Condemned building leaves migrant families scrambling to find housing and keep their kids in school

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Carolina’s 8-year-old daughter had been excited about the start of school this week, but has spent the week in tears.

Police surrounded the family’s apartment building on Wednesday, making her late to class on the first day of school.

Carolina couldn’t keep the news from her daughter: The city condemned their building. They have to leave by Tuesday. Police and city officials gave the formal notice as kids were trying to make their way to the first day of school.

“School is an escape where she can forget about her problems here,” Carolina said. “But she’s scared. She keeps asking where we’re going to go.”

Carolina doesn’t have an answer.

Carolina is one of nearly 300 estimated people, mostly Venezuelan immigrants, living in the apartment building at 1568 Nome St. in Aurora. The city condemned the building for unsafe housing conditions, but residents like Carolina fear the city is targeting the building because of a recent shooting tied to gang violence. (Chalkbeat isn’t using Carolina’s real name because she fears retribution in her immigration case.)

She and other families living in the building are pleading for the city to give them more time to figure out where to move. Residents and organization leaders believe there are at least 66 school-aged children in the building who attend Aurora schools and will be affected. Some other children are believed to attend Denver schools nearby.

Nadeen Ibrahim, an organizing director with the nonprofit East Colfax Community Collective, said that the city’s notice – timed for the first day of classes — was deeply upsetting for families.

“Honestly it was one of the most traumatizing sights I’ve ever seen,” Ibrahim, who has worked with other displaced families, said. “Kids were extremely terrified and crying. There’s been a lot of police present since and so they’re seeing a lot of weapons around the building and it’s just hard to find a reason to smile.

“Children that young shouldn’t be exposed to that,” she added.

In a prepared statement, city officials said they “wholeheartedly recognize the burden and uncertainty” that has resulted, but said that “it would be irresponsible for the city to allow 1568 Nome St. to remain occupied for another two months in its current state.”

With less than a week to find a new home, Carolina said that many people without extended family or a car, will end up on the streets or in the city’s homeless shelters. And for children like her daughter, it will also likely mean missed days of school.

Aurora Public Schools hosted a resource fair for families at a former school building on Thursday. District officials would not confirm how many students are impacted by the building’s closure, but said in a statement they know many families are impacted.

“With our school year just starting, we know this is a difficult challenge for many of our families and we will continue to provide as many supports and resources as possible. It is critically important that our students continue to attend school every day, so that they are in a safe place to learn and to receive breakfast and lunch,” a spokesperson for the district said in a statement.

Carolina walks her daughter to Aurora’s Montview Elementary, just a couple blocks away from the building. She enrolled her daughter there shortly after arriving in Denver in December.

Last school year, Aurora recorded receiving more than 1,500 students between October and the end of February who were new to the country.

Mom fears the disruption is likely to interrupt children’s school

Carolina and her daughter first left their home in Venezuela six years ago and moved to Colombia. She opened a small laundromat, but local gangs began extorting her. The insecurity pushed Carolina to leave home with her daughter once again — this time, with the goal of reaching the U.S.

After arriving in Colorado, Carolina was able to find work cleaning apartments. It allowed her to pay the $1,200 monthly rent at the condemned building.

Now the informal work is on hold while she figures out what she’s doing next.

She had issues with the building conditions and a few months ago started noticing what she now knows was gang activity, but kids don’t notice the bad living conditions, she said. They just know they have a place to go home to, she said.

Carolina didn’t buy a car because she didn’t want to drive without a license. And while she’s waiting on a work permit pending her asylum case, she has limited identification forms to get a license, or to complete paperwork for other forms of assistance.

Without a car Carolina isn’t sure she’ll be able to get her daughter to continue school at Montview Elementary. She said she may have to give up some of their few possessions because she won’t have a way to transport or store them.

Carolina said the school officials are doing their best to help, but many of the resources they connect them to, such as rental assistance, take a while to process.

Ibrahim said that for displaced families, it can take more than a month to find new housing, even when they do have credit, good income, and no accessibility issues. She said the city’s move to condemn such a large apartment building, without contacting any of the local nonprofits that assist beforehand, is “unprecedented.”

“The only thing we know that is definitive is that entire complex is going to become homeless Tuesday morning,” Ibrahim said. “This is directly negatively impacting children’s access to education. The children are going to be the most deeply impacted.”

City officials say they will cover the costs of new security deposits for families, but they must apply for that assistance after they secure housing.

Carolina just wants to find a way to provide stability for her daughter while she finds housing.

“It will be very disruptive for these kids,” Carolina said. “It’s complicated, but I just want the city to think about the kids who are the ones who suffer the most.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org .