Jun. 10--If there is a purgatory in DeKalb County, Cassandra Jackson moved into it, and she hauled in her own bed and radio.
The 43-year-old also brought her husband, two teenage children and three grandchildren. The seven of them were sharing a room last week in an aging hotel off Clairmont Road near I-85.
It was better than living in the streets, but not by much, Jackson said, adding that she hopes to have the money to move soon.
"This is not my type of living," she said.
"This is not me."
Built as a Days Inn in 1972, the Clairmont Lodge charges $145 a week for the smallest room and requires a $100 deposit. Unlike at a typical apartment complex, there is no requirement to prepay the last month's rent or to produce a credit history.
It's like several older hotels that have evolved into low-budget housing in DeKalb's aging suburbs. They suit those desperate to get under a roof quickly and without a hassle. But some offer questionable sanitary and safety conditions, a heightened concern given the fire that consumed a motel in Riverdale on Thursday.
Bobby Patel, manager of the Budget Inn in Riverdale, which housed several longer-term tenants, said the family that lost five members in the blaze was hoping to move into an apartment or house soon. Patel said "locals" who stayed at the motel for weeks at a time knew the smoke alarms could be triggered by cigarette smoke, and often disabled the detectors.
It's unclear what triggered the Riverdale blaze, but in DeKalb, which appears to have a disproportionate number of hotels and motels used for extended stays, health officials say long-term guests contribute to safety hazards. They plug hot plates or refrigerators into electrical systems that were not designed for them. Or they cook on barbecue grills.
Some hotel owners also allow conditions to deteriorate, said Janice Buchanon, director of the Environmental Health Division of the DeKalb County Board of Health. "I just shudder to think what can happen in some of these facilities."
Buchanon said the Clairmont Lodge is on a list of 21 "bad actors" in DeKalb -- hotels that consistently fail sanitary and safety inspections.
DeKalb County appears to be suffering more from hotel decline than surrounding counties. Representatives for the health enforcement agencies in Clayton, Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties said they had no serious enforcement problems with hotels used as long-term residences.
"I know that DeKalb has a monstrous problem with that," said Vernon Goins, a spokesman for Gwinnett's health board. "We don't generally have that problem in Gwinnett because most of ours are new."
In Clayton County, where Thursday's lethal fire occurred, the health board is "not aware of" a problem with extended-stay hotel maintenance, spokeswoman Veronda Griffin said. "But with the economy as it is, and people needing places to stay, hotel operators may be allowing people to stay longer than was intended with their business" permits. Griffin said permits for tourist accommodations such as the Budget Inn do not prohibit longer stays.
In DeKalb County, where access to public housing is limited -- the county housing authority has 200 units and a waiting list of 1,500 families -- hotels such as the Clairmont Lodge fill a critical niche.
They "probably are the only place a lot of these folks have to live," said County Commissioner Larry Johnson, whose southwest DeKalb district -- the county's economically poorest -- has several of the hotels.
One of Johnson's constituents voiced a typical complaint about such hotels: that they attract drug dealers and prostitutes. Darryl Jennings, president of the Gresham Park Community Association off Bouldercrest Road, accused the owners of being "slumlords" who don't care about the community.
"The only interest they have is making money," Jennings said. He wants the county to shut down the worst offenders.
But Johnson said that would leave a lot of people homeless. He said the solution is to offer social services that help the tenants transition into standard housing, and to force owners to meet health and safety codes. Hotel owners "need to be spending more on maintenance, keeping these places up," he said.
Bob Patel (no relation to the Budget Inn's Patel), owner of the Sunset Lodge in south DeKalb, acknowledged that his 34-year-old establishment attracts troubled people. He said the majority of the guests at the 175-unit building are staying for a week or more.
Some are hiding from police, he said. Older relatives pay their $149 a week rent to get them out of the house. "If somebody's done something wrong, at least they can say 'they're not here' " when the police come around, he said.
On a recent evening, two girls were reading magazines while sitting in shopping carts abandoned on the grounds of Bob Patel's hotel. Other children were milling about the exterior corridors of the four-story building. Last semester, the DeKalb school system sent a bus to the lodge, off Flat Shoals Road and I-20, to collect three students. They were among 102 listed as "homeless" and living in DeKalb hotels.
Patel said he is trying to deter criminals. He said he pays an off-duty police officer $200 a night to watch the place from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., and he showed off a file several inches thick that contains the names, identifying information and photographs of people who will be reported for trespassing if they're seen on the property. The documents contain notations such as "known prostitute" or drug paraphernalia found in purse.
The Sunset Lodge has been cited by the DeKalb health board for numerous violations over the years. Inspectors found dirty walls, carpets and furniture, or standing water and mildew. They also reported dangers such as broken smoke detectors and cooking equipment in rooms.
On Wednesday, a DeKalb Recorders Court judge ordered the management to pay $1,040 in fines on two citations. Patel said one was for an inoperable smoke alarm and the other for cooking equipment in a room.
Patel said his place is not a fire hazard. Most tenants cook with microwaves, he said. He pounded his fist against the walls to demonstrate that they are made of concrete and are not flammable.
Patel said he's spent more than $25,000 on fresh paint and repairs recently and that he's running a legitimate business. He said he has money to invest in maintenance because he and a half-dozen family members operate the hotel, cleaning it and running the cash register.
Any business will get cited for violations from time to time, he said. "We're trying to keep the place up."
An owner of north DeKalb's Clairmont Lodge said her company spent about $200,000 to deal with health division citations issued last year. Donna Chimberoff said the 25-acre compound is safe and that most of the allegations involved cosmetic problems such as peeling paint.
"There's a good chance that you're going to come onto the property at any time and find violations," Chimberoff said. "It's easy to do. I mean, you can go into the Ritz-Carlton and find violations."
The Clairmont Lodge has been cited repeatedly for sanitary violations, from roach infestation to mold and mildew contamination. Last year, a man called the health division to say he'd been a resident for more than a year in a "very nasty" room and that he was suffering from a skin irritation. He complained that his mattress was stained with urine. The management is required to clean the rooms regularly.
Inspectors noted a lack of smoke detectors, mold in bathrooms, missing handrails, a sinkhole in the parking lot, and cracked and unstable walkways at the Clairmont Lodge.
An engineering report documented holes in steel stairwells and cracks in masonry walls, and determined that some concrete slabs on exterior corridors were "badly broken" and had "minimal remaining structural integrity."
In August, the lodge's management pleaded guilty to 10 citations in DeKalb Recorders Court and agreed to address the shortcomings. The court levied a $6,000 fine and, last month, deemed the work complete.
Jackson moved her family into the Clairmont Lodge last winter. She brought an extra bed -- her unit had only one -- so only her children had to sleep on the floor.
Her grandchildren weren't allowed on the porch of the second-floor unit because the porch rail wobbled. She also wouldn't let them stray to the neighboring building in the 648-unit compound because she had heard fights there and feared there were drug dealers.
She said she found used condoms on the soiled carpet in her hallway. Outside one of her building's doorways, a constellation of beer bottle caps was embedded in the hard-packed dirt that served as a lawn.
Jackson said she had seen cockroaches and noticed that a hallway in a neighboring building had a soft depression that gave way underfoot. She said she was used to this kind of thing: She moved her family from a nearby apartment complex that she said was demolished after they left.
She said she pays $180 a week, and that for that kind of money, the family could get a house or an apartment. Jackson said she and her husband, a gravedigger and auto mechanic, were hoping to have enough saved to move soon.
The family had better hurry. Chimberoff said her lodge is being sold this year —- to a developer who plans to raze the compound and build luxury apartments.
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