For Longtime CU Neighbor, Eviction Comes as Rude Shock

Claude Blanchet will celebrate his 65th birthday on Saturday—but when he blows out the candles on his cake, he’ll be wishing that the eviction notice he received from his landlord, Columbia, will go up in smoke as well.

For 44 years, Blanchet has lived in his beloved apartment at 548 Riverside Drive. But the story of his days in Morningside Heights has recently been unsettled by a series of troubling real estate conundrums. On Wednesday evening, Columbia informed Blanchet that he must be out of his home within six days.

“You don’t go take somebody out with a stick,” Blanchet said, his voice trembling. “I never had a relationship like that with Columbia before.”

Blanchet, the only tenant in his building not affiliated with the University, explained that he has found Columbia to be an “absolutely fantastic” neighbor in the past, but is now worried about the fate that the University has dealt him.

“I have nowhere to go,” he said.

But this isn’t Blanchet’s first run-in with Columbia. “This guy’s got a long history with us,” Columbia spokesperson LaVerna Fountain said.

In 2003, the University discovered that he had four students living with him illegally. Blanchet went to court and claimed that he was not guilty of subletting his rooms, but rather that it was the building manager, Kevin Paget, who was profiting from the unlawful tenants. Columbia ousted Paget and made an agreement with Blanchet, allowing him to remain in his apartment under the condition that he did not sublet it.

Things seemed calm until the spring of 2004, when the University’s Office of Institutional Real Estate found Blanchet sharing his home with three other tenants who were not part of his family—and therefore in violation of the 2003 agreement.
Back in court, Blanchet argued against Columbia, and the judge gave him 19 months to stay in his apartment and search for a new home. But when that time was up and Blanchet refused to move, he brought the case to trial once again. It was dismissed.

Ultimately, Blanchet said he expected the University would reach out with a deal to move him out of his apartment. Columbia has offered Blanchet an alternate space, but it isn’t to his liking.

“Columbia is doing everything possible to work with Mr. Blanchet to relocate him to a smaller apartment more within his fiscal means,” Fountain explained.
But Blanchet does not want to move to a smaller place. “It’s my home. I have wallpaper all over the place,” he said.

Now, with the help of his daughter who lives in nearby Hackensack, N.J., he is focusing on finding a lawyer. Blanchet said he cannot imagine moving in with her should he be unable to keep his apartment. “I would be a burden,” he said.

betsy.morais@columbiaspectator.com.