Landlord leaves 15 homeless, including woman about to give birth

Landlord offers no help

By Rebecca Starcevic, Enterprise staff writer

BROCKTON — The former residents of a condemned house who were left homeless this week are suing their landlord for filing bankruptcy to avoid paying for their shelter and repairs to the home.

Erica Reis, 22, and the other five adult residents of the three-family house at 359 Crescent St. who were ordered out this week when the city declared it uninhabitable, had to seek emergency shelter through city and state agencies Thursday.

Their landlord, Happiness Ugwuakazi and her husband, Reginald, of Cappy's Way in Brockton, would be legally required to pay for motel accommodations and $25 per day per adult for the residents, but they declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy after the house was condemned.

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Happiness Ugwuakazi also owns FlexTemp & Associates, Inc., a business at 162 Main St. in Brockton, where Reginald Ugwuakazi is listed as an employee. The phone number listed for the business is no longer in service.


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but fights for the corporations to keep real poor people from having the same protection.

In the last few years of the property boom a lot of naive people went into the landlord biz with the expectation that the property would appreciate considerably and then they could flip it. As we well know, nothing is really moving in real estate right now. Lots of these nuveau landlords lack the resources to work around problem that invariably develop with rental units. This has the dual impact of devastating the landlord and the tennants.