BEMIDJI — Ever since the neighboring apartment building at 2830 was condemned, residents in the three remaining buildings of Ridgeway Courts I and II have been living in uncertainty.
They know that the conditions of their buildings are not good: apartments lie abandoned, squatters drift in and out, windows are missing and broken. Everywhere they look, there are signs of neglect and damage.
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With how bad everything has gotten, many of the residents have been expecting their buildings to be next.
“I figured after that news of (2830) being shut down, the rest of them were going to be shut down too,” said Richard Bailey, who has lived in a Ridgeway Court apartment located at 2910 Ridgeway Ave. NW, for two years and has only been able to watch as his building deteriorates around him.
The situation at Ridgeway has garnered a lot of speculation in Bemidji, with ongoing debates over who is responsible, what actions should be taken — and most importantly — what the future looks like for the apartments’ residents.
With an already limited supply of affordable housing in Bemidji, Ridgeway's residents, many of whom rely on Section 8 vouchers to pay rent, might not have a place to go if the remaining buildings are shut down.
“Since we had the license revoked for 2830, there’s fear that this will happen to other buildings and people will be displaced,” said Mayor Jorge Prince, “which none of us want — but we also want people to be safe.”
This balancing act, between displacing families or letting them stay in potentially hazardous conditions, has been guiding the decisions made by the city in recent months.
“It’s about safety. If we turn a blind eye to a serious safety concern and there’s a catastrophic thing that happens, how do we not all have to live with that?” Prince shared. “None of us want that, (but) we also can’t leave them in a situation that’s dangerous.”
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Rapid deterioration
Residents at Ridgeway Courts I and II, both owned by NETA Property Management out of Fargo, N.D., first noticed the buildings starting to decline close to two years ago after NETA’s previous on-site caretaker left. The new caretaker is rarely on site, according to residents.
“I’d probably say about two years ago everything started going downhill, after (NETA’s) main guy had a heart attack and quit,” Bailey explained. “It was nice when I first came here. That’s all gone now.”
As squatters moved into the unsecured buildings things escalated further. Graffiti is painted along the hallways and stairwells, light fixtures are ripped apart, security cameras have been spray-painted over and windows and locks have been regularly broken, making for easy access to empty units.
With only a handful of the building's 18 apartments currently occupied, many of the remaining units are now trashed with appliances broken and cabinets ripped apart, garbage and clothing strewn about, and needles and drug paraphernalia scattered on the countertops of several abandoned units.
Bailey said that the residents’ calls to NETA have gone mostly unanswered, and for some, it seems like the company has given up on the properties, which are now also facing foreclosure.
While NETA did not respond to the Pioneer's requests for comment, in a letter provided to tenants in July they confirmed that there was an ongoing foreclosure process for Ridgeway Courts I and II and that it was likely the buildings would cease operating as rental properties.
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The letter also addressed the residents' concerns with safety, crime and property damage.
"In our opinion, the police have been unable to drive criminal and drug elements from our Ridgeway community," the letter read. "Management is not law enforcement and, as such, cannot police the property to prevent the ongoing criminal conduct, damage and destruction that is making your building unsafe and hazardous for continued occupancy."
Meanwhile, Bemidji, having suspended rental inspections in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only became aware of the buildings’ conditions after inspections resumed in spring 2021. By then, one of the buildings, 2830, had reached a breaking point.
Despite issuing multiple orders of correction to NETA, the rate of repairs didn’t keep up with the building’s deterioration. Ultimately, the city’s rental inspector, Ben Hein, made the decision to condemn 2830 on May 13.
The rental license for the building was revoked, and the 10 families living in its apartments received a notice that they would need to vacate their homes in just 30 days.
“That’s the last thing anyone wanted,” Hein said. “Our goal is to never have to do that.”
On the day the families had to leave, both Hein and Prince were present to help, hauling furniture and belongings as they moved to temporary housing that the city's nonprofit partners had helped organize.
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“I will never forget that day,” Hein said. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of (the residents), and they’re wonderful people. It’s extremely hard.”
Now Hein and the city are taking another approach to try and avoid the closure of the remaining three buildings, instead taking them unit by unit.
“In each of those buildings there are a number of units that, in our assessment, have serious issues,” said City Manager Nate Mathews, “and there are a number of units within them that are absolutely fine. We are inspecting them and making determinations on a unit-by-unit basis.”
Among other corrections, Hein has ordered NETA to have the abandoned and unsafe units boarded up or otherwise secured, and Mathews confirmed that there are no immediate plans to shut down another entire building.
“We issue another order of correction and we follow that up with another inspection,” Hein explained. “Each time, if progress is being made and the building’s not an imminent threat, we just work forward with the building to maintain people being able to live there.”
Crime and law enforcement
By boarding up the abandoned and dangerous apartments, the hope is that they will become harder for squatters to access, especially since the ones who had been using 2830 moved to the other buildings after it was condemned.
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“It got worse when the city shut down (2830),” Bailey said. “They all just moved over here. Most of (the apartments) were empty, and they just broke in and destroyed them.”
Unfortunately, when residents call the police about the people trespassing, there isn’t much the officers can do.
“When we call the cops, they say they can’t come down here if they don’t know who (the trespassers) are,” Bailey explained. “They can’t do anything.”
Prince explained that in order for the Bemidji Police Department to arrest someone who’s trespassing in the apartments, NETA would have to begin the process and let the police know which people are not supposed to be in the buildings.
“We’ve got people living there that aren’t supposed to be,” Prince said. “We have no way of knowing who’s squatting and who’s not unless the property owners are beginning that action.”
Without the involvement of NETA in the process, the city’s hands are tied, but even though the police department can’t always help with trespassers it doesn’t mean local law enforcement is doing nothing.
As crime in the area increased alongside the buildings' deterioration in 2021, the BPD responded to over 600 calls at the apartments. Currently, officers regularly patrol not just the neighborhood but the buildings themselves.
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“(Law enforcement) is at Ridgeway 24 hours a day, randomly doing walkthroughs,” said City Attorney Katie Nolting. “If there are people with warrants, people committing crimes in their presence (the officers) will do their job, and they do.”
This level of law enforcement presence is not something common with other apartments in Bemidji, Nolting explained.
“The BPD is not a security service, and I think that’s what needs to be made clear,” Nolting said. “I can’t think of any other apartment buildings we do this for, but we’re doing this to keep the citizens as safe as we can.”
Human impact
Despite the work being done by the city, residents and local organizations, the future of the apartments is still unclear. While an action by the city to shut down an entire building is not currently being discussed, the possibility of foreclosure by NETA remains.
If the foreclosure is finalized, the tenants could remain until their lease expires. Acquiring another lease, however, would depend on who owns the buildings and whether they remain as affordable housing.
“The majority of folks that live in the neighborhood are just trying to live their lives, raise their kids, and get to work just like everybody else,” Prince said. “This is ultimately about people.”
Prince, who has regularly been attending bi-weekly community picnics at Ridgeway hosted by the Bemidji Rotary Club, referenced one of the older residents of the apartments, Renie Kawasuk, fondly referred to as "Granny."
“She’s maybe 80 years old, and here she is having to walk to the post office every day because Ridgeway can’t maintain a safe and secure mailbox,” Prince said. “That’s a human being we’re talking about. Would you want that for your mother, your grandmother? I wouldn’t.”
With the complexities of the situation at Ridgeway, there is no straightforward solution. The city has limited ability to act, NETA seems ready to accept the closure of the buildings and most of the residents are just hoping to keep their housing long enough to find somewhere else to live.
Bailey is one of the lucky ones, at the very least he has friends he can stay with if his building shuts down.
He’s also hoping to be accepted for an apartment in the neighboring Ridgeway Courts III and IV, owned by DW Jones Management. Despite their proximity to NETA's properties, those buildings haven’t experienced the same problems as Courts I and II.
“I do have a place to stay, I won’t be totally homeless,” Bailey shared. “Just get me another place to live.”
The Trust Project
