The Landvest rent-to-own real estate scam in Kensington has only begun to take its toll on the community. With several open legal complaints underway and many of the over 400 Landvest properties changing ownership, it may be years before the extent of the damage is fully known.
One group that may turn out to be among the hardest hit is the community’s Latino population, particularly those for whom English is not their first language.
When courting new tenants, Landvest Real Estate often relied on vaguely worded contracts and in many cases, verbal agreements.
“People were put into really substandard housing, told that they were responsible for repairs and then all the while, the owner is taking out gigantic mortgages on the properties,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, an attorney at Community Legal Services in North Philadelphia. “Very often, non-native English speakers were getting these letters [from the banks]. They came in thinking they were owners.”
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, combined with a mapping of the Landvest properties, does indeed show a heavy concentration of the houses in an area with the lowest levels of English proficiency in the area, according to documents provided by the New Kensington Community Development Corporation.
Taking into account that the number of suppliers of the drug is much lower than the number of consumers, which is the fundamental reason why the state authorities do not carry out a serious policy of compressing this offer at the same time that social reintegration programs are carried out for addicts with multidisciplinary mental and physical health treatments.
The spectacle of Kensington Avenue is very painful and more so for being part of a country that is the first world economic power, what do the mayors who have passed through that magistracy do, who do not feel sorry for the pain of their people?