AURORA, Colo. — Tenants of an Aurora apartment building moved out Tuesday morning.
The city of Aurora set a 7 a.m. deadline for residents of the apartment building, located at 1568 Nome Street, to pack their belongings and leave.
Around 8 a.m., Aurora police officers blocked off access to the apartments and started going door to door to make sure residents were out of the building. Keesen Landscape, the same company that cleans up the encampments in Aurora, cleaned up the piles of trash that was left behind at the apartment complex.
Tenants and community advocates begged the city for more time to find housing, but the city declined.
According to the city, the situation at the apartment complex is a result of years of dangerous code violations and issues with the property management. The city has tried to hold the out-of-state property owner, CBZ Management, accountable for the poor living conditions for two years.
Some conservative leaders on Aurora's city council have claimed the building was under the control of a Venezuelan gang. The city and Mayor Mike Coffman say the apartment is not under control of a gang.
Tenants have been offered hotel vouchers through the end of the month, according to the city officials. Once tenants secure new housing, the city will pay their security deposits with money coming from the city's housing fund.
"We have been working on this property, with the residents, with advocacy groups for over two years to hold the property owners accountable, and at this point, it is not a safe place to be, so that is not an option," said Aurora Director of Housing and Community Services, Jessica Prosser. "We would much rather folks be in a hotel room that is clean and safe for them to be in while they work through finding another place to live."
City officials said they had 98 units evacuated, but only got 60 hotel rooms for tenants to temporarily stay in. Many tenants were left on the streets without hotel vouchers, wondering if they were going to have a place to stay Tuesday night.
"I feel really bad. I don't cry or feel sad or show sadness to my kids, because they're not at fault for what we're going through," said Iriany Perez, whose children are 3, 5 and 12 years old.
Perez and her family didn't get a hotel voucher Tuesday afternoon, and said they would have to sleep on the streets if they didn't get one by Tuesday night.
City officials left the transition process to nonprofits like the East Colfax Community Collective (EC3) to assign hotels to the tenants.
"It's literally just been a couple of us with an interpreter who are assigning everyone to these hotels, and we don't have enough support," said Olivia Sanders, a community organizer with EC3.
Sanders began working on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m., helping tenants out of the apartment complex. Families who didn't get vouchers had to wait on the streets outside the apartment complex, while Sanders and other organizers worked throughout the day to try to place them. Community members brought in food and water, while other mutual aid groups organized transportation.
"If the community hadn't pulled through today, it would have been even worse than it already was, and so I really don't feel like the city has taken the full responsibility that they should be taking in the situation that they caused," Sanders said.
After 7 p.m. Tuesday, Perez said she and her family eventually got into a hotel. EC3 confirmed that everyone they had on their list was assigned, but they weren't sure if every family got to check in, because many families were having issues checking into their rooms.