Charity made dangerous repairs, could take woman’s home for nonpayment, legal documents say
The triple-decker home at 48 Kinnaird St. is bulging slightly on the left, lifting off its foundation to the right and in imminent danger of collapse, according to reports by a structural engineer cited in a court case against the Just-A-Start Corp. charity. (Photos: Marc Levy)
With her house on Kinnaird Street sinking around her, Shirley Graham saw the Just-A-Start Corp. as a savior, but the program’s failed attempt at repairs may cost her the home completely.
A Monday date in Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn could tell her if she’s losing her home of 41 years after asking the charity’s help for repairs to her foundation in May 2004 – work that left her home “in imminent danger of collapse,” according to a structural engineer who examined the house Dec. 11.
Repairs and rehabilitation are what Just-A-Start, based at 1035 Cambridge St., does. As a nonprofit, tax-exempt community development agency incorporated the same year Graham got her home, Just-A-Start says it works to help low- and moderate-income people mainly through education, training and job placement activities; development and operation of affordable housing; and “stabilizing” occupied housing.
That home rehab program, according to its own website, uses state money and federal Community Development Block Grants to provide up to $50,000 to homeowners with loans at zero to 3 percent interest, then helps prepare plans and construction specs and provides its expertise in the contractor bidding process and in “monitoring the renovation.” In Graham’s case, though, there were three contracts that took her from $40,000 in structural work to adding $25,000 in replacing heating systems and hardwood floors and a final $10,000 in interior carpentry, painting and basement masonry work.
As it says in the three accompanying releases Graham signed, the $75,000 in loans “will be secured by a mortgage on [the signer’s] property.” That means it’s Just-A-Start that is trying to foreclose on Graham for nonpayment.
“By far the worst”
Attorney Richard Clarey said he has seen a handful of similar situations in North Cambridge dating back 10 to 15 years, but on Friday, showing legal documents about the case, he called Graham’s “by far the worst.”
“It’s an absolute hosing of poor people,” he said, “and fleecing of old people.”
He is helping Graham with her case and, because she is constrained by a confidentiality clause, speaking on her behalf, he said.
Alan LaBella, deputy director of housing at Just-A-Start, said he also could not speak while the case was in court.
With neither plaintiff nor defendant speaking, it is unclear why the first contract was for $40,000 if the estimate for the work was $19,000, as Graham said in her legal complaint. Her lawyer, James P. Keane of Charlestown firm Keane, Klein & Duffey, wrote in that complaint it was done “at their solicitation” but wasn’t on hand to clarify Friday. The “two additional mortgages were required and solicited by Just-A-Start,” according to Graham’s legal complaint, while LaBella has said Graham came to Just-A-Start to ask for the additional work. Either way, Graham wound up with three 20-year loans at 3 percent interest while work began.
Dangerous conditions
The foundation was bad under the 48 Kinnaird St. triple-decker, built in 1916, when the Just-A-Start workers arrived, but they shored it up unevenly, literally dropping the house so it tilts subtly, bulging on the left and visibly lifting from the foundation on the right. “It moved. She was in it when it happened and the whole house fell by inches,” Clarey said. “One expert says it could collapse any minute. An engineer said it in 2006 and repeated it two weeks ago.”
That expert – Rene Mugnier Associates at 777 Concord Ave. – confirmed in a document provided by Clarey that its engineer visited Graham’s home three times, starting with visits in May and August 2006, and was recently “very concerned that the recommendations given by our office more than six years ago have not been implemented.” Its report cited joists that were too long and badly broken, improper supports and missing bolts. Mainly the report complains that a center I-beam girder was installed, “but no second line of bearing,” leaving walls buckling and generally “dangerous conditions.”
Fixing this, according to an estimate in a corroborating legal file by construction contractor Charles J. Costello of Boxford, would cost $65,938.
“Whatever happened at that house has made my city more dangerous,” said city councillor Craig Kelley, who has worked with Clarey in the past on issues related to Just-At-Start. “They’re leaving a house in my city in danger of at least partial collapse. A gas line could rupture, a fire could start and all of a sudden you lose six houses. It’s not likely, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.”
Differing accounts
Graham, who said in legal documents she had been generally unhappy with the workers’ lack of professionalism in 2005, didn’t know until spring 2006 that the home was unbalanced, and she found out only by chancing across one of the contractors in the neighborhood; he let it slip during their conversation. LaBella’s affidavit said that when she complained in May 2006, he tried to get the contractors back to fix the problem, but she would not let them back in.
There are two other key mismatches in the cases presented by Graham and Just-A-Start:
- Graham’s complaint says repeatedly that Just-A-Start acted as general contractor for the house repairs, while LaBella says in his affidavit that “JAS is not a general contractor and, in fact, the homeowner is advised that JAS is not a general contractor,” language that also appears in the releases Graham signed.
- Graham’s complaint calls the defendants uninsured, “unlicensed and unqualified,” but LaBella said Friday that only licensed and insured contractors are on the agency’s list of bidders.
LaBella said homeowners are first asked if they have companies they want to work with. If they don’t, he brings forward the agency’s list, he said.
That’s not what happened with Graham, according to Clarey.
“They insist on using their own people, and their own people are untrained … They’re totally incompetent people. They do terrible work, because they’re not skilled and they’re not overseen by anybody,” Clarey said.
The road to court
Graham approached Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services and later city councillor Denise Simmons for help, but over time each was stymied, Clarey said. Finally she went through AARP, the advocacy and services group for those 50 and over, and was connected with Keane, Klein & Duffey. In the meantime, the clock had been counting down on the contractors’ one-year warranties and a three-year statute of limitations; Graham squeezed her case in based on a four-year consumer protection statute, but the individual contractors have been dropped from the case.
One has even disappeared: R.E. Traniello Plumbing and Heating, of Natick, has gone out of business. Before that, Keane said in a legal document, proprietor Ralph Traniello had taken the step of transferring a $520,000 property to his wife for a dollar.
Graham took Just-A-Start to court in March 2009, winning a temporary restraining order against foreclosure. When she and Just-A-Start officials returned to court the next month, Judge Thayer Fremont-Smith blocked foreclosure indefinitely while the case went to mediation, where Clarey said Graham was pressured by a mediator and even her own lawyer to sign over her mortgage to the charity and get $46,000 in return.
Graham insisted on thinking it over, though. Even in its poor condition the house is assessed at $653,400 and Keane, according to Clarey, started by asking for $600,000 from Just-A-Start.
A trial by jury expected to take place in August was canceled because the settlement was offered, but Graham is rejecting that offer of $46,000, some of which would go to Keane, according to Clarey.
In Clarey’s assessment, Just-A-Start doesn’t mind going to trial because “they’re using your money and mine. It’s not like it’s a private company that has to worry about money going in and out. They have no risk at all.”
Cases such as Graham’s don’t usually get as far, Clarey said, because by its very nature Just-A-Start is immunized by being a nonprofit charity and working with poorer people who don’t have the resources to fight when something goes wrong.
“She’s a very courageous lady who needs the support of the community,” Clarey said of Graham.
Just A Start looks a lot more like a predatory for-profit company here than a charity dedicated to helping people. Behaving like this undoes so much of the goodwill they have earned for helping young people learn marketable skills. They should do the right thing by Shirley Graham and fix the damage their contractors caused.
I’ve been in Shirley’s house a couple of times, once with a building professional who was astounded at how poor a job the people involved in this work did. From my perspective, this house, after Just-A-Start got involved in it, became more of a hazard to the owner and everyone else in Cambridge than it had been before. I find the reports truly astounding in how clearly they state the foundation work, at the least, was done badly. How Just-A-Start or the City of Cambridge can consider a program that leads to problems like this one- and this is not the first time the Home Improvement Program (HIP) has been presented to me as one big, slimy con job- makes me wonder who we have running things. And makes me better understand why so many many people have trouble trusting their government. I feel very badly for Ms. Graham and others who have been similarly mistreated.
I will start a series of Cambridge City Council Public Safety Committee meetings in January to try to figure out how we can fix what seems to be a very broken and very dangerous program. I hope people like Ms. Graham are able to come speak at these meetings and worry that Just-A-Start or Home Owners Rehab (HRI, the other non-profit running HIP projects) may have muzzled previous dissatisfied clients through legal means like the settlement mentioned in this article.
I personally detest people who take advantage of the elderly. The thought that Just A Start management can successfully hide behind our Court system is appalling … and pretending to be a charity. There needs to be a public admission and public consequences to keep this from happening to other folks.
Even leaving the opportunity for different version of events, this appears to be an extremely disturbing display of either non-performance with work within professional standards or a total disregard for the physical, financial and emotional well-being of an elderly resident of the City of Cambridge which Just-A-Start is supposed to help not hurt.
It appears as though the City of Cambridge, the Affordable Housing Trust and Community Preservation Act Funds are among many of the financial resources funding by Just-A-Start and its programs.
While taking a look at the actions of Just-A-Start from the perspective of public safety is an appropriate step, it may be even more appropriate to review their use of City and taxpayer funds from the perspective of either or both of the Finance Committee and the City Auditor (a Council employee).
It may also be appropriate, in light of the serious allegations raised here, that the City Council consider requesting the the City Manager, City Auditor and City Solicitor undertake a comprehensive review of Just-A-Start and their use of City funds and while such review is underway that funds budgeted for Just-A-Start be withheld in escrow pending the results of the review.
I attended yesterday’s hearing out in Woburn — and after listening to Mrs. Graham address the court, I was left with the impression that Just-A-Start has treated Mrs. Graham in an appallingly callous fashion. And that’s putting it nicely.
Granted, this is a long, complicated story…but as I understand it, it all boils down to a few simple facts: Just-A-Start is a non-profit charity that functions as a quasi city agency (with large sums of money flowing from or through the city to its various programs, administrators, and staff). Just-A-Start approached Mrs. Graham and offered to help her improve her house. Ultimately, Mrs. Graham’s house was made much, much worse due to the failure of the contractors that were essentially hired and managed by Just-A-Start. Now, instead of working to resolve certain misunderstandings, Just-A-Start is going to take the property away from Mrs. Graham.
This is simply unconscionable. Just-A-Start should not hide behind the letter of the law. Instead, they should do the right thing and continue to work with Mrs. Graham. After owning a home here in Cambridge for the past 41 years, she is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
As I understand it, despite Ms. Graham’s unwillingness to sign the mediation agreement, the judge felt that the law required the agreement to be enforced, with or without the Plaintiff’s signature. I can’t comment on that, except to note that it must be nice, as Just-A-Start, to be able to afford high powered attorneys and not to have to worry about losing your home home because of the lousy work done through your own programs. To be Ms. Graham, way on the other end of the established power structure, must be a different thing altogether. This sort of stuff is beyond unconscionable.
Ms. Graham will, as I understand it, now have a new, consolidated mortgage of about 75K that she’ll have to pay off at about 400 bucks a month. JAS has, I think forgiven past interest due (which may have to be declared as taxable income for Ms. Graham- I am not sure about that and I’m pretty certain she probably isn’t either). Ms. Graham still has a house that needs about 70K worth of work to become rentable again so how she’s going to pay the mortgage is beyond me. At some point, she’ll be behind in her payments again to the point where JAS may wind up hiring another high powered attorney and take her house from her. I hope that makes them all feel good!
And if, in the interim, the house burns down or is otherwise ruined, Ms. Graham is truly out of luck because, thanks to the broken foundation created through the Just-A-Start coordinated project, she has no insurance. Which, I think, is why she has two beautiful units (some of the JAS work on those units will need to be redone, it seems, but otherwise they’re really nice) that she hasn’t been able to rent for several years. The loss of income there must add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And, to add insult to injury, the City helped create this disaster by paying the head of JAS’ salary for years, by promoting this program throughout the City and by funneling money to JAS through the CPA/Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Which means those of us who pay taxes to the City and elect the people who are responsible for the folks who hire the people doing this work are also responsible. It’s an awful feeling to know that one’s tax dollars and civic efforts are being used to, apparently, prey on neighbors who are less able to protect themselves from these awful programs.