Hobart apartment building shut down as uninhabitable
Conditions revealed after wellness check; at least 2 dozen left homeless
The city of Hobart on Tuesday officially declared uninhabitable an apartment building it put under a “Do Not Occupy” order Monday, leaving at least 24 people homeless after a wellness check called into the Hobart Fire Department earlier in the day revealed horrific conditions in their apartment building.
Residents of the building at 215 East St. reconvened in its parking lot Tuesday afternoon as representatives from Hobart’s building and fire departments, as well as a general contractor and an industrial cleaning company representative, determined the scope of the damage. A building department employee affixed the final notice to the door.
The premises, the notice reads, says that 215 East Street is “a fire hazard, a health hazard and a danger to person or property” because of ordinance and code violations. It instructs the building owner, Glenwood Properties LLC owner Joseph D. Gore, of Valparaiso, to appear at a July 20 hearing before the Board of Public Works.
“The inspection of the building at 215 East Street, Hobart, Indiana, concluded numerous violations relating to public safety including but not limited to electrical issues, blocked exits, inoperative illumination/exit signs, water leaks, sewage backup, expired fire extinguishers, potential asbestos and black mold, unsanitary living conditions and lack of properly working smoke detectors,” the order reads. “The condition of the building presents a clear and immediate danger of serious bodily injury.”
Hobart Building Official Karen Hansen said Tuesday that Gore, who also owns Pinnacle Realty LLC and Top Shelf Construction in Valparaiso, met with her, Mayor Brian Snedecor and other officials to determine what, if anything, can be done. The meeting was “productive,” she said, with Gore “expressing concern and commitment to addressing” the problems.
Gore scheduled a meeting with the apartment’s residents for Tuesday evening at a hotel where they are staying. Details about the meeting were not available at deadline.
Firefighters conducted the wellness check on an elderly woman who lived in a basement apartment at a 100-year-old, 11-unit apartment building at 215 East St., just east of downtown, sometime after noon Monday, city officials said at the scene. Firefighters first discovered that the windows to the basement had
been boarded and sealed shut.
Firefighters later learned that the woman had been moved out of the dwelling, officials said, but further investigation showed that the building had, among other problems, standing water in the basement, water leaking into the main electrical box and out of electrical outlets, and sewage from one unit bubbling up into another unit’s bathtub. City officials then posted bright yellow “do not occupy” signs on the doors Monday afternoon.
Hansen added that her department will contact the Lake County Health Department.
When approached near City Hall after the Tuesday morning meeting, Gore said he “has no comment right now.” In video prior to that meeting obtained and viewed by the Post-Tribune, Gore told residents that he promises he’s “going to do whatever the insurance company allows” him to do to make them feel better.
“I don’t want to be here any more than you do,” Gore said to the group, adding that their renters insurance should pick up the costs of accommodations.
One resident, Marissa Morawski, 20, told Gore that she didn’t find out she was homeless until she got back to the apartment at around 2 a.m. and saw the “do not occupy” sign.
“There were no cars, no people here, so I had to go sleep in the house my family vacated because I don’t turn 21 until Sunday, and I can’t rent a hotel room,” Morawski said. “No one could’ve waited or contacted me to go get my stuff?”
Gore also told the group that he would write the leaseholders checks for their last month’s rent and deposit. After first telling them they needed to pick them up at his office in Valparaiso, building manager Hailee Stover brought the checks to the building.
Two residents, Angela Ruiz and Lorraine Wentz, said they were shorted on their check amounts — Wentz by $200, she said. She spoke to Gore while he was at the building.
“He said, ‘I’m just trying to catch a break,’ so I told him he’ll get his break when we get ours,” Wentz said. “I just feel ill today, not knowing where we’re going to live. We have no security.”
Dazed and scared, residents congregated in its parking lot Monday evening as city officials scrambled to find them shelter.
A local plumbing company left after temporarily stopping the water as family members and friends brought over boxes so the residents could take at least some of their belongings to wherever they ended up staying.
Building residents said they’d been living in the nasty conditions because their rent was relatively cheap compared with other places. Several, like Ruiz, said they had contacted Gore and Stover numerous times over issues to scant or no response.
Ruiz and her husband moved into the building in Jan. after his job was transferred to Northwest Indiana from Virginia Beach, Virginia, she said. Pictures Ruiz took and showed the Post-Tribune Monday and texts she’s sent to Gore illustrate that the apartment they moved into — for which they’re paying $975 — was filthy and riddled with hypodermic needles, as well as rug and floor burns, from the previous tenant, for whom Hobart Police have since come looking.
A month after they’d moved in, Ruiz said she started having problems breathing, so she asked Stover for new furnace filters. Stover initially said she would get them but never did, Ruiz said.
Since February, Ruiz said she’s been hospitalized twice; doctors told her she has nodules in her lungs likely caused by black mold or other contaminants, which Hobart Firefighters found in the building.
Ruiz went on to say that not only did they have to order and replace the mailbox lock for their mailbox themselves, but Stover — who also works as a real estate agent for Gore at Pinnacle — told them they were responsible for cleaning their own vents, which Ruiz said she did. Ruiz also told Gore that “the closest doors that lead to the back stairwell are still not fixed”; she told the Post-Tribune that she’s heard and smelled people partying in that stairwell.
Ruiz and her husband paid nearly $4,000 to move into 215 East, including first month’s rent, and had to dip into their savings to do so. She doesn’t know how they’re going to move again.
“I take care of my granddaughter who has special needs, and she’s already upset because of the commotion,” Ruiz said. “All I was asking for was a filter.”
Don Brant, of Hammond, attempted to console his daughter, Samantha, who also moved into the building in January. She’ll stay with him until she figures out where to go next, he said.
“Twenty years ago, I had a house fire and lost everything. That was bad,” Don Brant said. “These people have nowhere to go, and I know how that feels.”
The residents will have a place to sleep at least until Thursday through Joe Clemmons of the Hobart Township Advisory, who secured rooms at a local hotel for them. Hobart City Councilman Chris Wells, R-5, planned to buy gift cards with donations he was getting through his campaign page for the families to buy food while a local church was coordinating a meal train to take to the hotel, he said. As of Monday evening, he said people had donated close to $300 toward the cause.