Bush Regime Plans To Demolish 100,000 HUD Rental Units

Fifteen Group/Profiteer Research Profile

The Fifteen Group Presently Is Evicting 1,200 People In Alameda To Make A Profit!

Photos--Click Below For Photos Of The Profiteers

http://www.alamedasun.com/local/local.htm


http://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/Pages/MFE%20Pages/2004/apr/onlinecover/cover0404.asp


Fifteen Group Owned by Ian Sanders (age 35) & Mark Sanders (age 38)


Fifteen Group at a glance
* Year Founded: 1992
* Location: Miami Beach, Fla.
* 2003 revenues: $100 million-plus
* Number of units: 14,700
* Geographic focus: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas
* States it wants to exit: Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia
* Revenue streams: Ownership and management
* Number of employees: approximately 375
* Origin of company name: The jersey number of the owners’ favorite baseball player, Thurman Munson of the New York Yankees

Ian & Mark Sanders are well known for breaking their promises to renters and evicting them by the masses in order to make a profit on the working class poor, and are not shy of stealing their meals in their spare time just for kicks...

SLUMLORDS EXPLOITING THE WORKING CLASS POOR/Quote From Ian Sanders
Buying risky deals in "undesirable" neighborhoods became the company's business plan. The company looked for communities that were on the wrong side of the tracks, had true working-class areas with minorities and immigrants, and were in cities with job growth, says Ian.

--According To Multi Family Executive Magazine Issue of March 2004--
They conserved cash every way they could, including sneaking into the free buffet breakfast at the Embassy Suites near their office.

EXTREME PROFITEERS/QUOTE FROM FIFTEEN GROUP

"These guys are ground-floor kind of guys," says equity partner Rotter. "They are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get to work," even if that means sticking their hands in the toilet.

Although the company has spent a lot of time to make sure units are leased, it's not enough to have a productive community. "Economic occupancy matters to us," explains Sherbal. So, residents no longer can pay some of the rent when it's due and the rest when they get paid.

At first, it was difficult to convince on-site and senior management people not to negotiate with residents, but the policy has worked out. "We are collecting more money with lower occupancies because the people are paying," says Ian. "We can't be in the free housing business. It's taken several months to change the culture of on-site and senior management people, but now we file eviction notices very quickly."

Fifteen Group
Fifteen Group 1680 Michigan Avenue Eighth Floor Miami Beach , FL 33139 305-938-4300ex20 305-938-4333 Fax info [at] fifteengroup.com Please use the form below to contact us. Name: Email: Telephone: Message:
http://www.fam15.com/contact.php

Miami south beach real estate
... (305) 531-6301. Eleven Management Co 1688 Meridian Ave # 506. Miami Beach, FL. (305) 695-1212. Fifteen Group 763 Collins Ave. Miami Beach, FL. (305) 538-8315. ...
http://www.miami-guide.com/miami_real%20estate/miami_realest...

Realty Times - Real Estate News and Advice
... The portfolio of apartments owned and operated by Fifteen Group of Miami was re-capitalized this week by CMS, a Philadelphia based investment fund, which invested approximately $29 million, replacing ...
http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20011121_rentals.htm

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PRESS RELEASE
Fifteen Group Announces Renovation Plans for Harbor Island Apartments
2004-07-29
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7/29/04 11:00 AM ET
Fifteen Group Announces Renovation
Plans for Harbor Island
Apartments

Miami Beach, Florida -- Miami Beach based Fifteen Group today announced plans to renovate Harbor Island Apartments, a 615-unit rental community located in Alameda, California.
Fifteen Group acquired the property, which is located in the City’s West End, in 1996 shortly after the announcement of the final closure of the Alameda Naval Air Station.
“Our goal is to transform Harbor Island into the preeminent multifamily community in Alameda,” said Fifteen Group President Ian Sanders. “We are delighted with the resurgence of the West End and in particular with the success of new single family and retail development in the neighborhood. We feel that the time is right.”
Harbor Island is the largest multifamily community in Alameda. Fifteen Group plans interior and exterior renovations as well as upgrades and additions to common area amenities. “This is a very significant and important project both for Fifteen Group and the continued growth of the West End,” said Mr. Sanders. “We look forward to working with the City to ensure a successful project that will make us all proud.”

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Fifteen Group is an opportunity-driven, full-service real estate organization that currently owns and operates over 13,000 apartment units across nine states. Fifteen Group as an entity does not own or operate any properties. Rather, “Fifteen Group” is merely a shorthand designation for a group of affiliated companies that own and manage real estate. Each of these companies maintains a separate legal existence and does not commingle its affairs with any other companies. Legal owners of the properties are a matter of public record. All properties are professionally managed by Fifteen Asset Management, LLC.
Contacts:
Fifteen Group
Mark Sanders, CEO
305-938-4300 ex20
msanders [at] fifteengroup.com
Fifteen Group
Ian Sanders, President
305-938-4300
isanders [at] fifteengroup.com
http://www.fifteengroup.com
Source: Fifteen Group

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Article Last Updated: Saturday, August 07, 2004 - 3:45:05 AM PST

Island tenants' eviction orders get extension

By John Geluardi, CORRESPONDENT

ALAMEDA -- During a meeting with city officials and resident representatives Thursday, owners of the Harbor Island Apartments apologized for the abrupt manner in which they issued eviction notices to as many as 1,200 tenants last week. The owners agreed to extend all of the 30- and 60-day eviction notices to 90 days, and said they may be willing to give evicted tenants a moving "stipend." Just how much compensation has not been discussed. The reason for evictions is a planned $15 million renovation of the sprawling apartment complex, although the owners have yet to file plans or request permits from the city's planning department.

The three Harbor Island residents who attended the meeting said they are not particularly happy with the results. Another meeting has been scheduled for next Tuesday, when all of the evicted tenants will be able to voice their concerns.

"We're saying to them, 'Stop the evictions,' and they're saying back to us, 'Well, we'll give you 30 more days,'" said resident representative Modessa Henderson."

Outside Alameda City Hall, where the meeting took place, about 30 Harbor Island residents chanted, "We shall not be moved" and carried placards that read, "People before profits."

Some said they intend to fight the evictions. "This is all about gentrification and it's all about greed," former longtime resident Lester Dixon said. "These people can't move, they won't move. We're going to fight."

Ian and Mark Sanders, the principals of the Fifteen Group that owns the 650-unit apartment complex, posted eviction notices on the doors of 400 apartments last week. Most of the notices were for 30 and

60 days. Others asked the tenants to vacate their apartments when their leases expire.

The notices stunned many residents, most of whom are low-income and some of whom have lived in the complex for more than 25 years.

Deborah James, a 14-year resident, said she was offended the owners didn't give her more advanced notice of their plans.

At the very least they could have been decent and sent out a letter instead of just posting the eviction notices," she said. "Most of us are long- term tenants and this has just been a slap in the face."

About 150 residents attended Tuesday's City Council meeting to voice their outrage.

City officials said they had no idea eviction notices went out and were caught off guard by the distressed tenants. Assistant City Manager Paul Benoit said the city sent a letter to the owners calling their approach "inhuman."

Jason Keadjian, a spokesman for the Fifteen Group, said the sudden evictions were a "misstep" and the owners regret not being more proactive with tenants.

We apologize for the stress our plans have caused," he said. "We are working now to remedy the situation in a way that the tenants will be satisfied."

But Francesca Zvinakis, a grandmother who has lived in the complex 29 years, said the only way she would be satisfied is if she did not have to move.

I raised three daughters there," she said. "I don't know where I will go ... all I know is I want to stay in Alameda and I don't know if that will be possible."

The Sanders brothers will hold a public meeting next Tuesday at 7 p.m. The location of the meeting has not been determined, but city officials said it will likely be at one of the schools on the West End.

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http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E1726%257E2311376,00.html?search=filter

Article Last Updated: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - 6:35:59 AM PST

Alameda evictions could hurt schools

Renovation at Harbor Bay Island may drop enrollment, cost district $1.6 million

By John Geluardi - CORRESPONDENT

ALAMEDA -- The mass eviction of families from the Harbor Bay Island Apartments has school officials bracing for an enrollment drop that could cost the financially struggling district $1.6 million.

Last week, the Fifteen Group, which owns the 640-unit apartment complex, taped eviction notices to the doors of about 400 families.

According to a spokesman, the property owners are evicting the residents so they can undertake a major renovation project expected to take a year or longer to complete.

Most of the evicted families are considered low-income, and nearly half receive Section 8 rent subsidies. The residents were given 30 to 60 days to vacate the premises, and others were asked to leave in the coming months as their leases expire.

According to school district records, there are 320 school-age children in the apartment complex who are enrolled in Island schools. Because of Alameda's high rents and shortage of low- income housing, most of the evicted families are expected to move from Alameda.

For each student evicted from the complex, the district stands to lose $5,000 in annual state enrollment funding.

According to Alameda school board member Michael McMahon, the worst-case scenario is a loss of $1.6 million.

"The best-case scenario is that none of the families will be evicted," he said. "But I don't think that's likely at this point."

The four affected schools are Encinal High School, Chipman Middle School and Woodstock and Longfellow elementary schools.

Encinal has the most students who are residents at Harbor Bay Island Apartments -- 75. But McMahon said Chipman, which has fewer students who live in the apartment complex but a higher rate of attendance, could be the most severely impacted.

The district, which has been struggling with dwindling budgets for the last two years, faces a $750,000 shortfall during the next school year. It likely will feel the pain of a sharp enrollment drop during the 2005-06 budget cycle. Because of existing budget problems, the district was already planning to look at possible site closures later this year.

How the enrollment drop will affect the school district depends on how quickly tenants are evicted.

"We don't know how the evictions are going to play out," said student services director David Dierking. "Some of the families, or all of them, may choose to fight the evictions."

In any case, McMahon said school board members and district administrators are looking at ways to contend with possible budget cuts resulting from sharply reduced enrollment.

"We are going to look at all the things we'd have to do to get the maximum out of everything," he said.

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http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/counties/alameda_county/alameda/9280207.htm

Posted on Fri, Jul. 30, 2004

More than 400 West End renters to be evicted

By Susan Fuller
STAFF WRITER

Just as jangled nerves are calming after the threatened loss of hundreds of Section 8 housing vouchers, almost all of the 400-some households at the beleaguered Harbor Island apartments -- about half of them Section 8 recipients -- have received eviction notices.

Management informed tenants Tuesday that they had 60 or 90 days to vacate via official notices taped to apartment doors and mailed.

Management of the 640-unit complex at 433 Buena Vista Ave. says the evictions are to renovate the buildings.

"Our goal is to transform Harbor Island into the preeminent multifamily community in Alameda," property management company president Ian Sanders said in a prepared statement.

Many tenants don't believe it and officials of Miami-based Fifteen Group Asset Management didn't return the Journal's calls for clarification.

Rumors are circulating that their intention is to gentrify the 10 buildings beyond the reach of the 1,200 mostly low-income residents or to raze the property and build single family homes, similar to Bayport, the new development under construction across Atlantic Avenue from Harbor Island.

"It was real sheisty," said Harbor Island resident Lisa Mitchell-Reed. "I think this was a long-planned situation. I've gone to the owners and managers with ways to solve problems and have always been ignored."

"I feel totally discriminated against," said 25-year Harbor Island resident Lorraine Lilley. "I'm a professional, I get up very early and go to work. I pay market rent."

Lilley said she has heard the plan is to raise rents to the equivalent of new development in the area.

Moving will mean she doesn't have to live with vermin and other hazards, she said.

"I'd like to move in my own time," Lilley said. "Today we're having family meetings about whether everyone should drop out of college," she said.

City, school district and social service officials are moving quickly to avert a crisis.

"This is horrible, after what we just went through with Section 8," said Mayor Beverly Johnson. "The city needs to work with the owners to phase (the upgrades) so they are not evicting 400 households at one time."

City Manager Jim Flint directed the Housing Authority to work with the owner so tenants aren't displaced all at once and to help those who are evicted to find a new home.

"It's an unbelievable set of circumstances," said Mona Breed, executive director of Sentinel Fair Housing, an advocacy and support organization. "We have been inundated with calls."

If evictions have a disproportionate effect on protected classes -- people of color or with disabilities, seniors, families with children -- they could be illegal under the Federal Fair Housing Act, Breed said.

Sentinel and other housing organizations are informing tenants of their rights and trying to stave off the evictions.

The Alameda School District will lose more than $1.5 million if all 320 students leave the Island, said Lorenzo Legaspi, the district's chief financial officer. Most Harbor Island students attend Encinal High School, Chipman Middle School or Longfellow or Woodstock elementary schools.

Among Alameda Red Cross director Jim Franz's many concerns about the consequence of possible mass evictions is the effect of sudden school changes on children.

Habitability has long been an issue at Harbor Island, with tenants, the Housing Authority and the city complaining about raw sewage, leaky roofs, units without smoke alarms and fire extinguishers not being recharged.

After repeated attempts to fix the hazards, the Housing Authority stopped approving Section 8 leases at Harbor Island in March. Tenants on rental assistance could stay on a month-to-month tenancy.

Renovation "could be positive," said Housing Authority Executive Director Michael Pucci. "It could reduce the high concentration of Section 8 tenants in one complex in one neighborhood and reduce the number of vacancies (elsewhere) in Alameda."

Pucci is one member of a task force comprised of Harbor Island management and city staff people from public safety, recreation, development services and the Housing Authority that has been working for a couple of years to improve living conditions there.

A major impetus for creating the task force is that calls to Alameda Police from Harbor Island Apartments are about three times as high as the rest of the city.

The task force process was very frustrating because of frequent changes of managers, Pucci said in February.

The city Planning Department doesn't have a building permit application for Harbor Island. Management officials did speak with the department Thursday, saying they proposed to spend significant money on major interior and exterior renovations and landscaping, said planning review manager Jerry Cormack.
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Reach reporter Susan Fuller at 510-748-1659 or sfuller [at] cctimes.com.

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March 2004 Background Release On Ian/Mark Sanders
---Slumlord Profiteers---

Multi Family Executive Magazine Issue of March 2004
Cover Story
Aiming for the Majors
Fifteen Group Knows Practice Makes Perfect
by Miriam Lupkin Mark Sanders, CEO, Fifteen Group
Photo: Jeffery Salter

http://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/Pages/MFE%20Pages/2004/apr/onlinecover/cover0404.asp

In 1992, brothers Mark and Ian Sanders of the Fifteen Group decided if they were going to be poor, they were going to be poor working for themselves. Twelve years later, their company pulls down more than $100 million in annual revenue.

Other changes have reshaped the company, too. On Nov. 1, 2002, Fifteen Group brought property management in-house. It went from six employees to 400 in one day. "We took over 13,000 units," says Ian. (Fifteen Group managed over an extra 13,000 units as of Nov 1, 2002)

With more than 14,700 units, the Miami Beach, Fla., real estate company has come a long way from its humble origins — two brothers sharing an office in a warehouse with no windows. The company began with one simple principle: "We would do anything that made sense, real estate being the bedrock of it," says 35-year-old Sanders.

The problem: "We didn't have any money," says Ian. Mark and his wife moved in with her parents, and Ian moved in with his parents. They bought their first computer with Mark's wife's credit card. They conserved cash every way they could, including sneaking into the free buffet breakfast at the Embassy Suites near their office.

EXTREME LEASING/MINIMUM WAGE

At the eight properties trying out extreme leasing, the company reduced the wages of leasing consultants to minimum wage and pumped up the commission scale. Once they start to sell, they can make up to $60,000, says Dave Sherbal, CFO of Fifteen Asset Management LLC, a division of Fifteen Group.

Although the company has spent a lot of time to make sure units are leased, it's not enough to have a productive community. "Economic occupancy matters to us," explains Sherbal. So, residents no longer can pay some of the rent when it's due and the rest when they get paid.

At first, it was difficult to convince on-site and senior management people not to negotiate with residents, but the policy has worked out. "We are collecting more money with lower occupancies because the people are paying," says Ian. "We can't be in the free housing business. It's taken several months to change the culture of on-site and senior management people, but now we file eviction notices very quickly."

Fifteen Group is known for buying class C properties and truning them into profitable businesses. Usually, a coat of paint and some TLC is all the magic that is required. Not always, though.

Buying risky deals in "undesirable" neighborhoods became the company's business plan. The company looked for communities that were on the wrong side of the tracks, had true working-class areas with minorities and immigrants, and were in cities with job growth, says Ian.

"These guys are ground-floor kind of guys," says equity partner Rotter. "They are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get to work," even if that means sticking their hands in the toilet.

"Ian and I believe very strongly in market forces," says Mark. "Properties should not be valued differently based on the demographics of the people who live there. Instead, they should be valued on the risk versus return."

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http://www.alamedasun.com/local/local.htm

Harbor Island owners Mark (right) and Ian (middle) Sanders with their attorney answered some questions and absorbed stinging comments at their first public meeting since the complex’s renovation was announced.

Harbor Island Tenants Clash with Complex Owners
Tenants from the Harbor Island Apartments got their first chance – and what may be their only chance – Tuesday to talk face to face with the owners of the complex and express their anger over the mass displacement of low-income residents in the West End. More>>

Not Many Options to Stop Evictions
When Harbor Island Apartment tenants received evictions notices at the end of July, the notices arrived just weeks after the city refunded all vouchers for families living in Section 8 housing.

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Alameda Sun
Thursday, August 12, 2004

Harbor Island Tenants Clash with Complex Owners

http://www.alamedasun.com/local/081204local1.htm

By Ed Moser

Tenants from the Harbor Island Apartments got their first chance – and what may be their only chance – Tuesday (Aug 10) to talk face to face with the owners of the complex and express their anger over the mass displacement of low-income residents in the West End.
Around 200 Harbor Island tenants and other interested people packed the auditorium at Woodstock Elementary School and vented their frustrations while Harbor Island owners Mark and Ian Sanders answered some questions and quietly took in furious commentary from the crowd with their attorney at their side.
“The purpose of the meeting was to make amends for the way the notices were handled and to help everyone move forward,” said Jason Keadjian, spokesman for the Fifteen Asset Group, in a phone interview Wednesday. “I think it was a very important meeting and I think it was productive.”
Brothers Mark and Ian Sanders own the Miami-based Fifteen Asset Group, which purchased the Harbor Island complex in 1996, and now they plan to fix up the property’s 615 units all at once. Current residents will have to leave.
The owners are offering some concessions to the tenants – assistance finding new housing, expediting security deposit returns and a $750 moving stipend for “residents in good standing” – but residents who attended the meeting, many of whom receive Section 8 housing assistance, said the offerings were just ceremonial.
“In every case we have responded to the needs we have heard from the residents,” Keadjian said, noting that the original 30- and 60-day eviction notices had been extended to 90 days and that the idea for the moving stipend came after a meeting with city officials and a resident task force last Thursday. “I think there is a recognition that these plans create a hardship and we want to minimize that,” he said.
The crowd laughed when Ian Sanders announced the $750 stipend and several speakers called the amount an insult.
Modessa Henderson, spokeswoman and advisor for the Harbor Island Tenant Association, said the meeting was not productive for the affected tenants.
“It’s the same rhetoric we heard last week in the task force,” Henderson said. “They’re trying to take one person at a time and work with them. It’s a divide and conquer type of thing.”
Numerous tenants at the meeting expressed a desire to phase the renovation project so not everyone would have to leave at once. The Sanderses said at the meeting that all the tenants must leave the building during the renovations for safety purposes.
“This is going to be an extensive, top-to-bottom renovation,” Keadjian said. “From an efficiency standpoint, it’s not going to be safe to have people living in the buildings while they’re being worked on.”
Even so, Henderson is working to get the project phased, either with the help of the city or by filing litigation against the project.
“They say they can’t work around the residents, but there are still going to people living there,” Henderson said, referring to the people who recently signed leases that will be honored until they expire.
One resident expressed concern that her lease begins this Aug. 1 and runs through Aug. 1 of 2005. In the meantime, she is concerned that the dwindling number of people in the complex will create a safety hazard for her and her child. The owners and Keadjian said they will maintain the security at the complex while people are still living there.
Richard Miller spoke to the owners not as a tenant but as a representative of the Campaign for Renter’s Rights, expressing his anger towards what many called an attack on the poor.
”Look at these two kids,” Miller said, referring to the Sanders brothers. “Where did they even get the money to buy this building? Now they hold in their bloody hands whether or not you stay. It’s disgusting.”
The plan for the renovation is to completely overhaul the existing apartments with new interiors, exteriors and common areas at a cost of $13 million to $15 million. “This is going to be a development that makes the community proud,” Ian Sanders said at the meeting.
To that comment, several people in attendance shouted to the Sanders, “We are the community.”
Contact Ed Moser at edmoser [at] alamedasun.com.

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http://www.alamedasun.com/local/081204local2.htm

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Not Many Options to Stop Evictions

By Marcus Tolero

When Harbor Island Apartment tenants received evictions notices at the end of July, the notices arrived just weeks after the city refunded all vouchers for families living in Section 8 housing.
Although the city restored the vouchers and stopped hundreds of families in public housing from being homeless and having to move elsewhere, putting a halt to the Harbor Island evictions is different.
One reason the evictions will likely go through is that the property is privately owned by the Fifteen Group, a real estate organization that operates in Miami Beach, Fla.
Mike Pucci, executive director of Alameda Housing Authority, said that the owners of the apartment complex are “entitled to renovate” the property. “These are privately-owned apartments. And they have the right to do what they want,” Pucci said.
With the Section 8 housing, the issue was whether funding of vouchers was going to be continued. But with the Harbor Island Apartments, the issue is not money or continuance of funding. The issue is what the city can and can’t do.
“In this particular case they (the owners) are saying, ‘I don’t care if you could pay your rent. I need to get this done so I could renovate,’” Pucci said. “Morally and ethically, it (evictions) goes against what the city thinks. But legally, we can’t do much to stop it.”
One of the few things the city can try is to file an injunction, which is a writ issued by a court ordering someone to do something or prohibiting some act after a court hearing.
“The city may file an injunction, but even with that it’s going to be difficult,” Pucci said.
Another indication that the evictions will likely occur is the agreement between the Fifteen Group and city officials and Harbor Island representatives at a meeting last Thursday. At the meeting, Fifteen Group representatives agreed to extend eviction notices to 90 days, expedite returns on security deposits, assist in housing searches and provide stipends for moving expenses.
“The city has very little leverage on the evictions,” Pucci said. “There’s not much we can do.”
It is expected that renovations will begin in three to four months.
Contact Marcus Tolero at mtolero [at] alamedasun.com.

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