Politics & Government

Housing Code Violation May Result in Homelessness for Manassas Park Family

Christina Chmino said she and her girlfriend rented a room in Manassas Park, not knowing that's illegal in a single family residence zoned for single families.

Christina Chmino and her girlfriend Jessica Chaer fear they will be homeless in December because of a housing code violation they say their landlord committed.

The couple said they’ve rented a room at a Scott Drive residence in Manassas Park for a year and four months, not knowing that Manassas Park’s code prohibits more than one family living in a single family home that is located in a Single Family Residential District.

“We didn’t know anything until someone knocks at the side door. We were completely unaware that this place was illegal,” Chmino said. “We are a low-income family. We struggle even to make the $700 rent. Everything on Craigslist is more than a $1,000. We don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ll probably be living out of the car because we have animals and we can’t go to a shelter with animals.”

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Chmino said her 9-year-old son has Asberger’s syndrome and she doesn’t want to disrupt his schooling with a move.

“He’s the innocent victim in all this,” she said. “We’re panicking. When you’re low income, you have to have money. We just don’t know what to do.”

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Manassas Park Planning Commissioner Vanessa Watson declined to comment on any ongoing codes enforcement cases but said she has investigated about a dozen single family dwelling violation cases in the last year.

“If it was my sole job to investigate these cases, it would be more,” she said. “But given that it’s what I do part time, it’s a portion of my day that goes to this. I would venture to say it’s going on a lot more, but jurisdictions just don’t find out about it.”

That is just one element of code enforcement, she added. City officials have to get everyone to be in compliance with every bit of the code.

The only way authorities know to investigate a dwelling is if they get complaints, which are usually called in by a neighbor, she said.

Authorities receive complaints about multiple cars being parked in the driveway or in front of a single family dwelling, Watson said. This can indicate more than one family is living there.

Homeowners may be inclined to rent out a room or two because it seems to be a good option for saving money, Manassas Park City Manager Jim Zumwalt said.

“If you own a house and you’ll like to have money and you have the space, the attractive thing to do is rent out your bedroom. To an individual with a home, particularly an individual with a home and tight finances, that's a wonderful and desirable thing to do,” he said. “The rules are quite simple: If it’s a single family home and the neighborhood itself is single family—you can’t go into the apartment business.”

The cost of renting an apartment has gone up significantly, and so a lot of people turn to renting a room or a basement within a single family dwelling to save money, Watson said.

Chmino said they were renting a room for that very reason. She’s afraid they won’t be able to find a home because they will need at least $2,500 to move to a different place—that’s the cost of first month’s rent and any deposits.

They have tried to get help from several nonprofit agencies to help with the cost, but those agencies are all tapped out, Chmino said. “We are being punished,” Chmino said. “Our landlord broke the law.”

Watson said she doesn't believe most homeowners or their tenants are delibrately trying to circumvent the law.

Every homeowner she’s dealt with has been more than willing to comply with the law, once city officials educate them on the problem as well as how and why it needs to be rectified, Watson said.

Because many people don’t know the law on single family housing, there has been some talk among city officials about sending letters to every homeowner in the city as a way of educating them about the Manassas Park code, Watson said.


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