Orbison House is a property acquired by supportive housing developer A Community of Friends in 1991. Its 2 rear duplexes and a 5-bedroom Craftsman-style bungalow house nine formerly homeless individuals living with mental illness.
The property is named for the late singer Roy Orbison whose widow Barbara deeded the property to the developer to help alleviate homelessness, a favorite cause of hers long before it reached the crisis levels that we see today.
A picture from the period shows the property ringed by a decorative white picket fence. It looks homey and welcoming.
Thirty years later, ACOF has allowed the property to fall into disrepair. Peeling window paint, discolored and worn wood decks, and cracked foundations and walkways abound. The above picture shows a water heater door separated from its hinges; it and the opposite door are stained with what appears to be hopefully mildew and not mold.
Orbison’s maintenance crew mainly performs stopgap repairs only; not much proactive or routine maintenance work occurs here. There is no property manager on site; the current one visits only occasionally and then usually for a specific reason. She observes no office hours at Orbison. The property supervisor, by her own admission, has visited the property only 3 times in the last six months.
Every Friday, for the last several years, a tenant moves the trash and recycling bins to the curb for pickup because, he says, no one else from ACOF does it. He picks up trash around the property for the same reason. ACOF has never compensated or even thanked him for his efforts: the property supervisor recently scoffed when a tenant suggested it, calling Orbison’s tenants “entitled.”
Over the last couple years, neighbors living next door — exploiting the property’s obvious vulnerability — have increasingly commandeered Orbison’s driveway and dumpsters for its own use. They tell relatives and visitors to park in the driveway and refuse to move their cars when asked. They use Orbison’s two dumpsters so much that tenants complain about the lack of space in them for their own trash.
Last summer, ACOF notified the family they were violating two specific city codes prohibiting illegal parking and dumping and to asked them to stop. They ignored it.
Soon after, one of them verbally threatened an elderly Orbison tenant because he told her that she couldn’t park on the property (the case manager had instructed him to do so) and a female tenant two weeks later. Another relative physically attacked the same female tenant several weeks later as she tried to preserve parking space for an ACOF employee.
The police suggested that ACOF install a camera overlooking the property to identify trespassers and help prevent similar attacks.
ACOF did nothing, posting a private property sign 2 months after the incident. The head of property management, Ana Habet, told a tenant that only Ms. Habet or the conspicuously-absent supervisor can order a tow. ACOF never instructed the tenants how to cope with bullies taking over the property.
Almost two weeks ago, Orbison’s case manager was unable to park in the driveway because a trespasser connected to these neighbors parked overnight until noon the following day. The violator was only ticketed, not towed. A week later, Ms. Habet claimed to still be waiting to learn from the property supervisor why the vehicle had not been towed.
ACOF has neither installed surveillance cameras on the property nor installed barriers of any kind to secure Orbison House and protect its tenants, almost all of whom are seniors. Just this week, Ms. Habet claimed in an email, “there is not much we can do to address the neighbors as we have no authority to do so.”
Wait. What?
Since when has a property owner lacked authority to secure its property and protect its tenants?
A surveillance camera posted at the front (and rear) of the building, as the police suggested, would help address the situation pretty inexpensively. When asked to advise Orbison’s tenants how to deal with the continued takeover of the property, Ms. Habet declined. In the meantime, ACOF stands by, watching known trespassers take over the front and rear portions of Orbison House through the use of verbal threats and physical violence.
Remarkably, Dora Gallo, ACOF’s President and CEO, is chairperson of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a membership organization “dedicated to achieving racially and socially equitable public policy that ensures people with the lowest incomes have quality homes.”
Is the chaos, confusion, neglect, and danger at Orbison House Roy and Barbara Orbison’s embodiment of “quality” housing for low-income formerly homeless individuals living with mental illness?
Would you want your loved one living here?
