Venezuelan migrants and other residents at the apartment complex say they're unfairly caught in the middle.
"It doesn't seem fair to me," says Norena Ordoñez, a Venezuelan migrant who has been living at the apartments for a year and a half. "The government should know that the people who have been here for more than a year or two — there are some who have been here for five or ten years — those people should have a limited time to be able to leave, to save up, to see what kind of solutions come up."
The 99-unit building, called Fitzsimons Place, is run by CBZ Management, a company that operates apartments in New York and Colorado. Through a public relations firm, CBZ says that more than 170 people could be living there based on its most recent occupancy rate, which is up from a month ago.
But residents say that as many as 200 people could be living in the complex, because each unit has at least two guests, with upwards of four to six people in some. Housekeys Action Network Denver, an advocacy group for the homeless, says about fifty families are being evicted. According to Ordoñez, the majority of the residents are Venezuelan migrants like herself.
The apartment complex has had "substantial, longstanding, unresolved code violations," according to an August 5 statement from Aurora spokesperson Ryan Luby. The city is also taking legal action against CBZ property manager Zev Baumgarten for eight building and vehicle code violations; he is set for a jury trial in the Aurora Municipal Court beginning on August 27.
"City officials fear that the property owners and managers might not provide for their tenants as the law requires. The city cannot and will not allow the building to remain open to occupancy," Luby says in the statement. "Despite the city's exhaustive efforts to work with the property owners and their property management group, CBZ Management, they have failed to address the violations and have been uncooperative. Conditions at the property have rapidly deteriorated further in recent weeks."
The City of Aurora is evicting residents and shutting down the property in line with the city's nuisance laws. Residents must leave by 8 a.m. Tuesday, August 13, after which the city will turn off the water, board up the building and fence it off. Luby calls it the "only remaining step" to "protect the safety and welfare of the building's residents."
"Now we're taking on the burden of another person who's not worried about this," says Edwin Macero, a Venezuelan migrant who moved into the apartment complex six months ago. "I don't have anyone's help. I work, and the little I make I put toward feeding my family here. I don't have anywhere to go with my family. I'm worried, but we need to stay calm."
Aurora doesn't have enough housing assistance to offer the building's residents, according to Luby, who notes that the city lacks a human services department because it's not a county of its own, like Denver. However, the city is trying to "marshal available state resources" and asking nonprofits to house residents, he adds.
Among CBZ's alleged code violations were rat infestations, a lack of heat and electricity, backed-up sewage, trash piling up, water leaks, shattered and missing windows, and unpaid water bills. "Now we're taking on the burden of another person who's not worried about this," says Edwin Macero, a Venezuelan migrant who moved into the apartment complex six months ago. "I don't have anyone's help. I work, and the little I make I put toward feeding my family here. I don't have anywhere to go with my family. I'm worried, but we need to stay calm."
Aurora doesn't have enough housing assistance to offer the building's residents, according to Luby, who notes that the city lacks a human services department because it's not a county of its own, like Denver. However, the city is trying to "marshal available state resources" and asking nonprofits to house residents, he adds.
"The city recognizes the burden and uncertainty the scheduled abatement will create for the building's residents, particularly those caught up in these issues through no fault of their own," he says in the statement. "City leadership will provide them with guidance and temporary resources."
"There have been a lot of occasions where we're stuck without water, without lights. There are people who have been stuck for three months without lights," Ordoñez says. "We were staying here without water for fifteen days. And then there's problems with pests, too. There are a lot of things like that."
The city has designated the building as "unsafe for human habitation" and will shut it down indefinitely until CBZ Management fixes "every documented deficiency," according to Luby.
A representative from CBZ spoke with Westword on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety. According to the CBZ representative, the complex has fallen into disrepair in recent weeks because he and other employees at the property have been threatened and forced out by violent gangs.
"We lost control of the building, and effectively we were not able to go there due to the gangs, in specific the Tren de Aragua, taking over the properties and threatening our personnel," he says. "This is not about the property, this is not about the management. To me, this is about what's going on in the city with the crime itself."
Tren de Aragua is an international criminal organization based in Venezuela. Media outlets have reported that the group was behind a jewelry heist in Denver on June 24 and that Tren de Aragua members are targeting Denver police.
The CBZ representative, who calls himself a "property investor," says that no one from the management company has been at the property for the past six weeks. Complex residents say that they haven't seen managers around for the past few weeks, either.
According to the CBZ representative, the alleged code violations are "a scapegoat by the city, trying to deflate the criminality of what the gangs are doing to the city."
Luby calls the claims of gang activity "diversionary tactics" and an attempt to "fight the city" and "fabricate alternative narratives." But the property has gotten more dangerous, he admits.
Calls to the Aurora Police Department from the property nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023 and are on track to double again this year. According to the APD, officers investigated 41 crimes on the property in 2022, 84 in 2023 and 64 this year as of July 31, including reports of robbery, sexual assault and drugs. Last September, the APD declared the property a criminal nuisance.
Still, Aurora clarifies that evictions are "not occurring because of specific gang activity." The CBZ representative says that the rise in 911 calls coincides with the arrival of Venezuelan migrants, which has led to gangs moving in.
Aurora city officials say they're closing the apartments after months of trying to get the owner to fix code violations, but the owner says police have failed to crack down on violence and gang activity.
Courtesy of the City of Aurora
More than 42,000 migrants have come to Denver since December 2022, mostly from Venezuela. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston's office estimates that about half of them are still living somewhere in the metro area.
While the City of Denver has responded to the influx by offering food, housing and transportation to other cities, the Aurora City Council passed a resolution in February affirming Aurora's "non-sanctuary city" status and promising that none of the city's taxpayer revenue will fund a response to migrant arrivals.
Some of the Venezuelan migrants living in the apartment complex moved there after staying in Denver's city-operated shelters, but none of them were placed there by government programs. Macero moved to the complex after living in a hidden migrant encampment in Central Park and then at the Denver Community Church, which the City of Denver uses to shelter migrants.
Last week, a rally of about 3,000 to 4,000 people took place at East Mississippi Avenue and South Havana Street in response to the disputed presidential election results in Venezuela, according to the Aurora Police Department. Multiple gunshots were reportedly fired during the rally, but police say the shots were aimed in the air and not at people, and the shots were not gang-related.
The eviction is not related to that rally, according to the City of Aurora.
