Envy Apartment

ROSEVILLE, Calif. (KCRA) — Dozens of Roseville families are being forced to vacate their apartments by the end of June after a balcony collapse alerted the city to many safety problems at Shadowbrook Apartments. The city told KCRA 3 on Thursday that the buildings, which are more than 30 years old, have not been well maintained. Advertisement Watch report: Some tenants in Roseville forced to leave after balcony collapse A balcony collapsed two weeks ago with an 11-year-old on it, although the child was not injured. “There’s dry rot everywhere," one resident said. "Any piece of wood you touch is dry-rotted. I think it’s really inexcusable that they took so long to start remodeling the place." The families affected were given notice Tuesday that they must move out by the end of June. That’s after the city forced Watt Property Management to stop construction at the complex and find ways to meet minimum code standards before continuing with the repairs. "The primary...

When Louis Tramunti’s wife called 911, she wanted EMTs to save her husband’s life after a heart attack. Instead, two policemen threw him to the floor and broke his back. It was just one of those things; didn’t even make the papers. Louis, an old friend of an old friend of mine, called me nearly a year later because “people need to know about this, bro,” which didn’t thrill his attorney. “I’m not typically a PR lawyer,” said Steven Falkoff when I called. “It’s a basic fact pattern and excessive-force case. I don’t know how much sexiness there is for a broader story.” To Louis—a good-natured if foul-mouthed 37-year-old Bernie-supporting son of Whitestone, a corner of Queens untouched by gentrification or even integration—it’s the only story. He’s been married for seven years to Szilvia, a lovely Hungarian immigrant whose calmness evens out his off-the-walls hyperactivity, and he’s worked for more than 15 years as a plumbing surveyor, making good union wages mapping out where the sleev...

Last week, we sponsored the 11th annual Points Summer Book Club , a community discussion of Matthew Desmond's piercing Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City . We debated the causes of eviction, the effect on children, how to view landlords' role, and what this discussion means for a city like Dallas. The book club also included an event with the author, in a partnership with Southern Methodist University 's SMU Reads program . On Thursday, Desmond spoke to a crowd of more than 900 people, laying out his research and his experience with evictions' damaging effect on people's safety, family, jobs and mental health. "When you add all that up, we have to conclude that eviction -- which used to be rare in this country, which used to draw crowds — it's not just a condition of poverty, it's also a cause of it. And it's making it worse. It's leaving a deep and jagged scar on the next generation — which means that we can't fix poverty in A...