The owner of a Milton Avenue three-decker that has been illegally operating as a boarding house is slated for arraignment on Tuesday, according to the city’s Inspectional Services Department (ISD).

Neighbors and residents continue to worry that owner Kelvin Sanders and his real estate representative are deliberately packing the house with sex offenders, veterans, and others receiving homelessness-prevention benefits without maintaining the property to an appropriately livable standard.

Dawn Barrett first raised the alarm last year after noticing an influx of men into the large three-decker that abuts the home where she and her two young sons live. She discovered seven Level Three, or ‘high risk’ sex offenders living in 96 Milton Ave., along with an unknown number of Level Two, or ‘moderate risk’ offenders.

She and other neighbors formed the Dorchester Unified Neighborhood (DUN) Association in response.

Inspectors in late October found clear signs that the 12-bedroom house was being used as an illegal lodging house, said ISD Commissioner William Christopher. Sanders was given until Nov. 26 to either convert the three-decker into an appropriately zoned three-family or apply for a 20-person lodging house license. In late November, 18 people were occupying the building, according to ISD.

Though primarily concerned initially about the presence of sex offenders clustered within their neighborhood, DUN members have since circulated petitions and objected vocally to a lodging house operating on the block.

“As community residents and homeowners with children and loved ones to care for,” Barrett wrote online in December, “my neighbors and I are worried about the number of people currently living in the illegal boarding house and concerned about how a boarding house could affect the character of the neighborhood along with possible safety issues in our residential zone.”

A criminal complaint was issued after a show cause hearing on Dec. 12, ISD officials said. The complaint, directed to Sander’s company Last Layer Realty, cites a failure to secure permits to change occupancy from a three-family home to a lodging house containing 20 individual units. The arraignment is scheduled for Jan. 10 in housing court.

ISD spokeswoman Lisa Timberlake said Wednesday that the owner’s architect filed a permit application on Dec. 15 to change the occupancy. Anticipating that ISD will deny the application “because a lodging house is not allowed in this district under the Boston Zoning Code,” the owner’s team will likely file an appeal with the Zoning Board of Appeals, Timberlake said in an email.

Bill, a Level Two sex offender and veteran who lives in the house at the corner of Milton Avenue and Stockton Street, said in an email that he and other residents with veterans benefits were placed in the house by the non-profit HomeStart program. He is working with HomeStart to find alternative living quarters.

An agent with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs came to speak with him just after Thanksgiving, Bill said, and told him an investigation is ongoing. Bill explained to the agent that the woman acting as a realtor, Tiffanie Harrison, is not registered on the state’s database for real estate brokers and had told him a few weeks ago “that Sanders has obtained the necessary permits,” despite no such permits being granted.  

Bill suspects that Harrison is intentionally filling the house with others in his situation, though even he doesn’t know how many other sex offenders are in the house. He is currently withholding rent for failure to comply with the sanitation code and operating as a rooming house with no fire sprinklers, automatic fire alarm system, or emergency exits.

“They want to get into the rooming house business,” Bill said, “and they either don’t know the law or know about it and will not spend the money to hire someone to clean all three bathrooms, kitchen and common areas.”