Dozens of tenants from two affordable housing complexes in San Jose are calling on their landlord to do more after repeated car burglaries and receiving written notices they don’t understand.
Residents of the large tenant associations of Bella Castillo and Corde Terra protested Friday in front of ROEM’s offices in Santa Clara, calling on CEO Robert Emami to meet with them. Tenants are demanding better security because their cars are broken into on a regular basis, and management is also demanding that management provide tenant notices in other languages besides English, as many residents speak another language such as Vietnamese or Spanish. Vulnerable and disabled residents are concerned that these notices could lead to eviction.
In Bella Castillo, Bela Castillo resident Hung Nguyen, 62, said there were several times when up to 10 cars were broken into in the building’s secure garage. He’s worried he’ll be next. He said there were also non-residents sleeping in the building’s laundry room.
“(The building management says), since we live in San Jose, this is normal. This is supposed to happen,” Nguyen told San José Spotlight through a translator. “We pay a lot of rent money to live here. Where is the duty of the people who are supposed to help manage the property?”
Bella Castillo has a security guard working limited hours, and the tenants want those hours extended.
“I’m very nervous, I think about (these safety issues) when I sleep,” Lam Pham, 74, a resident of Corde Terra, told the San Jose Spotlight.
At the march, Thuy Nguyen, 82, a resident of Kordi Tira, said she feels afraid when she sees notices in English because she does not understand what is needed. Most of Corde Terra’s senior tenants speak English as a second language and cannot understand notices.
These notices usually convey building regulations, such as apartment courtyard rules, but failure to follow these regulations could result in eviction, Thuy Nguyen said through a translator.
Members of both groups of tenants said they tried to contact the management company – FPI Management – but received no response. In Kordi Tira, tenants alleged that the on-site building management was intimidating residents for trying to organize.
FPI management could not be reached for comment.
“We just want the property management to come back to us and reach out to the elderly,” Thuy Nguyen told San Jose Spotlight through a translator. “Almost all of us are elderly and live alone.”
The two tenant associations have been organizing since the spring, said Cindy Tran, a community housing advocate at the Silicon Valley Law Foundation. She helped translate for the Vietnamese-speaking tenants at the rally. The two tenant groups arranged a meeting with top-level FPI management, but canceled the meeting without rescheduling, Tran said.
San Jose Councilman Peter Ortiz was there to support the tenants as a fellow tenant.
Ortiz said building management should provide notices in their primary languages, and he hopes they will meet with tenants to negotiate. He pointed to other cases across the city where tenants are fighting for basic rights, and said the city needs to pass legislation to preserve housing viability for tenants.
“We have absentee landlords who are not accountable to their tenants and who are accountable to the community around them,” Ortiz told San Jose Spotlight. “What you see impacts both the residents and the neighborhoods in which these residences are located.”
Councilman Omar Torres and Betty Duong, chief of staff to Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, were also in attendance to show support.
Tenants walked into the ROEM office, some pulling walkers up the stairs. People at the office handed them a sheet detailing the grievance process for Bella Castillo’s apartment, but they did not contact the group and called the Santa Clara Police Department.
Police officers moved the gathering to the sidewalk. They reiterated what the office workers had said, which was that ROEM was not the owner of the apartment building.
A ROEM Corporation representative, who declined to give his name, told San Jose Spotlight that the company was a construction company — not the owner of the building — and declined to speak further on the matter.
At the rally, the tenants delivered a letter addressed to Emami, the CEO, and pushed it through the mail slot since the doors were closed. They ask to meet Emami in person on either December 18 or 19.
“We complained to property management and they said they… couldn’t handle that,” Thuy Nguyen said. “This is not the response we want.”
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @sakokanstra On X, formerly known as Twitter.
As the population of renters in San Jose continues to grow, there is an increasing demand for improved security measures and greater language access. With rising concerns over theft, vandalism, and safety, renters are seeking better security systems and on-site surveillance to protect themselves and their belongings. Additionally, there is a growing need for language support services, as many renters in the San Jose area come from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This has led to a call for increased access to multilingual staff and resources to ensure that all renters are able to effectively communicate and receive assistance in their preferred language. Overall, there is a strong desire among renters in San Jose for enhanced security and language access to create a safer and more inclusive living environment.