The towering brick apartment building at 75 Prospect Street in East Orange is known to residents as “The Castle.” Residents say that they have been filing complaint for years about issues with the building.
Carla Evans has lived in the building since 2019. “Fall of 2020, my son became a quadriplegic. When it was time for him to get released from the hospital, he was unable to come home due to all these repairs that need to be done. The black mold in the house wouldn’t give us enough circulation,” Evans said.
Almost two dozen families are being represented by the Rutgers Law School’s Housing Justice and Tenant Solidarity Clinic in a pair of lawsuits filed Monday against a collection of LLCs associated with the property, including the Connecticut-based OneWall Communities.
In a statement to NJ Spotlight News, OneWall Communities denied owning or managing the property. The lawsuits seek to have a court-appointed receiver put in charge of managing the property, as well as damages for the conditions that tenants have endured.
Alaina Thomas of the Housing Justice and Tenant Solidarity Clinic said, “Filing these lawsuits is only the first step in what may be a long legal battle for the residents here at 75 Prospect. We not only look forward to but we need the support of the city of East Orange as well as the current mortgage lender Fannie Mae to get the justice that’s been long overdue for everybody here.”
