Man and woman in front of a house
Advocate Andres Solomonoff and Janette Rosales, a former RLEI case manager, are working to restart the RLEI program. Photo by Joyce Chu.

San Jose residents want a neighborhood improvement initiative to restart after it sunsetted last June due to lack of funding.

Community organizer Jaime Angulo created the Responsible Landlord Engagement Initiative (RLEI) in 2010 to help neighbors resolve issues they faced on their block — whether it was an unruly tenant, a group home where neighbors suspected abuse, a house where suspicious activity took place or an absentee landlord who wasn’t taking care of the property.

“There’s nothing like it here,” Angulo told San José Spotlight. “We organize (the neighbors) and empower them.”

For years, RLEI was funded through a grant from Citi Community Development, with San Jose matching it. During its last two years of existence, it was funded through a $785,000 state grant secured by Asemblymember Ash Kalra. RLEI could not secure any funding this fiscal year, yet neighbors have continued to reach out to RLEI for help. Angulo has since retired from being the initiative’s program manager, but Janette Rosales, who worked as a case manager for RLEI, and advocate Andres Solomonoff are working to restart the program.

A memo published in 2017 by then-San Jose Housing Director Jacky Morales-Ferrand detailed the impact of RLEI for the city. In a study that examined three cases RLEI took on, calls for service to those neighborhoods dropped from 99 to nine incidents after RLEI resolved the matter.

“Based on the hourly cost of city staff, the amount of time spent on each call for service, and the reduction in calls for service, the city realizes a (return on investment) of $1.28 for every $1.00 spent (on the program),” the memo read.

The RLEI team helps mediate community problems. For example, the team will locate the property owner and broker a meeting between the landlord and the neighbors. Sometimes, landlords aren’t aware of what is happening on their property, Angulo said.

If the landlord continues to be unresponsive after several attempts to mediate, RLEI guides the neighbors on how to sue the landlord in small claims court. This is often a last resort, but in the cases where neighbors had to sue, they were always successful, Rosales said.

“We want to give the property owner whatever resources they need to resolve the issue and to be a responsible owner,” Rosales told San José Spotlight. “So we are just neutral, and we want to help the community on both sides.”

RLEI fills a necessary gap for police and code enforcement. Code enforcement writes citations and fines landlords for creating health and safety hazards. But in Angulo’s experience, landlords pay the fine and don’t fix the property. With law enforcement, officers respond to crime, but they don’t help neighbors resolve civil conflict.

Community advocates

The program has helped improve the lives of dozens of neighborhood residents, Angulo said.

Carl Crizer remembers how tense he felt whenever he returned home from work. A new neighbor had bought a house across from him near Roosevelt Park and with it came a slew of problems.

Crizer said he saw people dealing drugs. Fights broke out constantly — one time, a man beat another man on the porch. He saw a lady getting dragged by her hair into the house. Multiple cars always roamed around the neighborhood. Crizer wrote down all the license plates and discovered some cars were stolen.

“I was scared to death that eventually there was going to be a shooting,” Crizer told San José Spotlight. “I didn’t want one of my kids or any one of the other neighbors that has absolutely nothing to do with it to be collateral damage.”

Crizer confronted the neighbor, but nothing ever came of it. He went to his councilmember at the time, Raul Peralez, who put him in touch with RLEI. Angulo tried to broker a meeting with the neighbor, but he didn’t show up. Angulo then guided Crizer and a group of 10 other neighbors through the legal process of filing a lawsuit against him.

Neighbors don’t pay for RLEI services, which eliminates out-of-pocket expenses that can prevent legal assistance.

By mounting pressure and taking him to court, the neighbor ended up selling the property in 2017 and leaving the area.

“It was certainly a sense of relief,” Crizer said. “It took a while to get used to the street being quiet again.”
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RLEI has also stepped in to mediate issues that arise in homes for foster youth or homes for those with mental health or drug issues who are transitioning back into the community after hospitalization. Oftentimes RLEI has called a property owner into a meeting and found they’re unaware the property is being used as a group home, Rosales said.

“What we found is that those are generally just being mismanaged,” Rosales said. “Not only is the community putting up with things that are making them feel unsafe and unhealthy, but then the residents themselves, we are often finding, are being taken advantage of, mistreated or neglected.”

For Crizer, the initiative has brought normalcy back to the neighborhood.

“It’s worth every penny that gets put into that program,” he said.

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X. 

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