-income residents. Currently, the two inspections aren't linked, meaning a failed Section 8 inspection has no bearing on the more stringent five-year inspection. When inspections result in violations, property owners have a set period of time -- often 30 or 60 days -- to either remedy or appeal the violations.

One of the biggest issues that DCA is struggling with is how to protect renters between inspections. Richman said that despite the deplorable conditions at Garden Spires, DCA hadn't received any complaints from tenants since its November 2012 inspection.

Part 4: Failing the inspection

"We've been wrestling with the lack of contact by renters," he said. "What we're examining is creating an easier path for tenants to reach out to us."

The DCA is working on creating a hotline that tenants can call to complain about living conditions, especially when complaints to landlords are falling on deaf ears. Tenant advocates say this would be a huge win for renters.

"It would make them more accessible," renter advocate Good said. "It would give the tenants a life preserver, that somebody cares."

Paula Franzese, a professor at Seton Hall University who has studied the state's rental housing in depth, said the hotline would be an important step, but that the DCA must follow up on the complaints with other tools, such as withholding rent subsidies from landlords.

Part 5: Some fixes, but no cure

Franzese said she's been working with former governor and current state Sen. Richard Codey, D-Essex, and Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Morris, on two bills in the Legislature. One bill would prevent tenants from being blacklisted simply for bringing a case to landlord-tenant court.

The other bill would knock down the requirement that tenants who are withholding rent must deposit that rent with the court in order for their case to be heard. Both issues were part of the Press investigation.

Franzese said, partly due to her research and the Press investigation, there may now be enough momentum to address renter protections and substandard housing in the state.

"Now that a light has been cast upon some of the more egregious, glaring deficiencies in the system, I feel confident that legislature and the DCA will heed those tenants voices, the voices of the marginalized," she said.

Read the rest of the Renter Hell series here: Part 1: Billions for squalor, Part 2: Fighting the rats, Part 3: Protected by the law, Part 4: Failing the inspection, and Part 5: Some fixes, but no cure.

Payton Guion: pguion@app.com; 732-643-4245