Michael Penn says he is facing eviction from his Charlestown apartment because the property manager claims his dog barks too loudly and too much.
Demerius Calhoun says he too is being threatened with eviction in the same complex known as The Graphic Lofts — because he allegedly caused flooding in the apartments below by leaving a window partly open.
The two residents — both Black men who’ve spent time in prison — deny the allegations. Instead, they say they are being targeted because of the color of their skin and time behind bars.
“They want me out,” Penn told GBH News recently. “It sucks when I move into a situation where I’m happy to be and for no reason other than the fact that I’m Black or I have a record or, you know, they just don’t like my appearance. … To them, I just scream Black thug or, you know, gangster or whatever.”
Penn and Calhoun join a handful of formerly incarcerated residents who say they are unfairly being forced out of their homes at the Graphic Lofts, an upscale complex that bills itself online as “sophisticated luxury,’’ with a fitness center, roof deck and pet spa.
The property managers would not speak about any individual case but said they only take action against tenants that are disruptive or cause damage.
Leslie Credle, who runs Justice 4 Housing, a nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people in the Boston area, says the property was previously willing to house people with criminal records. She says Justice 4 Housing has placed about a dozen people in the complex over the last two years or so, aided by city and state subsidized vouchers.
Now, she says, her clients are getting warnings and eviction notices based on unfair allegations like smoking in the building or speaking aggressively to staff. Clients facing eviction, she says, so far have all been people with darker skin.
“Everybody that Justice 4 Housing put in [Graphic Lofts] is getting these letters that are saying that they’re being terrible tenants. They’re just making things up,” Credle said. “It was the dog. It was the window. It was the smoke. It’s anything and everything they can put their hands on, and they bombard them with legal letters.”
The property is owned by a limited liability company called GWL Direct 32 Cambridge LLC and managed by Willow Bridge Property Company, a Texas-based company that touts itself as one of the largest multifamily property managers in the country.
Officials for the companies did not respond to requests for an interview. In a written statement sent via their law firm Turk and Milone, management said it is “committed to providing its residents with safe, decent, and affordable housing.” However, “when a resident fails to comply with their lease and interferes with the other resident’s basic rights to peacefully live in their apartments, Graphic Lofts is required to respond to support the community, as a whole.”
This includes “when residents smoke in their apartments, cause disturbances, or cause significant damage to the property,’’ according to the statement provided by attorney Jeffrey Turk. “While management provides residents with warnings and opportunities to resolve lease violations, when residents continue to refuse to comply with basic lease obligations and infringe on the rights of other community members, at times legal actions must unfortunately be taken to protect the rights and safety of our community.”
Penn says he received a letter in January from the building’s lawyers saying his lease was being cancelled in part because the dog has been “barking very loudly throughout the day and night and has caused various noise disturbances on the property.” He also was accused of being aggressive toward staff members.
He denies the allegations and filed a complaint with the mayor’s fair housing office and another with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
“I believe [Willow Bridge] discriminated against me on the basis of my race, disability, and public assistance, by treating me more harshly than other White tenants and threatening to take away my emotional support animal,” he wrote in the commission complaint.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, a GBH News reporter knocked on the door of Penn’s apartment and was welcomed inside.
Penn’s dog Sasha was lying in a cage across the room — not barking. “My dog doesn’t bark,” he said.
Two floors up, Calhoun says is also being threatened with eviction because he left a window partly open in his living room one night when he was gone.
According to the same lawyers, this led to frozen pipes in his kitchen about 20 feet away, causing a damaging flood in the apartments below. GBH News saw no water damage in the apartment. Calhoun said the landlord broke down the door to get in and punched several holes in the walls, including in the bathroom. Calhoun says he could not use his apartment for several days and the shower was broken for weeks.
Property management did not respond to GBH’s questions about Calhoun’s apartment.
Calhoun says that until recently he had a job where he was “working 60, 70 hours a week.” That made him “the perfect tenant because you get your money on time and you never see me. There was never no complaints.”
But that changed, he said, when the property manager changed staffing in the building. Now his kitchen table is piled with threatening letters, cease and desist orders and eviction warnings. “These people are stressing me out,” he said. “This is uncalled for.”
Another one of Credle’s clients, who asked that GBH News not use his name for fear of losing his housing, said the management company has peppered him with letters accusing him of smoking in his apartment — although he doesn’t smoke. He claims company inspectors conducted an unannounced visit.
“I was in the apartment sleeping and they just barged right in,” he said. “They came right into my apartment without knocking.”
The tenant, a Black man in his 50s, said, “I don’t really want to push the issue because I don’t want them to harass me any more.” He said he also doesn’t want to move out. “Where am I going to go? I don’t have too many options,” he said.
Another client Credle helped house is Tyrone Clark, a Black man who was wrongfully convicted and spent 47 years in prison. He was released in 2021 and moved into the Graphic Lofts in 2024. Late last year, Clark received notice from the management that his lease would be terminated because of alleged inappropriate behavior by him and unnamed guests. Clark has filed a counter claim saying he has been targeted along with other formerly incarcerated tenants — but he has also moved out of the building.
His complaint is pending.
Formerly incarcerated people are much more likely to be homeless than the general public. Credle said that the tenants would likely prevail in housing court if they fought their evictions, but most people with criminal records already have a hard time getting housing — and it becomes even harder when their name shows up as having been in housing court.
Credle said Justice 4 Housing is trying to move many of its clients to other buildings if possible. “They don’t want to stay there after being harassed and targeted,” she said.
