Aurora apartment complex made infamous by Trump is empty
An Aurora apartment complex made infamous by President Donald Trump was condemned and closed Tuesday, its windows boarded up with plywood and residents forced to find new homes.
The Edge at Lowry became ground zero in a national political battle about immigration after a video circulated in August showing armed men trying to get inside an apartment at the complex. Then in December, two people were abducted, robbed and assaulted by about 15 men with guns, seven of whom were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to Aurora police.
The city of Aurora moved to condemn the building, and the presiding judge of the Aurora Municipal Court issued an emergency court order last month, calling the complex “an immediate threat to public safety and welfare.”
Tenants of the 60-unit complex were ordered to vacate by 8 a.m. Tuesday or face possible arrest for trespassing.
All of them were gone in time, thanks to help from churches, volunteers and Housekeys Action Network Denver, known as HAND. The network received a $50,000 grant from the Colorado Health Foundation and raised an additional $26,000 on GoFundMe to help 24 families living at The Edge move into new apartments.
While the complex on Dallas Street was a criminal hot spot, many residents said the bigger issue was mismanagement by CBZ Management. The complex has been in disarray for years, but when the company quit managing the complex in August, it blamed its dilapidated condition on a gang “takeover.” There was no accurate count of how many people lived there when The Edge was ordered to close, but nonprofit groups said some of the 60 units had more than one family living there.
The Edge operated for months without a manager, an orphaned complex without trash pickup, mail service or rent collection.
Residents said they took care of each other, taking turns dealing with garbage and helping one another with maintenance.
When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pounded on doors before dawn Feb. 5, no one in the complex answered. Instead, they warned each other, sending messages as the agents moved from building to building.
Juan Carlos Alvarado Jimenez, a Venezuelan who has a work permit and was granted temporary protected status under the Biden administration, lived at The Edge for two years. He was sad to go, he said, because the neighbors all looked out for each other and because his children enjoyed going to school near the complex. He doesn’t have a car, so he couldn’t keep them enrolled in Aurora after the family recently moved to a new apartment in Denver, he said.
It’s true The Edge was plagued with criminal activity and unfit conditions — like no hot water and sometimes no water at all — but it was another hardship to have to move, Alvarado Jimenez said. He received one month’s rent from HAND and was able to pay the deposit on his own, thanks to a construction job he’s had for two years. “Where we moved is super comfortable,” he said in Spanish.
Residents at The Edge hadn’t paid rent in about four months.
They even stopped receiving mail, which led to some residents missing important documents they needed as part of the process to apply for asylum, said V Reeves, an organizer at HAND who helped dispense the financial aid.
The network tried to help only families who had the means to continue paying rent on their own because HAND didn’t want people to face possible eviction later if they could not keep up with rent. “We did find that the vast majority of folks were able to,” Reeves said. “Folks are resourceful; they are hard workers.”
Residents of the complex, some with work permits and some without, have jobs in construction, painting, cooking, cleaning and doing hair or nails, Reeves said.
The network was able to spend up to $3,000 per household for first month’s rent, security deposits and application fees for more than 30 families, including a few families trying to leave other troubled Aurora apartment complexes.
But it wasn’t a success story, Reeves said.
Those who couldn’t afford to keep up on rent got help from churches and volunteers who offered them temporary places to stay. Some fled in fear after an ICE raid at the complex in December, Reeves said. “A lot of people ended up doubling up with other families,” they said. “We also know folks who decided it was safer to live in their cars. There are people in shelters.”
For those who received rent assistance, HAND made sure they were working with legitimate landlords, Reeves said. At The Edge, people were asked to pay rent in cash and were not given receipts, they said.
“When the management company just left, they stopped returning calls,” Reeves said. “They weren’t in offices. There was no way to make those payments.”
Natasha Bar Shalom, who lives in a Denver apartment complex run by the same management company, said she fears her home is next to face closure.
She hasn’t paid rent in two months because there is no way to pay it, she said. The rent portal no longer works. She rarely has hot water, and part of her ceiling caved in. Squatters took over the apartment below her, then gutted the place for metal, she said.
“I had mice falling from the ceiling,” said Bar Shalom, who runs a nonprofit to help people dealing with mental illness and substance abuse.
Instead of condemning the Courtyard on Vine Street, Bar Shalom hopes the city of Denver will turn it over to a nonprofit for low-income housing. Despite the conditions, she said, “I’m not in a position to move. Buildings like this are in all of our cities.”
Blaming the rundown complex on immigrants is wrong, Bar Shalom said. “They came to our country with the help of our country,” she said. “They are dropped off in the streets, in the snow. You are holding vouchers over their head and putting them in apartments that are no better than living on the streets. It’s really disgusting.”
The Edge isn’t the first Aurora apartment complex to be closed in recent months. Fitzsimons Place, which was also run by CBZ Management, was condemned after a string of code violations including rat infestation and lack of heat and electricity. Residents, most of them Venezuelan migrants, were forced out in August. Some ended up moving to The Edge, so they now have been forced to move twice, Reeves said.
Trump, making a campaign stop in Colorado, said he planned to begin “mass deportations” after his election and that Aurora had been “conquered” by Venezuelan gangs. In a televised debate leading up to the election, he again mentioned Aurora.
“You see what’s happening with towns throughout the United States,” Trumps said. “You look at Springfield, Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. These are the people that (Vice President Kamala Harris) and (President Joe Biden) let into our country. And they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality.”
Aurora city officials said late last month that The Edge would shut down this week and that anyone who wanted to apply for relocation assistance would need to provide valid government identification and undergo a background check. The city hired security officers to guard the complex 24/7 during its final weeks, along with a temporary administrator to help tenants with relocation.
“A documented history of neglect by CBZ and its various LLCs has left the complex in a state of disrepair that alone presents a risk to public well-being,” the city said in a news release. CBZ’s “absentee ownership has allowed a criminal element to victimize residents — including Venezuelan migrants seeking refuge from social strife in their home country.”
“It would be irresponsible for us to allow anyone to stay at the property any longer, and the court agrees.”
CBZ did not return multiple requests for comment.