Advocates urge tenants of troubled Aurora, Colo. buildings to ask for damage deposits for new spaces

Whispering Pines Apartments at 1358 Helena St. in Aurora.Photo byGoogle Street View

AURORA, Colo. -- An advocacy group for people experiencing homelessness held a rally Saturday at a troubled Aurora apartment complex entangled in a fierce debate over Venezuelan gangs.

Residents of Whispering Pines, 1357 Helena St., fear their building may be shut down by the city and they will have nowhere to go. Housekeys Action Network Denver advocate V. Reeves, who goes by her first initial, told them during the rally to unite and ask for security deposit assistance.

The city already has closed one property owned by CBZ Management on Nome Street. Two other CBZ properties in Aurora, including Whispering Pines and others on Dallas Street, also have been targeted by the city for cleanup. Aurora has told landlord Zev Baumgarten he must clean up the properties, get staff back on site and sell them or they will be condemned.

Staff forced to flee apartments

But according to Baumgarten, the sites have fallen into disrepair because staff have been forced to flee. According to a police report provided to the author of this article by Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinksy, Baumgarten was assaulted Nov. 14, 2023, at one of his properties. According to the police report, Baumgarten checked on a unit that was supposed to be vacant and found about 20 young men drinking and playing loud music. When Baumgarten told them no one was allowed in the apartment, they young men punched Baumgarten about 20 times, according to the report. Another building staffer witnessed the assault, according to the police report. She was threatened by one of the men with a gun, according to the report. She said that the resident wanted his damage deposit back, according to the report. He had broken into the apartment before his move-in date, according to the report.

Later, “Surveillance footage showed Zev in the hallway being cornered by two males,” according to the report. He again was punched and kicked several times and fell to the ground, the report states.

Jurinsky, Baumgarten not ‘friends,’ council member says

According to the news release from HAND, Baumgarten and Jurinsky are “friends.” Jurinsky said that is not true and that she has never even spoken to Baumgarten. Jurinsky also stressed that at this time, the city has no intention of shutting down either apartment complex.

The story of Aurora’s Venezuelan gangs often is told through biased lenses. Some articles make it sound like the city has been taken over with gangs. Others report as though there is no problem at all. The truth is somewhere in between.

In a statement earlier this month, Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman said, “For some time, well before concerns about (the Tren de Aragua gang) in Colorado generated national attention, APD had been arresting people for various criminal activities who had suspected, but not necessarily confirmed, TdA connections. To date, APD has now linked 10 people to TdA and has arrested eight of those people. Two of the eight individuals who were taken into custody were involved in a July shooting at one of the specific properties in the city that have experienced issues with TdA activity. In line with these arrests, we can also now confirm that criminal activity, including TdA issues, had significantly affected those properties.”

Jurinsky said tenants of the buildings should ask the landlord to provide security deposits for new rentals. But she stressed the city currently has no plans to close either of them.

HAND blames landlord, news media

HAND blames Baumgarten and the news media for the problems the tenants are facing, not gangs. “The tenants and their children lose,” according to a news release. “Kids don’t want to go to school for fear of bullying from seeing images of their parents speaking out in the press juxtaposed with images of gang members with arms. Parents are losing work, told to lie about their nationality, and unable to be accepted anywhere after months of applying for new housing. Everyone is living in fear, already having sustained death threats and armed vigilante outsiders appearing in the middle of the night to ‘take back their city.’”