For several years, Seyrafi's expensive suits and arrogant attitude were regular features on Phoenix TV news, as was footage of his apartment buildings that looked like scenes from a Third World barrio or favela. Seyrafi didn't seem to care much what people thought of him. "He was so flip," recalls Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who helped write the new statute. "Everyone wanted a piece of him."
Eventually, Romley's office got him. Seyrafi was sentenced this spring to 14 months in prison on state and federal charges, fined $10,000 and ordered never to buy rental property in Arizona again. But more important in the long run, the Seyrafi saga led to creation of Arizona's Slumlord Task Force--a bipartisan group of prosecutors, state and local lawmakers, housing inspectors, police and neighborhood association groups. That task force pressured Arizona's legislature to pass some of the toughest anti-slumlord legislation anywhere in the country.
For years, weak rental laws and property maintenance codes, coupled with explosive growth in population and shortages of housing, have made Phoenix a haven for out-of-state investors who buy rundown properties and neglect their upkeep. The Slumlord Abatement Law, enacted last year, is aimed at changing that situation dramatically. The law makes it easier to find absentee landlords anywhere in Arizona by requiring registration of all rental property with county assessors. It gives cities and counties new power against owners of property used for criminal activity, and it closes commonly used loopholes that have enabled landlords to sell property in order to stop legal action from proceeding. Under the new law, the new owner can be held legally responsible for the misdeeds of the old one.
As much furor as Seyrafi and his cohorts created, the abatement law was actually a tough sell. Arizona is a bastion of property rights sentiment, and the state's influential realty associations have long histories of lobbying effectively against strict property regulation. In the end, though, the struggle over slumlord abatement appears to have softened the tense relationship between the state and the realty associations. Most of the groups ended up supporting its passage, agreeing that something fundamental had to be done.
The Arizona Multihousing Association, representing 1,600 management companies and property owners in 900 Arizona communities, has rewritten its standards for membership and instituted educational programs on responsible property rental and tenant screening. The AMA now requires its members to abide by a code of conduct that encourages them to become involved in community policing and join a neighborhood group, or start one themselves in communities where no such group currently exists.
"We learned our lesson," says the AMA's Wayne Kaplan. "It is fair to say the perception was that we were pro-slumlords. We've never been opposed to legislation getting tough on slumlords, but we waffled a bit. We never did a good job at stating our position. Now the government knows where we stand, and our prospective members know. It is a radical change for us."
The battle that played out in Arizona last year is taking place in other parts of the country as well. Numerous jurisdictions are paying renewed attention to slum abatement after years of neglect. Several have launched Arizona-style offensives against slumlords, arguing that blighted property and crime go hand in hand.
In many cases, these are joint state and local efforts. This past March, following passage of a new Louisiana law allowing the owner of blighted property to be charged with a criminal offense, the city of New Orleans introduced "Blight Busters." Properties with housing code violation liens are being auctioned off lien-free to responsible buyers, who can receive tax breaks for submitting a reconstruction plan.
Kansas City has started what it calls its Bad Apple Program, under which slumlords are treated as troubled individuals in need of rehabilitation. In lieu of a jail sentence, habitual violators of the city's nuisance and maintenance property codes must attend a "landlord school," similar to a school for drunk drivers. In addition to courses in landlord/tenant law, they sit in on "victim impact panels," where they face residents who relate the horror stories of slum life. Some are forced not only to clean up their own property, but other eyesores across the city as well. "If they have the desire to mend their ways, we give them the opportunity," explains Bob Mohart, the director of Neighborhood and Community Services. "If they don't, they go to jail."
In Norfolk, Virginia, each district of the city has its own "neighborhood environment assessment team"--a group of environmental, health, zoning, police and fire officials that trains citizens to report code violations. After a report comes in, NEAT teams sweep into problem properties and conduct targeted team inspections. Their legal weapon is a package of 12 new state blight laws allowing municipalities to acquire titles to slum properties for the purpose of selling them to responsible buyers.
Some of the local programs deserve credit for creativity, at the very least. In Louisiana, absentee landlords who refuse to abate their properties may now be required to live in them. In Syracuse, New York, signs can be posted in front of blighted buildings identifying the owner and listing his address and phone number. "Many of the owners live in lovely homes in the suburbs, and their neighbors don't know they are a slumlord," says Mary Rose, the project manager in Syracuse. "Well, now they will. We are shaming them into compliance."
As in Phoenix, news coverage of egregious slumlord practices has helped create the momentum behind many of these new efforts. But there is another factor as well: a renewed emphasis on the issue at the federal level from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The multi-pronged state and local attacks on slumlords and blighted properties parallel a new HUD team approach developed to crack down on abuses in public projects.
The HUD "Get Tough" program aims at beefing up inspections and mandating cleanup of all 45,000 HUD-assisted apartment complexes. Federal officials have paired up with the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute landlords for misusing federal funds. In addition to losing their HUD contracts and facing foreclosure, those found to be in violation now risk civil and criminal penalties under federal law. "Landlords never thought we would be able to bring them to justice," insists Bill Apgar, HUD's Federal Housing Commissioner. "But we are not just talking tough anymore. We are taking enforcement seriously."
But the best place to watch right now may be Arizona, where the state, Maricopa County and the city of Phoenix have committed over $1 million toward stricter enforcement of zoning and property codes and increased prosecution of offenders. Although the state slumlord law was originally designed and enacted with Phoenix in mind, it is having a noticeable effect on smaller communities as well.
In Buckeye, 35 miles west of Phoenix, a residential boom on the outskirts has brought new attention to the problem of embarrassing properties in the center of town. In the wake of the new law, officials there have launched a program through which property owners, rather than leaving abandoned vehicles and used tires in their yards, can have them picked up and disposed of by the city. "We want to clean up and revitalize the downtown area to make it more inviting," says Buckeye Mayor Dusty Hull. "We don't want new houses outside the town and a slum within."
Not everyone in Arizona thinks the state went far enough. Tenants rights organizations in Phoenix argue that the law focuses too narrowly on a small number of offenders, while offering little to protect tenants in the much larger number of less blighted but still substandard properties. They complain that the abatement legislation does not require owners to pay damages to tenants, or relocate tenants evicted from condemned properties.
Supporters argue, however, that the mere threat of action is beginning to convert a significant number of delinquent property owners into responsible landlords. After Maricopa County made it known that the law authorizes transfer of blighted property to a court- ordered receiver, who can use rent payments to make repairs, the county saw almost immediate improvement in each of the top 20 buildings that had been on its problem list.
Some landlords, worried about the crackdown, have shown a sudden willingness to sell. A project called Turney Villas, long one of Phoenix's worst apartment complexes, was sold by its Los Angeles owner to a new group that gutted the entire property, remodeled each unit, manicured the landscape and turned the complex into appealing low- income condominiums.
"Community awareness has been heightened," says Maricopa County Assistant Attorney Jana Sorenson, who heads a new Community Action Bureau charged with enforcing the legislation. "We're not just cleaning up the neighborhoods...we are trying to change the culture."
