Men were on street
shortly after officials
viewed overcrowding
surprise apt. inspection
Men were on street
shortly after officials
viewed overcrowding
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — Radical change usually carries with it radical responsibility. Combine the two and someone usually gets hurt. Sometimes, it’s the people you are trying to bring about the change for who get hurt in the process.
Such is the case with nine young Hispanic male borough residents who were trapped in a situation beyond their control.
On Sept. 25, the borough’s Quality of Life Enforcement Team inspected a dwelling at 3 First St. Officials determined that the nine men — and not four people, including two children, as listed on a landlord registration form — were living in the apartment.
At the end of the inspection on Sept. 25, all nine men remained in the apartment.
However, the story changed on Sept. 27 when one of the nine men contacted Cecilia Reynolds the publisher of Nosotros, a local Spanish-language newspaper. Reynolds has established a strong connection with the borough’s immigrant population through her work at the newspaper and has befriended many members of that community in times of need.
Reynolds said Gregorio Mendez, 27, a resident of the First Street apartment, came to her asking for some large plastic bags. She asked him why he needed them.
She said he responded, "Because we are going to tent city (immigrant sleeping quarters in the woods around Freehold). She won’t let us back into our apartment. She has chained and locked the door and won’t let us back in."
Reynolds explained that Julia Hernandez, who is listed as a tenant of the apartment but could not prove that on the evening of Sept. 25 to Director of Code Enforcement Henry Stryker III, "threw all nine of them out of the house. She has now moved into the apartment with her husband and her two children."
Reynolds said she called Stryker to explain what had happened. She said Stryker advised her to take the four residents who came to her to the police department on the morning of Sept. 28.
After spending a good portion of the night of Sept. 27 trying to arrange lodging for the men, Reynolds appeared at the police department on Sept. 28 at noon with the four men. The rest of the apartment’s occupants had moved out to tent city during the night, without any of their belongings, which were being held by Hernandez in the apartment, according to Mendez.
Reynolds spoke with Freehold Borough police Sgt. Andrew DeMuth, who called in Officer Maribel Mora, one of the department’s two bilingual officers, to aid in the interview with the young men.
DeMuth called Stryker and informed him of the situation. Stryker said he would contact the owner of the building, Michael Antuono, of Hillside, to inform him of what had transpired at his property.
Mendez and nine other immigrants had been living in the First Street apartment for about three months. Each man paid $250 a month plus a $10 cleaning fee.
Mendez told Mora that he was told by Hernandez to tell anyone who asked him that he was paying $80 per month for his share of the apartment. The men had last paid their rent on Aug. 26 and were due to pay another month’s rent on Sept. 26. Hernandez refused to renew their "contract" because, according to Mendez, she said that one of the men went to the police and reported that there were too many people living in the apartment.
Mendez told Mora that Hernandez threatened the men with a call to immigration and possible deportation if they went to police.
Hernandez could not be reached for comment on Sept. 28 to respond to the charges. Police also could not locate the woman.
A News Transcript reporter accompanied two police officers and the four men when they returned to the apartment to claim their belongings. Upon arrival, the group found the door unlocked and no one home.
The apartment had been drastically altered from the way it looked on the night of the inspection, Sept. 25. What had appeared like a boarding house, with a sign posting "house rules," now seemed to have been transformed into a small family home.
The room listed as a living room on the landlord registration form, but which had been used as sleeping quarters on the night of the inspection, had been converted back into a living room. Several hardback upholstered chairs lined one wall. All evidence of the men who had been using the room up until Sept. 25 seemed to have vanished. Personal belongings which had lined one dresser were gone. A second dresser, which had held clothing and was also lined with personal items on Sept. 25, had also been removed. A television was also gone.
The attic was devoid of the blankets that covered three men several nights before.
The back bedroom now had a woman’s skirt hanging from a peg on the wall. A woman’s purse was also seen hanging in one of the bedroom closets. Neither of these articles were found in the apartment on the night of Sept. 25. The television had been removed, as had other personal articles belonging to the men who resided there just days before.
The men set about claiming what had been held from them, emptying dresser drawers and packing their clothing and personal articles into giant laundry bags. One of the young men, happy to see his large "boom box" still sitting where he left it, quickly unplugged it and carried it out of the room that he once called his. They worked quickly and quietly, trying to reclaim what was in fact their own property.
After the men had retrieved their belongings from the apartment and left for new lodgings, DeMuth said he would try to locate Hernandez and would call Stryker to discuss the situation.
Reynolds told the News Transcript this was not the first time an eviction of this nature had occurred.
"It happens all the time in the town," she said. "They get thrown out every time a code inspection occurs and then they end up out on the street."
Reynolds said she would like to try to arrange for some type of emergency shelter so that people who are thrown out of their living arrangements do not end up living in the woods.