Housing development tenants sue management

After years of mounting tensions, tenants from the Roxse Homes housing development filed a federal racketeering lawsuit this week against their management agency and its property manager, who they say have been extorting them for services and repairs and intimidating them with threats of eviction.

The tenants, who own 49 percent of the sprawling 346-unit housing development on the Roxbury-South End line, began a campaign to oust their property management company, Cornerstone Corp., and its property manager, Linda Evans, in March 2006, when they complained about rats and unfair distribution of perks such as parking spaces and larger, more desirable apartments.

In this latest move, the 25-member tenant council filed the civil lawsuit Thursday, hoping that the charges will force the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency to remove Cornerstone, which controls 51 percent of the property, and give the tenants full ownership.

James McNeill -- president of the council, who encouraged tenants to take the civil action -- said in a telephone interview yesterday that many tenants feel threatened and are afraid to come forward.

"There's a lot of people who come to the development powerless," said McNeill, 61, who has lived in Roxse for 36 years. "I had to convince some people to stand up and fight for themselves and each other."

The Tenants Council voted last month to file the suit.

Reached on her cellphone yesterday, Evans declined to comment. Calls to Cornerstone Corp., Roxse Residences, were not returned.

A spokesman for MassHousing, however, said the battle is really less about racketeering, lawsuits, and kickbacks and more about clashing personalities.

"It's very unfortunate that it came to this," said spokesman Eric Gedstad, who had not seen the suit when he was contacted yesterday. "MassHousing has been in the middle of this for a while and really had gone out of its way to negotiate a truce between the two sides."

In the complaint, the Roxse Tenant Council accuses Evans and Cornerstone Corp. of a pattern of racketeering activity, including $75 in charges when they accidentally get locked out of their units and $150 in charges for painting apartments. Tenants said there are no written policies indicating how much they should be charged for such services and complained that they were forced to pay in cash only and were denied receipts, according to the suit.

"The plaintiffs are informed that maintenance men employed by Cornerstone, as a condition of retaining their jobs, kick back a portion of these cash fees to Linda Evans, and keep the remainder," the court document states.

Gedstad said the tenants "had a point" about being required to pay cash, and the policy was changed a few weeks ago.

The suit also alleges that Evans secured her position as manager illegally and uses it to intimidate residents, including McNeill.

It says the council's records from 1998 to 2005, when Evans was president, disappeared. The records include meeting minutes, financial documents, and tenant information.

"The unexplained disappearance of these records when they were actually in the possession and control of the defendants is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that we have," said David Fried, a Cambridge-based lawyer representing the tenants.

The suit also alleges that as president of the council, Evans illegally postponed elections for years and maneuvered others. She handpicked board members, according to the suit, and ultimately conspired with officials from Cornerstone Corp. to get MassHousing to hire it as Roxse's managing agent. In exchange, Evans became property manager, the suit alleges.

"I have a combination of eyewitnesses documenting and circumstantial evidence for the claims we made," Fried said.

The partnership between the tenants and Cornerstone Corp. was always supposed to be temporary, Fried said. The way the partnership was designed in 2003, Cornerstone was supposed to help the tenants as they eventually take full control of the property by 2009.

"Instead, Cornerstone has become an obstacle, and the purpose of the lawsuit is to remove that obstacle," Fried said.

Under a partnership agreement forged in 2003, Cornerstone Corp. got 51 percent ownership of the complex and the tenants got 49 percent.