Attorneys met with former Grand View Apartments tenants on Sunday to help fill out claim forms. This comes as legal teams believe there are about 250 tenants eligible to receive compensation.
The assistance took place at the Paso Robles Downtown City Park from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Law officials encouraged all tenants will to provide documentation of their residency in order to fill out the claim forms, which could be a copy of their lease, canceled checks or receipts from apartment management, a utility bill or mail received at Grand View.
"We had rodents that lived among us, we had cockroaches, we had bed bugs, there was extreme mold in the departments and just bad plumbing," described Francisco Ramirez, a former tenant at Grand View Apartments.
Last week, attorneys representing former residents of the Grand View reached a $4 million settlement after filing a lawsuit over the living conditions at the complex.
The 54-unit complex on Spring Street was infested with roaches and bedbugs and tenants said their complaints about water leaks, flooding, broken windows, sewage backups, malfunctioning appliances, and a lack of functioning smoke detectors, among other issues, were not properly addressed.
In 2019, the San Luis Obispo Legal Assistance Foundation (SLOLAF) and attorney Allen Hutkin of the Hutkin Law Firm filed a class-action lawsuit against the apartment complex owners on the renters' behalf.
After a judge ordered the owners to stop collecting rent from the tenants, the property was sold and everyone had to move out.
SLOLAF, People's Self-Help Housing, Paso Robles Housing Authority, and the Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo assisted in finding new housing for most of the tenants.
The new owners renovated the property, which is now called Vista Robles.
Now, anyone who lived at the apartment complex during that time can submit a claim to receive part of that $4 million settlement.
