http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... rcrowding/

MILFORD
Officials target overcrowding
By Missy Ryan, Globe Correspondent | July 23, 2006

Milford officials will ask Town Meeting this fall to approve spending nearly $125,000 to enforce a crackdown on overcrowded rental apartments and houses.

Town Administrator Louis Celozzi said the extra funds would be used to hire inspectors to survey the town's approximately 3,500 rental units.

Town Meeting in October approved a plan to identify and eradicate overcrowding in the town, which officials say has generated complaints about excessive noise, unsightly trash, and parked cars jamming the streets around rental houses.

Paul Mazzuchelli, the town's director of public health, said he gets about five such complaints a month.

Under the new bylaw, all landlords in the town of about 30,000 must register with the Board of Health. Inspectors will be hired to measure rental units, calculate the maximum number of people who can live in them under state law, and report back on whether there are too many occupants.

If there are, the Board of Health would order the landlord to reduce the number of tenants, and could hold a hearing or take the landlord to court.

Mazzuchelli said he expects the fee that landlords must pay to register properties eventually will make the program pay for itself.

Milford, home to long-standing Italian-American and Portuguese-American communities, has drawn some attention in the recent debate over federal immigration policy. Some say the town is cracking down too hard on a growing population of newer immigrants.

In the past year, Milford has passed several bylaws that could affect immigrants, including a ban on check-cashing operations outside banks, which many immigrants use to send money to relatives in their home countries. Another rule, if approved by the state, would limit to three the number of unrelated adults who can share an apartment.

The measures seeking to curb overcrowding may have a particular impact on immigrants, because many legal and illegal immigrants in Massachusetts and across the country try to save on rent by sharing living quarters.

The proposed crackdown was criticized by one immigrant activist.

`` Milford could probably use $125,000 for a school system or infrastructure instead of . . . chasing down immigrants who are contributing to the livelihood of Milford," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Refugee and Immigrant Advocacy Coalition. ``This is just a poor use of public funds."

Town officials acknowledge that most of the overcrowding complaints they get lead them to immigrants' homes, but they insist the effort to control overcrowding is not an attack on the newcomers.

``Is there an association with immigrants and overcrowding? Absolutely. I've seen it," Mazzuchelli said.

Still, he added, ``it's not about race, ethnicity, any of that. It's about what's good and not good for the neighborhood."

Mazzuchelli said at least one of the complaints he fielded led him to a houseful of longtime residents, people he had known growing up.

Homes packed with too many people may lack safe exits, enough smoke alarms, or proper plumbing. Officials also said they are worried about overcrowded homes being incubators for communicable diseases.

Establishing and enforcing clear occupancy limits can also prevent greedy landlords from overcharging for substandard housing, Mazzuchelli said.