Jerome Smartt doesn't mince words when describing what it's like at Kirby Apartments in Mount Airy.
"It's been hell living here," he says as he walks his dog around the property.
An investment group called Vision and Beyond owned the 116-unit complex until about a year ago. That's when the company simply abandoned it and roughly 70 others around Greater Cincinnati, leaving more than 600 units of housing without property management.
The company's founders are accused of fleeing the country with millions from fraudulent mortgages. One, Stas Grinberg, currently sits in Butler County Jail awaiting an indictment on federal fraud charges.
Since last November, Smartt and others living at Kirby have dealt with an almost surreal list of emergency issues.
Sewage that wouldn't stop flooding into lower-level units. Raccoons and bats getting into apartments through holes in the roof. Collapsing ceilings. But their nightmare could be coming to an end.
Renovation at Kirby
Crescent Springs, Kentucky-based Z Properties purchased Kirby for about $3.3 million Nov. 10. Sean Jones is the company's property manager.
He stands in the parking lot at Kirby watching crews put new siding on one of the buildings. And that's not the only work happening.
"Apartments just have massive holes in their ceilings, we're getting in there and repairing those," he says. "HVAC systems out, appliances not working, hot water not working, things like that were immediate concerns when we acquired it."
The city also has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing Kirby's sewage issue.
These are hopeful signs for Legal Aid Staff Attorney Niara Stitt-White. She's the lead attorney representing tenants at Kirby and other former Vision and Beyond properties. She says the road back to normalcy for tenants like Smartt has been long and uncertain, and it hasn't unfolded the same way at every former Vision and Beyond property.
"Definitely a mixed bag," she says.
Recovery slow and unsteady
For example, at another complex on the West Side called Coachwood, tenants told WVXU earlier this year that conditions were "apocalyptic."
They showed a reporter broken windows, severe leaks, vague notices from an unknown entity asking for rent and no garbage pickup.
Now, however, things are getting back to normal. There are new windows. Appliances work. Trash isn't piling up.
"In terms of consistent progress, Coachwood is leaps and bounds ahead," Stitt-White says.
She says the improvement likely has to do with the fact the court-appointed landlord for Coachwood, called a receiver, only had one former Vision and Beyond property to manage.
Other receivers like Prodigy Properties are juggling multiple.
Progress at some of those has been slower. Hank Heideman lives in a former Vision and Beyond property in Corryville currently managed by Prodigy.
'I've been living month to month for a year now'
Earlier this year, Heideman joined the Cincinnati Tenants Union, which advocates for renters' rights. He says the group has netted some big wins — meeting with the mayor and city attorneys, a rally for better conditions at Prodigy's offices, negotiating with another of the court-appointed temporary landlords called Ricor that oversees 24 former Vision & Beyond properties. But Heideman says conditions at his complex are still deeply upsetting.
"The union is growing and there have been big successes," he says. "But it's inconsistent for different properties."
This spring and summer he struggled with severe leaks in his apartment. He says work to prevent that happening again hasn't been done.
"I have pictures where in the hallway it's just puddle city, raining down in there," he says. "Eventually, the leaks run all up and down my back wall. It was dripping down on both ends of my bed."
Heideman has other complaints. Up until a month ago, he says doors to his complex were unsecured, allowing squatters to live in the basement. A review of city records found several outstanding code violations for leaks, mold and other issues.
Heideman says he's watched his neighbors there slowly trickle out one by one. But he feels stuck because he can't afford to move. And, because of the tangled nature of the Vision and Beyond's fraud case, he isn't likely to ever get his security deposit back.
And then there's the uncertainty of what will happen if the building does sell. Will he be asked to leave?
"I've been living month to month for a year now," Heideman says. "That's a lot of stress."
At another West Side former Vision and Beyond building currently pending sale, longtime tenant Daniel Sherman says he's seen no improvement to the bad conditions that started with Vision and Beyond and intensified with their departure. Paint and plaster is missing from his ceiling, and he says he's struggled with other problems.
"Rodents and bedbugs and roaches; mice," he says. "It's gone downhill. The stove is still bad. The plumbing behind the wall is bad so we can't use that sink because it leaks everywhere."
Sherman says he and his family would like to move elsewhere, but he says it's hard to find affordable apartments.
Overall outcome 'remains to be seen'
Other former Vision and Beyond buildings WVXU visited in Avondale and Lockland have been entirely emptied. Sometimes that's intentional — the temporary landlord offers relocation assistance or units in other buildings so they can fix up the properties. Other times, tenants like Heideman's neighbors move out on their own to escape bad conditions.
Legal Aid's Stitt-White says it's not certain people caught in the wake of the Vision and Beyond case always have permanent housing options lined up.
"A lot of times people agree to move out and they don't have somewhere else to go," she says. "They have a family member they can stay with for a few days or a family member they can couch hop with."
At least one former Vision and Beyond building has been sitting vacant for years. That's the Courtview Apartments Downtown. The company purchased Courtview in 2021 and told tenants there they'd need to move out as quickly as possible so it could be renovated, sparking headlines and controversy. Courtview has been empty ever since. The building sold out of receivership in mid-November for $1.8 million, according to Hamilton County Auditor records. Renovation crews could be seen working on the building last week.
Back at Kirby Apartments, Jerome Smartt watches the workers fixing the buildings and wonders if they'll be able to turn the place around. He says he's looking for another place to live either way.
"I hope that the building does become a success for them," he says. "It just remains to be seen."
Z Properties expects to have major work done in a month or two and be ready to offer leases to new tenants in four months.
"This place is kind of tucked away, so we'd like to make it a kind of haven for everyone who lives here," Z Properties' Jones says.
Recent hearings in Hamilton County courts revealed more properties are in the process of being sold to permanent owners. Meanwhile, the city is moving to declare two others public nuisances, which could speed up efforts to address critical issues.
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