From the Asbury Park Press
He’s been chased down the stairs by a raccoon-sized rat. He’s walked into invisible walls of gag-inducing stink. He’s been cursed as he points his flashlight into dark rooms.
There’s a crisis in Lakewood, says Ed Araujo, a housing inspector on Lakewood’s quality-of-life task force.
He can tell you about a man paying $300 a month to live in a closet or homes where people without plumbing relieve themselves in buckets.
“How can a landlord let people live like that?” asks Araujo, as he drives toward a home on August Drive where more than 20 possibly illegal immigrants are suspected to reside.
In Lakewood, where there’s a combustible mix of political angst, ethnic tension and class division, a sense of urgency is in the air. The town’s Spanish-speaking population continues to boom, and many of the people are assumed to be poorly paid illegal immigrants. But housing doesn’t always come cheap. Some landlords prey on the vulnerability of illegals, charging exorbitant rents, say the inspectors and township officials.
Araujo, 55, and his partner, Dan Vitello, find themselves in the center of the storm as they try to enforce township codes. The Lakewood Landlords Association says the inspectors are out of control and are suing the township for “unjust enforcement of township ordinances,” that are “unconstitutionally vague.”
“We’re the test. People are going to be looking at us to see what happens,” Araujo says.
The landlords group, which has about 50 members, owns roughly 1,000 properties in town, says Marcel Katz, a founding member of the group.
“They’re trigger happy with the pen,” Katz says of the inspectors.
…
This is about greed. People are getting rich off of poor people. They’re turning a deaf ear to what’s going on,” says Robert W. Singer, a township committeeman and state senator.