Rent is due but they’re afraid to leave the house: 3 months with an immigrant family
Christmas is two days away, and a skimpy Charlie Brown tree sits against a plain wall in the basement apartment Yubisay Fonesca shares with her husband and six-year-old son. There’s a sack of miniature Milky Way candy bars on the window sill for guests. After a hard year, Yubisay is eager to share something sweet.
The family lost most of their furniture when Aurora police shut down their old apartment building in August. But now they have a couch again, a TV and black trash bags full of clothes from the move.
Lemon cleaner chokes out cigarette smoke from the hall. They don’t know how they will make rent, but at least they have a home to celebrate Christmas.
Yubisay’s family members were among the hundreds of people, mostly immigrants, living at Fitzsimons Place, a complex that violated health and safety codes for so long Aurora declared it unlivable. In the months since, Denverite has followed along to see how they and other families have survived the aftermath of a controversy that rose to national attention.
In August, police raided the building, taking control from its owner, CBZ Management, who abandoned several properties after a manager was assaulted at a different complex. In February, Aurora shuttered another CBZ apartment, the Edge at Lowry – this time over crime.
Yubisay watched on television as the apartments were sucked into an international media tornado about the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua. Donald Trump himself had campaigned about those CBZ apartments, promoting a mass deportation plan he named Operation Aurora.
Nearly 400 people lost their homes in the CBZ closures. The city of Aurora spent over $200,000 helping pay for hotel stays or rental deposits after the displacement but offered no ongoing case management and didn’t track where people landed, said Joe Rubino, a city spokesperson.
Former residents have scattered across the metro. They’re struggling to pay rent. Some are living in cars or on the streets. And many, like the Fonescas, have been hiding in the shadows from an immigration crackdown.
This story was reported through visits and messages with the Fonescas.
Her motel became home to hundreds of immigrants. Now, a developer’s suing her
In the fall of 2023, Yong Cha Prince’s old motel off Vasquez Boulevard became an accidental sanctuary for hundreds of newly arrived immigrants looking for better lives in the U.S. She was hailed for her kindness at the time, but her decision to open her doors may be coming back to bite her.
Last week, Prince testified in a civil trial over the sale of her crumbling Western Motor Inn. The lawsuit was brought by Sage Investments, a company that turns old motels into housing. The company has been under contract to buy the property since summer 2023, before the immigrants arrived.
The dispute revolves around whether Prince violated the terms of that contract — and whether allowing so many people to shelter on her property caused $2 million in damages that should be knocked off the $6 million sale price.
If Prince wins the case, she might be allowed to walk away from the deal, put the motel back on the market and find a new buyer. If she loses, she may be forced to complete the sale to Sage at a discounted price.
Regardless of the outcome, Prince’s plans to move on from her life in the old motel have already been long delayed. Denver County Judge Andrew McCallin is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks.
