- Mar 11, 2015
- 100,603
- 106,841
- 3,645
Seems that this fixation on this group may have been manufactured by a PR firm paid for by a landlord to cover for his neglect. Here is the story of how CBZ Management, run by a slumord who had numerous violations, helped create a story about a gang takeover that really wasn't happening and how that PR was used by Trump to get where we are today. As you read this article, you will also see that the president of peace worked very hard to destabilize Venezuela during his first term, which created the influx of migrants from that country we have now. So then the truth is that Trump created the mess on the border. It is his polices that caused what we see today.
THERE ARE CULTURAL AND GEOPOLITICAL DIMENSIONS to this story, but as is often the case, the root causes behind the great âTren de Aragua invasionâ of Denver-area multifamily housing are economic. In 2017, the Trump administration began sanctioning countries that sold oil refining agents to Venezuela. The countryâs documented oil reserves are the most bountiful in the world by a factor of four, but strangling its already compromised production capacity roughly doubled the GDP contraction already under way due to a mix of plunging oil prices and corruption, and triggered a mass stampede from Venezuela that would ultimately envelop one-third of the population. As âgetting out of Venezuelaâ became the nationâs sole growth industry, so grew the fortunes of the local underworld that knew how to transport illicit goods and humans across hostile terrain.
That same year, an aspiring Brooklyn real estate mogul named Shmaryahu Baumgarten made his first apartment building acquisitions in Colorado, having soured on New York City amid widespread landlord revulsion toward then-mayor Bill de Blasio, who made his name disseminating an annual list of the worst landlords in each of the five boroughs. Baumgartenâs company, CBZ Management, was nowhere near the worst; the 1,500 violations his 201 properties have amassed over the years is about average for a portfolio of its size. But in Colorado, CBZ stood out.
By nearly all accounts, CBZ was unusually neglectful from just about day one. A former tenant who moved into Denverâs William Penn Apartments about a month after Baumgarten acquired it in 2019 told The Denver Post that CBZ, which he called âjust horrible, horrible, horrible,â would ânever, ever, ever fix anything.â A former tenant at Romeroâs complex moved out almost instantaneously upon moving in, after her mother found water seeping up through the floor upon entering the bathroom. CBZ proceeded to bill thousands of dollars to an insurance policy it required tenants to purchase in lieu of security deposits, which in turn attempted to destroy the tenantâs credit, a practice numerous other tenants have detailed in media reports and lawsuits.
And dozens of CBZ tenants complained to Denver and Aurora authorities that the company forced them to go without heat and hot water for months and even, in the case of one tenant at the Edge at Lowry, two whole years, in a region where the average early-morning temperature is 33 degrees in April. Even Romero, who generally maintains that CBZ was perfectly respectable âas low-income apartment landlords go,â says she went without heat for three weeks in February after the boiler broke down, though the manager brought space heaters and it didnât bother her much.
In 2021, CBZ was the subject of a local news segment about tenants at its Bahamas Apartments building (the name was later changed to Aspen Grove) who had started withholding rent on the grounds that their homes had been overrun by rats and roaches and management was unresponsive even to emergencies like the plunge of a toilet through the ceiling of one tenantâs bathroom. In the piece, a maintenance man chastises a disgruntled resident for failing to make rent, while
prospect.org
Runaway Tren
How a Colorado slumlordâs psyop turned into a brand-new âforever warâ on VenezuelaTHERE ARE CULTURAL AND GEOPOLITICAL DIMENSIONS to this story, but as is often the case, the root causes behind the great âTren de Aragua invasionâ of Denver-area multifamily housing are economic. In 2017, the Trump administration began sanctioning countries that sold oil refining agents to Venezuela. The countryâs documented oil reserves are the most bountiful in the world by a factor of four, but strangling its already compromised production capacity roughly doubled the GDP contraction already under way due to a mix of plunging oil prices and corruption, and triggered a mass stampede from Venezuela that would ultimately envelop one-third of the population. As âgetting out of Venezuelaâ became the nationâs sole growth industry, so grew the fortunes of the local underworld that knew how to transport illicit goods and humans across hostile terrain.
That same year, an aspiring Brooklyn real estate mogul named Shmaryahu Baumgarten made his first apartment building acquisitions in Colorado, having soured on New York City amid widespread landlord revulsion toward then-mayor Bill de Blasio, who made his name disseminating an annual list of the worst landlords in each of the five boroughs. Baumgartenâs company, CBZ Management, was nowhere near the worst; the 1,500 violations his 201 properties have amassed over the years is about average for a portfolio of its size. But in Colorado, CBZ stood out.
By nearly all accounts, CBZ was unusually neglectful from just about day one. A former tenant who moved into Denverâs William Penn Apartments about a month after Baumgarten acquired it in 2019 told The Denver Post that CBZ, which he called âjust horrible, horrible, horrible,â would ânever, ever, ever fix anything.â A former tenant at Romeroâs complex moved out almost instantaneously upon moving in, after her mother found water seeping up through the floor upon entering the bathroom. CBZ proceeded to bill thousands of dollars to an insurance policy it required tenants to purchase in lieu of security deposits, which in turn attempted to destroy the tenantâs credit, a practice numerous other tenants have detailed in media reports and lawsuits.
And dozens of CBZ tenants complained to Denver and Aurora authorities that the company forced them to go without heat and hot water for months and even, in the case of one tenant at the Edge at Lowry, two whole years, in a region where the average early-morning temperature is 33 degrees in April. Even Romero, who generally maintains that CBZ was perfectly respectable âas low-income apartment landlords go,â says she went without heat for three weeks in February after the boiler broke down, though the manager brought space heaters and it didnât bother her much.
In 2021, CBZ was the subject of a local news segment about tenants at its Bahamas Apartments building (the name was later changed to Aspen Grove) who had started withholding rent on the grounds that their homes had been overrun by rats and roaches and management was unresponsive even to emergencies like the plunge of a toilet through the ceiling of one tenantâs bathroom. In the piece, a maintenance man chastises a disgruntled resident for failing to make rent, while
Runaway Tren
How a Colorado slumlordâs psyop turned into a brand-new âforever warâ on Venezuela
prospect.org
