Joshua Bruno planted a "bio green wall" of cacti and other succulents on a two-story strip mall storefront on Veterans Boulevard near the intersection with Clearview Parkway. 6 (Photo by Doug MacCash / NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Members of the New Orleans Fire Department respond to a three-alarm apartment fire at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Members of the New Orleans Fire Department rest after fighting a three-alarm apartment fire at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Members of the New Orleans Fire Department respond to a three-alarm apartment fire at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
A hole in a window is seen in Nina Desvignes' unit at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers on Jan. 28, 2022. Desvignes says the hole was from a bullet.
Nina Desvignes stands in the doorway of her apartment with her daughter, Destiny Robinson, in the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers on Jan. 28, 2022.
Nina Desvignes looks at the damage to the ceiling in the upstairs closet of her home at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers on Friday, January 28, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Joshua Bruno planted a "bio green wall" of cacti and other succulents on a two-story strip mall storefront on Veterans Boulevard near the intersection with Clearview Parkway. 6 (Photo by Doug MacCash / NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Members of the New Orleans Fire Department rest after fighting a three-alarm apartment fire at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Members of the New Orleans Fire Department respond to a three-alarm apartment fire at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Nina Desvignes stands in the doorway of her apartment with her daughter, Destiny Robinson, in the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers on Jan. 28, 2022.
A sewer line burst at Oakmont Apartments in mid-December, about a month after Rochee "Roe" Jackson took a job as the only maintenance worker at the crumbling, 336-unit complex in Algiers.
Backups spread across the property. Residents ripped plywood sheets from boarded-up windows and doors to lay across the sewage-laden grounds. Four months later the break remains, unrepaired.
“From the feces to the drugs, it’s third-world-country s---, basically,” Jackson said. “What some of these families are going through in these apartments at Oakmont, it’s enough to make you cry. I’ve seen poor, and I’ve seen people live bad. That goes beyond.”
Jackson quit over pay on Feb. 16, the same day the office manager bailed, leaving no staff at Oakmont, the largest of five New Orleans rental properties that landlord Joshua Bruno placed under bankruptcy protection in January to fend off foreclosure.
Tenants and their advocates say Bruno has forsaken the complex. Some residents report sewage coating their apartment floors. Last week, a three-alarm fire broke out.
Members of the New Orleans Fire Department respond to a three-alarm apartment fire at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 28, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
The blaze erupted just as Bruno’s largest creditor, the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, was filing an emergency motion asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill to wrest management of Oakmont from Bruno and place it with a trustee.
Fannie Mae argues that Bruno can’t be trusted to manage the 16-acre property and needs to go fast. While tenants live in squalor, Bruno has transferred millions from Oakmont over the past year to other entities he controls, the lender claims.
Grabill on Thursday set a May 23 date for a mini-trial.
“We’re at the fork in the road,” she said. “This isn’t just about money in this case. This is where people live. We have health and safety issues at play here.”
Attorneys for Fannie Mae argue that $7 million in suspect “insider transfers” from Bruno’s rental properties to other entities he controls reveal a “severely conflicted judgment.” They say that alone warrants appointing a trustee.
But Fannie Mae claims Bruno also siphoned $800,000 in insurance money for Hurricane Ida repairs to the complex without the lender's knowledge. Attorney Edward Arnold III said Bruno submitted invoices from another firm he controls, Downtown Development Group, which is not a state-licensed contractor. Those billings wildly inflated the cost, Arnold alleged at a court status conference Thursday.
Bruno’s actions were “unbelievable in terms of inter-company billing, the overhead, the excess profit,” Arnold said. “We’ve got to have somebody in here to fix these properties who is licensed, insured and who is going to do the work properly ... There’s still insurance money missing that we have no idea where it went.”
Advocates say tenants now occupy less than half of Oakmont’s apartments, while squatters and rodents have descended on the property. Firearms are a frequent sight at Oakmont, often toted by youth, said Jackson, the former maintenance man.
A hole in a window is seen in Nina Desvignes' unit at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers on Jan. 28, 2022. Desvignes says the hole was from a bullet.
“I was out there picking up trash one day, I turned around, it’s some little guy in the bushes and he has an assault rifle. He tells me he’s no problem for me. But you’re standing in the bushes with an assault rifle,” Jackson said. “The tenants are like prisoners in their own homes.”
Frederick Bunol, an attorney for Bruno, came armed with an olive branch Thursday, saying for the first time publicly that the landlord is ready to turn over management of his New Orleans properties, though he wants to continue overseeing repairs.
He said Bruno, president of Metro-Wide Apartments, bought all of the properties in bad condition and fixed them up before COVID-19 and a long-running moratorium on evictions came along.
“The properties went down, and we had (Hurricane Ida) and the properties went down further,” Bunol said. “We fully recognize that there’s a major sewer leak that needs to be addressed, major repairs that need to be made.”
Bunol urged an agreement to skirt a hearing focused on the grim conditions at Oakmont and Bruno's money transfers, which Fannie Mae says he has yet to explain. Bunol said Bruno was in a better position to launch repairs now that he’s collected millions of dollars in insurance proceeds and other funds, including more than $800,000 in rental assistance.
Bruno “has only had funds to make these repairs for two weeks,” Bunol told the judge. “Mr. Bruno has an interest in the properties being worth what they were worth a couple years ago. We’re looking for a path forward.”
The city cited Bruno last summer for a slew of code violations at Oakmont and nearby Cypress Park, which is also in bankruptcy. Bruno’s appeal of those violations is on hold while the bankruptcy plays out.
Fannie Mae is asking Grabill to appoint trustees over all five of Bruno’s New Orleans properties as the bankruptcy process plays out.
The other three are Forest Park Apartments, Liberty Park Apartments and Washington Place Apartments on the east bank.
Fannie Mae lodged emergency motions for all five complexes, including Oakmont, where tenant advocates say living conditions deteriorated before Hurricane Ida and have only gotten more dangerous.
Several tenants and the New Orleans Renters’ Rights Assembly have joined in urging Bruno’s ouster.
Nina Desvignes looks at the damage to the ceiling in the upstairs closet of her home at the Oakmont Apartments in Algiers on Friday, January 28, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
In one affidavit, a tenant who uses a wheelchair said his apartment has “continuously” flooded with sewage water since December. Another tenant swore in a recent affidavit that “when people in my building flush their toilets, it backs up into my apartment.”
Some Oakmont tenants live now with no electricity, said Hannah Adams, a staff attorney with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services who represents the tenants. She told Grabill that many of the problems predated Hurricane Ida and that conditions have gone south in the past few months.
“My clients are living in sewage, are living without water, without electricity,” Adams said. “They are living in absolutely deplorable conditions that could have been remedied.”.
Jackson said Bruno refused to replace old appliances or hire people to fix busted AC units. Mold had spread into the bulk of apartments. He said Bruno told him to mask it with bleach and Kilz.
After the bankruptcy, the city offered relocation and rental aid to remaining tenants. A city official said 15 tenants have been approved for moving help, and that the city has paid off their back rent.
After tending to the grounds at Oakmont for three months, Jackson said it wasn’t enough.
“Why the city, why the mayor would allow this place to remain open is beyond me,” he said. “No one should be allowed to live in that apartment complex.”
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