"CBZ owns three properties in Aurora, and there are code violations on all three," Jessica Prosser, Aurora's director of housing and community services, told media on Monday, August 12. "This property [1568 Nome Street] has been the most prominent, and the residents have been the most vocal about this property, and the calls for service have been highest at this property, as well."
Dozens of families living at the complex, known as Fitzsimons Place, were evicted today, August 13, with police present on the property. According to CBZ Management, as many as 170 people were living in the apartment complex; residents say that included upwards of seventy families.
Through a PR firm, CBZ Management blamed Venezuelan gangs for the code violations at the Nome Street property, claiming its employees were threatened and weren't able to return and manage the property.
Prosser said that the city has been helping the evicted tenants by paying their security deposits for new units and booking 85 rooms at ten different hotels. Tenants who still didn't have a place by Tuesday morning will be able to stay in a hotel on the city's dime until August 31, Prosser said.
"The city has been committed to providing resources the entire time prior to doing the posting," she added. "The property owner has been unwilling to provide relocation assistance."
The city is also taking legal action against Zev Baumgarten, who's listed in city records as a CBZ property manager, for eight building and vehicle code violations; he is set for a jury trial in Aurora Municipal Court beginning on August 27.
News of the eviction caught the attention of Aurora resident Elizabeth Ruddy, who lived in a CBZ-owned property for two years and reported many of the same issues as the residents at Fitzsimons Place. Ruddy lived in the Duchess Apartments, a CBZ property in Edgewater, from 2020 to 2022 and says she saw "writing on the walls, broken fences, trash all over the place, feces smeared all over the sign."
"There were homeless people sleeping in the hallways, there was trash outside of the dumpsters, the dumpsters wouldn't be emptied for weeks on end, we wouldn't get our mail for months on end," Ruddy says. "Needles, razor blades, broken glass in the parking lot. It was absolutely horrific."
According to Ruddy, her license plates and tags were stolen. For two years, she says, her neighbors complained that water from the apartment above them leaked into their unit, but it was never fixed. Like residents at Fitzsimons Place, Ruddy says she didn't see a property manager on site "for weeks at a time."
Andrea Fuenmayor and Shayra Caez speak at a rally on Monday, August 12, ahead of being evicted from 1568 Nome Street.
Bennito L. Kelty
Ruddy describes seeing the news about the Aurora apartment complex as "infuriating." She hopes Aurora City Council takes claims of gangs with a grain of salt, and would rather they "investigate Zev Baumgarten and CBZ Management."
"They need to investigate why this property was able to be neglected and allowed to follow apart into such disrepair while people were still living there," Ruddy says. "Those buildings are hazards."
CBZ Management did not respond to questions about Ruddy's complaints or code violations at its other Colorado properties.
The same day as the evictions in Aurora, a class action lawsuit was filed against CBZ Management by tenant Javier Hidalgo on behalf of other tenants. According to the lawsuit, the property was closed because of "the landlords' gross failure to remedy conditions, rendering the building fundamentally uninhabitable."
The lawsuit identifies Zev and Shmaryahu Baumgarten as owners of CBZ Management, and demands that they provide "dignified alternative housing to every tenant they displaced" and repay "damages for the conditions they knowingly allowed to persist."
"We all can easily see through the Baumgartens' blatantly false and racist narrative that this condemnation was caused by gang violence," says the lawsuit. "The building was condemned, and these families and individuals were displaced, because their landlords refused to remedy horrific living conditions in order to maximize their profits."
Some members of Aurora City Council believe CBZ Management's claim that a Venezuelan gang took over the property, however. The council's three-person Public Committee stated as much during a meeting on Thursday, August 8.
“None of us buy that story, that this is based on a code enforcement violation,” at-large councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky said. “The three of us believe there is a huge gang problem.”
In particular, CBZ Management and the Aurora council committee believe that Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization, is responsible for 1568 Nome Street's deterioration. The group was reportedly behind a jewelry heist in Denver on June 24, and in July the New York Post reported that Tren de Aragua members could be targeting Denver police.
Councilwoman Stephanie Hancock, who is also on the committee, said at the August 8 meeting that the criminal group was responsible for a gathering of 3,000 people at an Aurora shopping mall after Venezuela's controversial and disputed election results July 28. Hancock argued that they were testing the police to see how they'd respond.
Mayor Mike Coffman pushed back against claims about the gathering, calling it a "one-off" occurrence.
The Aurora Police Department is investigating "the reality of the situation" and whether Venezuelan gangs are active around Aurora, according to acting APD Deputy Chief Chris Juul.
Andrea Fuenmayor, an evicted resident of 1568 Nome Street, says that she's not sure if gangs have taken over the property, because she only came to her apartment at night to sleep. But she never saw anything that would make her think gangs are the problem, and she never felt unsafe living there, she says."The problem was that they gave us a unit to rent where one shouldn't be living," Fuenmayor says. "Why are they renting apartments if you can't live there?"
