Low-income tenants association first in the state

By Daniel Person Chronicle Staff Writer

Susan Floerchinger is 47 and requires a helper dog in public places.

She receives Social Security for the condition, and works part time at a local dog grooming company. She requires subsidized rent to live in Bozeman, taking a room in Darlinton Manor Apartments, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-subsidized apartment complex in north Bozeman for disabled and elderly people.

The manor is a yellow and brick-red building with small windows and an automatic locking door.

As of today, it also is the first and only low-income apartment complex in Montana to have a tenants association.

A fixture in urban areas, tenants associations are practically nonexistent in Montana.

But Floerchinger said residents in Darlinton Manor hope theirs will give them a louder voice when airing grievances to management and owners, and serve as an example for other tenants in Montana.

“We want to let other tenants know they have rights,” she said. “Just because we have absentee landlords, doesn’t mean we have to go without safe and decent living arrangements,”

Floerchinger is the chairwoman of the Darlinton Manor Residents Council, and admits she knows little about what she is doing as far as organizing tenants goes, but she said the board is already having some impact.

“Before, (complaints) were mostly verbal, and you may or may not hear back on those complaints,” she said. “That was our concern. With the council, complaints are coming to us.”

Michael Kane, executive director of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants, said Montana’s lack of tenants associations is not due to a lack of need.

Kane is based in Boston, and said cities like his have organizations that encourage renters to form groups independent from their landlords. But Montana has no such group, he said, making the Darlinton Manor Residents Council an impressive coup in his eyes.

“They’re heroes,” Kane said. “It’s a little harder for groups to form on their own, and it’s exiting, it’s inspiring when they do.”

Kane said tenants associations are strongly protected by law, especially in government subsidized housing. And, he said, they can be good for both the residents and the landlords.

The idea of organizing at Darlinton Manor first arose in August, but those were just whispers, Floerchinger said.

Then, residents were encouraged to form by what might seem to be an unlikely source: the building’s owners.

Grievances among the tenants were piling up. When John Grady, president of Monfric Reality, which has part-ownership of the manor, visited in December to meet with residents, about 40 people came and talked to him for three hours. That’s when Grady made the suggestion of forming a council.

Grady, who lives in San Diego, said tenants associations can bring challenges, but in general they are helpful for owners, giving them a single person to talk to about problems rather than hundreds.

“Tenants associations are a really good thing from everybody’s perspective,” he said.

Still, Floerchinger and the other board members are waiting to see how seriously ownership and management will take them.

Wayne Oldach, a 64-year-old who volunteers at the Pioneer Museum, said problems seemed to start getting solved after they first organized, in February.

For example, security cameras were recently installed around the building.

“It was something many people felt very strongly about and it came to pass,” he said. “I hope our input is encouraging them to the right projects.”

But Ruth Strickler, another board member and senior center volunteer, said the board will have to remain strong to prove to the management they mean business.

“They thought maybe we’d meet a time or two, then we’d fall apart,” she said. “They don’t know how determined we are.”

Reader Comments