CES IN THE NEWS

1) CES tenant leader Reyna Gonzales being recognized by Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo for her involvement and courage in bringing her building up to code.

2) CES tenant leader being interviewed during a healthy homes event.

Los Angeles Daily News
Sunday, May 4, 2008

Soaring Food Prices Taking their Toll on Families

By Susan Abram and Sue Doyle, Staff Writers

WINNETKA - Soaring prices at the supermarket are taking their toll on families across the Southland as the rising cost of everything from milk to eggs is stretching already-thin finances to the limit.

The Melgar family used to load up the cart at Costco with jugs of nuts and tire-size cheese wheels, but those days are over. Special cookies and treats for the three kids are left on the shelves. And restaurant dining has become too much of a luxury.

"We are trying to economize at home," said Norma Melgar, who plans to shut off her cell phone to help offset the rising food costs. "Little by little, we are cutting back."

The Winnetka family is among thousands across the Southland and the nation tightening their purse strings as a combination of factors - including increased consumption in developing nations, rising energy prices, crop shortages and booming corn-based ethanol production - have fueled the latest pinch to consumers' pocketbooks.

The situation has become so serious that last week Congress considered approving $770 million to help alleviate food price hikes that are threatening to spark widespread hunger and social unrest in some nations.

Already, a global shortage of rice has reached U.S. shores, and some chains, including Costco Wholesale Corp. and Sam's Club, are limiting customer purchases in California to four 20-pound bags of jasmine, basmati, or long-grain white rice.

And a recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says the Consumer Price Index on food costs is likely to rise 4 percent to 5 percent this year - nearly twice the rate for 2005 - and it will come on the heels of a 5 percent increase last year that was the biggest in nearly two decades.

Nationally, a dozen large eggs cost an average $2.20 in March, up from $1.63 a year ago. For the year, a jump of almost 30 percent is expected from 2007 egg prices. White bread cost $1.35 a pound, up from $1.16 a year ago.

Major increases are likely for fats and oils, expected to rise 8 percent to 9 percent, and cereals and bakery products, projected to jump 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent.

But local prices can be even higher. At a Woodland Hills Ralphs Market last week, a half-gallon of milk cost $3.79, a box of instant oatmeal was $4.99, and a dozen store-brand eggs cost $2.99.

The rising food prices are complicating an already-delicate balancing act as many families grapple with soaring gas prices, foreclosures and an unsteady job market, said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit.

"We're seeing people have their economic walls close in on them," Gross said. "They are finding there's little to cut back on to enable them to economically survive."

And growing numbers of families are trying to cope by shopping more frequently for cheaper milk, cereal, bread and other staples at drugstores or Target and Wal-Mart stores.

"You'll find a lot of households who would never have thought of shopping at 99 Cent Only Stores in the past who now have to," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "It's a necessity to get by."

Purchases at 99 Cent Only Stores rose 2 percent in the past quarter, with more than half of all transactions involving food items such as produce and milk, CEO Eric Schiffer said.

The No. 1 store location in sales? Beverly Hills.

"Over the years, we've added more food and beverages, to the point that it makes up more than 50 percent of our sales," Schiffer said. "That surprises people who thought of our store as just selling trinkets."

But even those who buy food at 99 Cent Only Stores are pinching pennies as the retailer also has had to pass on some of its own rising costs, Schiffer said. "There may have been something we sold for three for 99 cents, and now we have two for 99 cents. We had sold 2.5 pounds of bananas for 99 cents, and now it's 2.2 pounds."

Living on a fixed income, Richard Haviland, 68, of Tarzana, snaps up Sunday fliers and scans them for bargains on anything from coffee to toothpaste. And he frequently finds prices at Longs Drugs and CVS competitive with traditional grocery stores.

"I haven't paid full price for toothpaste in three or four years. The prices between drugstores and grocery stores are night and day," Haviland said. "This is how I live. I have it figured out."

The Melgars also are finding savings by clipping coupons and shopping at grocery stores such as Food4Less and Value Plus. "You go to the market, and higher prices are everywhere," Norma Melgar said. "They are so bad."

Others are just beginning to change their shopping habits, including Thousand Oaks residents Lee and Tamie Casagrande, who are expecting their second child in the next few weeks.

"I like eating steaks, so I've noticed the increase," Lee Casagrande said as he pumped fuel into his Chrysler Town and Country last week. At $3.99 a gallon, the total came to $71.23.

But he said he is more concerned about keeping his job in a mortgage industry in the middle of a housing downturn.

As Connie Gatt of Topanga piled bags of groceries into her Jeep, she said she isn't at the point where she is willing to compromise on foods, although she and her husband and 8-year-old daughter don't often eat out.

"I'm in an OK situation, but I really watch the sales," she said, adding that the porterhouse steak and thin-sliced pork chops she bought were on sale.

"I won't compromise on food," she said. "But my husband and I talk about giving up the Jeep almost every day."

As other families and the elderly struggle, increasing numbers are turning to food pantries that are stretched thin, with less food on their shelves amid increased prices and tightened federal funding.

The Los Angeles Regional Foodbank saw its food volume decrease 64 percent in the past five years - or 11.5 million fewer meals.

"The demand is steadily increasing, and we're seeing more and more people who are visiting our pantries for the first time, finding themselves in the unfamiliar circumstance of asking for food," said Leslie Friedman, director of SOVA, an agency run by Jewish Family Service.

The agency operates three food-pantry and resource-center facilities, including one in Van Nuys, and it lists donations it needs on its Web site at www.jfsla.org.

Friedman said the rising cost of food means the pantry can no longer give out eggs. Day-old bread is also rare because the increasing cost of wheat has led bakeries to produce less and reduce surplus.

As $130 million in federal economic-stimulus checks arrive, analysts say many taxpayers will plunk down much of the money on food, gas and credit-card bills to help ease the economic pinch.

Some supermarkets already have jumped on the possibility, including Ralphs and Albertsons, which will add $30, $60 or $120 to a gift card when customers exchange tax refunds or economic-stimulus checks for the item. The bonus equals 10 percent of the amount exchanged. The offer began Friday and will last through July 31.

But enticing customers to spend more might be tough as families have started to forgo dining out to be able to afford the basic groceries. A recent survey by the National Restaurant Association found more than 60 percent of restaurant owners saw business drop in March.

"The soft economy continues to weigh on the minds of restaurant operators," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research and information for the association. "Twenty-five percent of restaurant operators said the economy is the No.1 challenge facing their business, followed by food costs."

And even some discount mom-and-pop shops - where thrifty shoppers can buy anything from cookies to Chapstick for $1 - are struggling as consumers watch their pennies.

"They are struggling to survive," Riehle said. "They are competing with the Wal-Marts of the world. It's tough on them."

 


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Los Angeles Downtown News
Friday, May 1, 2008

Mad Props

Anger and Eminent Domain Rise For Propositions 98 and 99

By  Richard Guzmán


It's been called a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and a "hidden agenda scheme" by opponents, and hailed as a necessary protection for property owners by its supporters.

But if you're still not sure whether or not to back Proposition 98, a statewide measure that will appear on the June 3 ballot, you're not alone. Many people are confusing it with Proposition 99, another eminent domain-related measure on the same ballot.

While the rhetoric and the ads are heating up, a cadre of local leaders are clear: They're aggressively against Prop 98.

"If this were to pass, we would see more people on the street, we would see redevelopment grind to a halt and we would see the ability to preserve affordable housing go out the door," said City Council President Eric Garcetti, who authored a resolution against the proposition in mid-April. It was approved by the entire council.

Proposition 98, sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, aims to curb eminent domain by stopping government from taking private property for private use. Proponents say it assures that people's land and holdings will not be turned over to developers, and gives them more freedom to set rental prices.

Many opponents instead back Proposition 99, a measure sponsored by the League of California Cities that would protect homeowners only from having their property seized for private use.

"We're facing the largest housing crisis since the Great Depression and the last thing we need to do is something that would be the largest step backward that we've seen in a generation," Garcetti said.

Rent control laws in Los Angeles cover all units built before Oct. 1, 1978. They affect apartments, mobile homes and residential hotels and kick in when a tenant occupies the residence for more than 30 days.

There are about 627,000 rent-controlled units in Los Angeles, according to the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenants' rights group based just west of Downtown Los Angeles, which opposes Proposition 98.

There are no specific figures on how many rent-controlled units exist in Downtown, but in districts that overlap the area, such as Jose Huizar's 14th District, Ed Reyes' First District and Jan Perry's Ninth District, there are a cumulative 127,000 rent-controlled units, according to figures provided by the city's Housing Department.

In Downtown, adaptive reuse projects turned into condominiums are not covered by rent control laws. Tenants in residential hotels such as the Alexandria and the Cecil, which has about 100 long-term tenants, are protected by the laws.

"A coordinated attack on rent control, which is one of the safeguards of keeping people in affordable housing, is very frightening," Perry said. "It would create more chaos out there in the market for us to keep people in housing. As it is, we can't build affordable housing fast enough."

Current rent control laws restrict the amount of money a landlord may raise rent each year. If a tenant moves out, however, a landlord can reset the rent at market rate. Once the unit is rented again, it falls back under rent control guidelines.

Under Proposition 98, once a tenant in a rent-controlled apartment moves out, that unit would never again be subject to rent-control laws.

Focusing on Eviction

Advocates of Prop 98 say it would protect property owners from prying governments.

"It would prevent the City Council from taking property, whether it be a small business, a house of worship or even an apartment building, and turning it over to developer allies for things like strip malls and profit-making enterprises," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Vosburgh noted that it would phase out rent control, but said that would occur only after a tenant voluntarily vacates a unit.

He added that Proposition 98 does nothing to restrict the seizure of property for public uses such as building roads, schools or firehouses.

"It is the private-to-private transfers" that are affected, he said.

That provides little comfort to opponents, who argue that the measure would also jeopardize laws that protect renters, including making evictions easier.

"They say it won't affect existing renters," said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, "but while it might continue to control rent increases while the existing tenant is in there, all the eviction protection would be immediately eliminated, thus making controls on rent increases meaningless because they would just boot everyone out."

Vosburgh maintained the proposition would not impact restrictions on evictions.

"There's nothing in there that would change any of that. That's just a lot of nonsense," he said.

Proposition 98 is opposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former Gov. Pete Wilson. Groups against the measure include the California Chamber of Commerce, the League of California Homeowners and the California Association of Counties.

Groups supporting Proposition 98 include the California Farm Bureau Federation, the California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights Committee, the California Republican Party and the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles.

 


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Los Angeles CityBeat
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Paved Paradise

Meet Your Newest Parking Lot

By  Daryl Paranada

In the northwest corner of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, where the 618 South Hobart apartment complex lay, sits a vacant parking lot. Gone from that quiet street are the 21 units of that two-story complex, which the temple owned. Gone is another rent-controlled apartment from the Los Angeles skyline, and in its place is pavement.

The final chapter of the South Hobart complex story begins in August 1999, when the temple sold the complex for $565,000. Nobody knew what would happen nearly seven years later. In November 2006, the temple repurchased the complex for $2.6 million. A few months later, in January, they sent notices to the tenants of the complex notifying them of eviction via the Ellis Act, a state law that allows landlords to take buildings out of the rental market under a set of strict requirements. Almost a year after the last tenants had moved out of the complex, the building was gone.

"Chris Smith" says half of her former neighbors moved out of the complex immediately, some because they didn't want to deal with the hassle, others because they did not understand what they were entitled to, and a few left because of the promises made by the consulting company hired by the temple: Shober Consulting. Smith says tenants were verbally promised $500 by the consulting firm for each month they left before the scheduled eviction date. That money never materialized.

"They are eviction expediters. They very often offer additional relocation money, provide Westside Rentals listings, but they don't represent the tenants. They're paid by the landlord who wants the tenants out," says Teresa Feldman, a former temple member who advocates on behalf of the South Hobart residents and who serves on her community's neighborhood council.

"We did provide relocation funds well in excess of statutory requirements," says Howard Kaplan, the temple's executive director.

One advocate for raising the relocation fees was Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, a grassroots community-based organization dedicated to organizing low and moderate income people in their quest for economic and social justice. Gross was one of the first people the tenants met with when they decided to fight to get higher relocation fees.

"I told them that they needed to organize and appeal to the temple that they were impacting the tenants' lives directly," says Gross. "The temple was contributing to our affordable housing crisis by demolishing 20-something-odd rent controlled affordable units in the city."

Negotiations with the temple led to higher relocation fees for tenants who remained. Smith, who received the higher relocation fees, broke a mediated confidentiality agreement because she says the matter needed to be exposed and the behavior of the temple examined. "Forcing us out of our homes so they could have a parking lot?" asks Smith. "What they did is not social justice. By the time we got organized, half the tenants were gone. At that point all the half of us who got organized could ask for was the new relocation amounts and more time."

"It's one of the saddest things," says Feldman, a kindergarten teacher whose family left the temple after more than six years. "[My husband and I] talked to the temple. We said, 'You can't kick these people out, they have nowhere to go. They'll be competing at the same time for the single apartments that exist in L.A.' "

Feldman and her family eventually chose to leave the oldest reform synagogue in Los Angeles because of what they believe was poor treatment of the people who lived in those units. "The sad thing," Feldman says, "is they didn't really seem to understand that an extra $10,000 to someone who is a waitress who works two jobs or a street musician who plays banjo at the La Brea tar pits or a retired worker or a couple with a new baby, can change their lives."

Rabbi Steven Z. Leder says the temple does have plans to expand, though the parking lot where the complex used to sit remains empty and cars cannot park on the lots closest to the temple. Leder says $5 million in pledges will help build a social services facility, which will feed, clothe and provide basic medical services for hundreds of people. "I consider that to be a socially responsible use of the property," says Leder.

The temple is currently in the planning stages of its development, but will open modules for a temporary nursery school in the parking lot this fall. Eventually, they hope what will sit on the empty parking lot, in addition to their nursery school, is a parent center and social services building.

The temple says it will continue to help the poor and needy by opening up their food pantry each week, assisting the local community through work with organizations like Habitat for Humanity to build homes, and reaching out to people through events like co-sponsoring the recent Earth Day Festival.

For CES' Gross, the loss of the South Hobart complex points to a bigger problem with housing in the L.A. region. "We're facing probably the nation's worst affordable housing crisis," says Gross. "Sixty-one percent of L.A. residents are renters and about a third of our housing stock is overcrowded. About a third of our housing stock is substandard. Wages aren't keeping pace with rising rents. And in that backdrop over the last several years, from 2001 to about 2007, we lost 15,000 rent controlled units due to demolitions and condo conversions.

"This housing crisis, especially the demolitions and condo conversions, have reached up into the middle class," says Gross. "Now we're seeing nurses and hotel works and clerks and bus drivers and firefighters and janitors, essentially the people who make L.A. run, are being run out of L.A. and if this isn't addressed we're going to end up seeing something that will diminish L.A.'s strength and beauty --- its diversity."

For the former residents of the South Hobart complex, the idea that the temple is building facilities to help the poor offers little consolation.

"The Wilshire Boulevard Temple Board of Directors tore up a community of individuals and demolished 22 units of moderate and affordable housing that sat right on top of the Purple Line and the Wilshire Boulevard Transit Corridor," says Smith. "A handful of the people were able to stay in the neighborhood. The rest are gone. Gone to places like the Philippines, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Eagle Rock, and Atwater Village. In our place? A parking lot.

"Maybe in five years they will build a nursery school, but in the meantime we were evicted by a parking lot."

 


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Los Angeles Daily News
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Tenants Fear Loss of Rent Control

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer

He's a disabled Vietnam veteran. She's a retired teacher who spends most of her pension on health insurance.

Arnie and Marilyn Bernstein are among an estimated 1million Angelenos with a rent-controlled apartment.

But if voters kill rent control in a June ballot measure, the Bernsteins say, their monthly payment would jump from $876 to $1,300 - a 48 percent increase.

"We couldn't afford another apartment," said Marilyn Bernstein, 62, of Canoga Park, who has lived in the one-bedroom unit for 21 years. "We'd be living under a bridge - like `Tent City, here we come.' The possibility of lifting rent control would be devastating."

Critics of Proposition 98 say it is billed as stopping government from seizing property for private use, but really aims to abolish tenant protections statewide because it also contains language to phase out rent control and gut laws that protect renters from unfair evictions.

Safeguards for mobile-home residents also would be imperiled, they say.

"Proposition 98 is a wolf in sheep's clothing that would roll back key environmental and tenant protections," Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti said. He authored a city resolution against the measure last week.

He supports a rival ballot measure, Proposition 99, "which would protect Californians from government taking property that should remain in private hands, but wouldn't negatively impact other important environmental and tenant laws," he said.

Jarvis group's measure

Proposition 98 is a statewide ballot measure sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that would limit the ability of governments to seize private commercial property and homes and turn them over to private developers.

Proposition 99 is supported by the League of California Cities and would protect only homeowners from having their property seized for private use.

Big money has already streamed in to support both campaigns.

Of the $3.9 million for Proposition 98, critics say 80 percent has come from interests connected to owners of mobile-home parks and apartment buildings.

Most of the $7.1 million funneled in for Proposition 99 has come from a coalition of government associations, environmental groups, businesses and labor unions.

Supporters of Proposition 98 say it would prevent governments from taking homes and businesses through eminent domain and transferring it to a private owner, possibly to build a shopping mall or a business park.

The measure would also restrict government's ability to seize private property for water projects and would grant new compensation to owners when their property is taken.

They say it would also put a stop to government's power to set the price for which owners could sell or lease their properties.

Jon Coupal, president of the Jarvis association, has maintained that the measure was ultimately designed to give the strongest protections to property owners, including landlords.

But he also has said the initiative would continue to protect tenants living within the state's dozen rent-controlled cities.

"It doesn't make it easier to evict anybody," Coupal said. "All the protections under existing law remain in effect. Only when that unit is vacated can anybody raise rents.

"We actually take the existing protections against evictions and make them part of the California Constitution."

Naysayers insist, however, that the landlord-backed measure would essentially end rent control in California.

Evictions feared

While rent ceilings for tenants of a housing unit would stay in place until they moved, the initiative jeopardizes restrictions against evictions, critics say. Easy evictions mean easy vacancies. New vacancies allow higher rents.

And once a tenant living under old rent-control laws moves out, rents can be hiked at any time for succeeding tenants.

That could have huge consequences for Los Angeles, where 61 percent of residents rent. Of the 1 million rent-controlled units in California, 627,000 are in Los Angeles, with 46,000 more of them in West Hollywood and Santa Monica, according to the Coalition for Economic Survival, a pro-tenants group.

"This city will be the hardest hit, as well as this entire region," said Larry Gross, executive director of the coalition and a Southern California leader of the campaign against Proposition 98 and for Proposition 99.

"Renters will wake up one day in June, if (98) passes, and they will wake up defenseless, and their landlords could put them out on the street," he said.

Opponents of the initiative include AARP, the League of Women Voters of California, the Western Center on Law & Poverty and former Gov. Pete Wilson.

AARP and the League of Women Voters held a news conference Wednesday in Pasadena to bring awareness to what they say are "deceptive and shameful" radio ads supporting Proposition 98.

Supporters include the California Association of Realtors, Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and numerous taxpayer associations and farm bureaus.

Abida Sheikh, who owns a Northridge apartment building with six units, said she could charge tenants hundreds more a month without rent control. But she said insurance and property taxes, which suck up four months worth of rents, are harder to take.

"I'm with rent control," she said. "It's not hurting us. It's the property taxes and insurance that is killing us - and bad tenants. They don't want to pay the rent, and they say, `Come back tomorrow."'

Arnie Bernstein said his landlord has been trying to drive him and his wife out for years to jack up rents. Without rent control, they'd be forced to leave the state.

"All these landlords think they are getting shortchanged because they can't get market value," said Bernstein, 64, who lives on Social Security. "But many of them aren't worth market value.

"Where I live, you can hear people fornicating next door. The plumbing is bad. If I first came to L.A. and they offered me this place for $1,300, I would about-face and walk away."

 


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Pasadena Star News
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Advocacy Groups Denounce Proposition 98

By Fred Ortega, Staff Writer

PASADENA - A coalition of advocacy groups is denouncing a ballot measure it claims would eradicate rent control and throw thousands of low-income Californians onto the streets.

Members of the League of Women Voters, the Western Center of Law & Poverty and housing attorneys joined fixed-income renters at the AARP's Pasadena headquarters Wednesday to issue a "fraud alert" against advertisements promoting Proposition 98.

The proposition, which is being championed by a coalition led by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is billed as an effort to keep government from handing property to private developers using eminent domain.

But opponents say that hidden within the language of the June 3 ballot initiative are provisions that would eliminate rent control in apartments and mobile home parks across the state, including for the more than 627,000 rent-controlled households in Los Angeles alone.

"The eminent domain argument is a Trojan horse," said Kathy Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for the AARP-led coalition. "About 80 percent of the funding for the `Yes on 98 Campaign' comes from landlords, and all they care about is eliminating rent control."

Much of the support the proposition has received has indeed come from landlord groups, said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

But he accused opponents in government of exaggerating the proposition's effects on rent control in order to secure their own ability to seize private property for redevelopment purposes.

"Parts of our measure would phase out rent control in a way that if a person under rent control leaves a unit, the controls on that unit would be eliminated," said Vosburgh, noting that the League of California Cities has gone on record opposing the measure. "So I would imagine in 40 or 50 years it might be eliminated, but it would not impact anyone currently on rent control."

Vosburgh added that the proposition would ban cities from using eminent domain to take land from a private owner and turning it over to another private entity.

"They would still be able to take it for public schools, roads and other legitimate purposes," he said. "But you can't take it because, say, a strip mall might bring more revenue than Ms. Jones' business, or Mr. Sanchez's house."

But rent control is not the only thing that would be jeopardized by Proposition 98, AARP Executive Council member Marvin Schachter said.

"We have inclusionary zoning here in Pasadena, where new developers are required to set aside a portion of construction for affordable housing, and that would be invalidated by this proposition," said Schachter, adding that the Pasadena City Council has gone on the record against Proposition 98.

An analysis of the proposition shows its provisions would end rent control for 1million Californians, said Greg Spiegel, a housing attorney for the Western Center on Law & Poverty.

"This would have a devastating effect on renters and undo centuries of landlord-tenant law," said Spiegel, adding that Proposition 98 would also do away with other renter-protection measures, such as notices for no-fault evictions and caps on what landlords can charge for credit checks.

"This is a doomsday measure backed by wealthy landlords and mobile-home park owners," added Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, noting that condo-conversion protection and tenant relocation programs would also be affected by the proposition. "It is nothing but lies, lies, lies motivated by greed, greed, greed."

Schachter said his group wanted to alert people to the proposition early, especially those seniors who cast their votes via absentee ballot.

"There will probably be tremendously low turnout this election and that is part of the (Proposition 98) proponents' strategy," said Schachter, whose group is urging voters to support Proposition 99, a rival measure they say includes safeguards for renters.

"They will likely send out slate mailers supporting unchallenged candidates and incumbents like Adam Schiff and Carol Liu, and also urging a yes on 98 vote. It is morally indefensible, but it happens all the time."

Vosburgh countered by accusing the anti-Proposition 98 folks of using underhanded tactics.

"They are looking to inflame tenants by saying they are going to lose rent control, but a lot of the lying that goes on in politics is what you leave out," said Vosburgh. "They are not personally going to lose rent control. But at the same time, there are currently no significant restrictions on eminent domain in the state, and all you have to do is look at Baldwin Park, where they are pushing people out of their homes for redevelopment."
 

 


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Los Angeles Daily News
Tuesday, March 12, 2008

Low Income Tenants Being Squeezed Out

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer

 In a blow to some of the Valley's poorest people, nearly 50 mostly senior and disabled tenants are being forced out of their apartments by landlords seeking to flee city rent control and subsidized housing.

Renters in Reseda, Northridge and North Hollywood who get federal Section 8 subsidies have been told to pay full market rates or get out, tenants, city officials and housing advocates said.

Though there are 45 documented cases, 115 tenants in four complexes could get 90-day notices that demand as much as $900 more a month in rent, or face eviction.

With few Section 8 rentals available in the Valley, tenants might have to uproot to the east, south and harbor areas of Los Angeles.

"We're going to be living on the street," said Laura Cloud, 47, a stroke victim with an unemployed husband and two daughters at Kingswood Village apartments in Reseda, who was given until April 25 to pay up or leave. "I'm lost for words. I'm very upset. I can't explain the feelings I feel. But I don't want to be in a shelter."

Section 8 evictions are on the rise across L.A., where rents soared an annual 5.5percent in the third quarter of last year and only 3percent of apartments are vacant. As a result, some landlords have sought to bypass rent control by opting out of the program.

Tenant advocates and city housing officials say some landlords are breaking the law by forcing out existing Section 8 tenants.

Landlord and tenant groups hotly debate the legality of evicting Section 8 tenants under Los Angeles' rent-control ordinance. Both sides hope the issue will be resolved in numerous court cases and appeals, one of which is now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Apartment industry officials say the city's Housing Authority, which administers federal Section 8 subsidies, has been unresponsive to the needs of the city's mostly mom-and-pop apartment owners.

And caught in the middle are renters like Ruth Hordyk, 80, a Section 8 tenant who suffers from arthritis and Parkinson's disease.

One of the 48 tenants at Kingswood Village who receive Section 8 subsidies, for five years she has paid $221 a month for a $750 one-bedroom unit from the $800 a month she gets from Social Security.

In January, she received a 90-day notice to either pay $1,000 a month or move.

"I don't have that much income," she said. "I don't have very much of a backup plan. I need to see several doctors. I'm so tired."

Ron Gussow, 64, who uses a wheelchair, was one of the lucky ones. He got a notice but managed to find another Section 8 unit in Reseda.

"It's a very rough life," said Gussow, crying at the memory of the year he lived on the street. "It's something I don't want to do. Ever again."

Officials at Century Quality Management who manage Kingswood Village did not return calls for comment.

The Fair Housing Council of the San Fernando Valley, which is investigating Kingswood Village and other Section 8 program evictions, said the landlord cut its Section 8 rentals after failing to apply for - and get - a cumulative three-year rent increase under the city's rent-control ordinance.

"We've never seen so many (Section 8) evictions at one time," said Sharon Kinlaw, assistant director for the Fair Housing Council and lead investigator in Section 8 cases.

"We're concerned primarily for the persons with disabilities. ... All their support systems are there - doctors, neighbors that help them, food and social service agencies."

The Housing Authority of Los Angeles receives about $380million a year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Section 8 vouchers.

In all, the city supplies 44,000 apartment vouchers for families. Of the 16,000 landlords who have contracted to accept Section 8 tenants, only 8,000 apartments are available in the Valley.

A recent Section 8 apartment in Canoga Park drew 214 applicants for just one vacancy.

Housing Authority officials maintain that, despite the 90-day notices, the agency is committed to helping families. If they move, they'll still get rent vouchers. If they stay, landlords will be paid while their disputes are settled by legal-aid attorneys.

"We are sending out notices to the owners that they cannot terminate a contract by providing a 90-day notice - it is breaking contract law," said Lourdes Castro-Ramirez, director of the authority's Section 8 program.

Tenant advocates, however, say landlords are picking on Section 8 renters to free up rent-control units to market rates. But they say if tenants haven't broken any rent-control laws, they can't be booted from the Section 8 contract.

"We see this throughout the city: Landlords who are attempting to get out of their Section 8 contracts are giving out blanket 90-day notices. This is illegal," said Larry Gross of the Coalition for Economic Survival.

"There are 44,000 Section 8 voucher holders in Los Angeles - all of them are at risk."

But while apartment-industry officials couldn't comment on the Kingswood case, they said the Housing Authority has exacerbated the city's affordable-housing crisis by not being receptive to landlords.

Cloud and her husband, David Cox, received three increases on the same day for their Kingswood Village apartment. Their rent went from $400 to $1,300.

"We're barely scraping by right now," said Cox, 41, in an apartment filled with recycled cans. "We can't afford to move. We don't have a car. We take the bus. We've got two kids, two young daughters.

"I grew up in the Valley. I can't leave it."

 


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Daily Journal
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

City Attorney Settles Rent Stabilization Case

By Anat Rubin
Daily Journal Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES - City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo announced a $10 million settlement Tuesday with a real estate management company accused of driving low-income tenants from hundreds of rent-controlled units throughout the city in order to raise rents.

Delgadillo sued Landmark Equity Management in June 2006, at which time the company owned more than 40 properties in Los Angeles built before 1978, making them subject to the city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

The ordinance limits annual rent increases, restricts grounds on which landlords can evict tenants and requires landlords to pay relocation fees when making renovations or converting the rental properties into condominiums. These restrictions do not apply to new renters, giving property owners a powerful incentive to evict long-term tenants.

"The new type of slum cases are about getting people out of rent control" said Tai Glenn, directing attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles' Housing Unit. "Landlords actively put the building into disrepair and make conditions so bad that people leave and they can raise the rent."

The settlement requires Landmark to pay a $1 million fixed civil penalty and establish a $9 million tenant restitution fund.

"We see this as a model that we can use in similar cases," said Janet Karkanen, who handled the Landmark case and is in charge of Rent Stabilization cases that the city's Housing Department refers to the city attorney.

Delgadillo accused Landmark owner Darren Stern and affiliates of allowing properties to fall into disrepair, shutting off utilities, illegally increasing rents, refusing to accept rent payments in order to sue tenants for failure to pay rent and refusing to pay tenants' relocation.

Delgadillo first brought criminal charges against Landmark in 2004 for rampant habitability violations.

He filed the 2006 civil suit alleging rent control violations in the wake of sharp criticism from housing advocates and legal aid attorneys, who accused Delgadillo of failing to prosecute a single Rent Control Ordinance violation when the city was hemorrhaging affordable housing.

Advocates said they were encouraged by the settlement but wish Delgadillo would sue unscrupulous landlords more often.

"We applaud the city attorney for going after Landmark," said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival. "We think the case should serve as an example of the aggressive approach the city attorney should take to the numerous landlords that are victimizing tenants throughout the city of Los Angeles."

Gross said the city has lost 15,000 rent-controlled units since 2001 to condo conversions or demolition. That number doesn't include units lost as a result of illegal evictions.

"There's no record of that," Gross said.

The Landmark case is the city attorney's only prosecution on the grounds of Rent Control Ordinance violations in the last two years, Karkanen said.

"We've had a large number of cases referred to us," she said. "We invite the landlord and the tenant to our office and resolve the issues on a tenant-by-tenant basis."

Karkanen said she hopes the Landmark case will send a message.

"One of the primary motivations in bringing this type of case is it lets other landlords in the city know that this type of case could be brought," she said.

"When we bring a landlord into our office, sure, he will resolve that issue quickly. But it doesn't mean he won't do it again."

Delgadillo won a preliminary injunction in December 2006 requiring Landmark to bring all properties into compliance with habitability codes and the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. When Landmark failed to comply, Delgadillo brought civil contempt charges. Landmark has since sold some of its properties and brought others into compliance. There are still nine properties in violation.

The Legal Aid Foundation and other legal nonprofits brought separate cases against Landmark in 2006 for the company's handling of two of the properties still in violation.

One of those properties is a downtown residency hotel.

"From what I understand, not a lot has been done there," said Legal Aid Attorney Barbara Schultz. "So we're looking forward to the city attorney's enforcement of the settlement."

Shultz said conditions at the Huntington, a residential hotel, are still deplorable.

"The rats are as big as horses," she said. "There are cockroaches, there's no heat."

 


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Los Angeles Daily News
Saturday, March 1, 2008

Legislator Wants to Snuff Out Smoking in Rental Units

By Harrison Sheppard, Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO - Advancing California's continuing war against smoking in public and private, a San Fernando Valley lawmaker is pushing a statewide measure that could prohibit renters from smoking inside their own homes.

The bill by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, would allow - although not require - landlords to ban smoking inside rental units as a means of protecting the health of other tenants who may live nearby.

"The goal here is to try to provide smoke-free housing for folks who live in multiunit buildings in California," Padilla said.

"More than 30 percent of California residential units are multifamily dwellings. So if you're a family hoping to live in a smoke-free environment, it's currently next to impossible to find a smoke-free unit."

The bill comes amid continuing efforts in recent years to restrict areas where smokers can indulge. Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill prohibiting smoking in cars when children are present. Another bill now pending by the same author, Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Carson, would ban smoking in state parks and beaches.

And in January, the city of Calabasas passed a law banning smoking in up to 80 percent of the city's rental housing units by 2012.

Unlike the Calabasas law, however, Padilla's proposal is voluntary at the option of landlords. And he and some landlord groups said they already believe that under current state law, landlords may have the right to prohibit smoking.

That law, however, is perceived as vague and untested, and many landlords are worried about being sued if they decline to rent to smokers.

Padilla said he felt it was necessary to make it absolutely clear in state code that landlords have that right.

But groups representing smokers and tenants are incensed by the measure - Senate Bill 1598 - calling it another infringement on the rights of both groups.

Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, which represents tenants' rights, fears that the bill could be used as another excuse for evictions.

"I think this is a very shortsighted approach to a serious problem," Gross said. "By doing it this way, you're giving landlords another tool to evict tenants. It criminalizes the smoker.

"We need to figure out how to get them to stop smoking, not remove the roof over their heads."

He wondered, for example, whether a landlord could evict a tenant if a guest in the home - or even a temporary visitor such as a repairman or pizza delivery person - lights up in the unit.

Robert Best, a California representative of advocacy group The Smoker's Club, said because current law already allows landlords the option of prohibiting smoking, the proposed measure seems like a publicity stunt.

"The law basically is ridiculous," Best said. "Why are we creating a law for something people can already do? We're just trying to make a showboat of it, and show we're fighting smoking because smoking is the new evil."

"It's the same as passing a law saying, you can't throw a cigarette on the ground. Well, we already have the littering law."

But Esther Schiller, executive director of Smokefree Air For Everyone, a nonprofit group that maintains a public database of smoke-free apartment buildings, said it is clear there is still uncertainty about current law.

"Many landlords don't know it, or they may be afraid to do it," Schiller said. "Many landlords assume that people who smoke are protected by fair-housing laws, which is not the case.

"People who smoke are a consumer group, like beer drinkers."

She said her organization gets many calls for help from families who are trying to avoid smoke-filled environments, particularly those who have children with asthma.

In most cases, it is not enough for them to avoid smoking in their own homes. When neighbors smoke, it often seeps into adjacent units, she said.

Philip Morris USA has not taken a position on the two bills, and in recent years has limited lobbying on specific smoking restrictions at the state level.

However, company spokesman Bill Phelps said, in general, the company agrees that some restrictions on smoking in public places are appropriate.

"However, we think complete bans go too far," Phelps said. "We think smoking should be permitted outdoors, except in very particular circumstances such as an outdoor area primarily designed for children."

But the company also respects the rights of property owners, he said.

"We think the owner of a residence should determine the smoking policy for that residence," he said.

 


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Los Angeles Times
Monday, February 18, 2008

Housing Director Criticized by HUD

Auditors say L.A. County Mismanages Low-Income Program Wants Millions Returned
 

By Ted Rohrich and Jessica Garrison
Times Staff Writer

Federal auditors have called for the ouster of the Los Angeles County Housing Authority's director, saying his agency has not properly administered the $200 million federal housing voucher program for the county's poor and has sought to conceal its shortcomings.

The unusual recommendations come in a report this month that criticizes the authority for failing to check annually, as required, on tenants' eligibility for subsidies under the federal Section 8 program. Some recipients were receiving more money than they were entitled to, the auditors found.

The director of 17 years, Carlos Jackson, acknowledged past failings in his agency's administration of Section 8, which now serves 20,700 people and families. But he said he had moved to correct the problems and denied intentionally misleading the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides the funds.

Jackson said he was "taken aback by the tone and the magnitude of the recommendation" at a time when he felt he was making headway. "I dispute their findings," he said.

Jackson heads the county Community Development Commission, which includes the housing authority and redevelopment projects. He reports directly to the Board of Supervisors, which ultimately must decide his future.

Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke said Friday that Jackson would get a chance to defend himself.

Larry Gross, who directs the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenants' group, said he was distressed by the audit.

"The Section 8 program is incredibly important to low-income tenants and may be the only way they can get a roof over their heads," he said. "Now the question is, how is the Board of Supervisors going to respond to this?"

Section 8 tenants pay about a third of their incomes for rent to private landlords; the federal government, through local housing authorities, pays the rest. The wait to join the program takes years.

The problems are not new. The authority's troubles were first noted in 2003, when HUD auditors found that it had not reviewed many tenants' eligibility for three years. In some cases that were reviewed, the auditors found, the authority did not verify tenants' reported incomes. HUD auditors said they learned through two subsequent reviews that the agency repeatedly -- and falsely -- assured HUD it had corrected these problems.

The latest audit, which covered 2005 and 2006, found that the agency did not perform annual eligibility checks for one in four Section 8 tenants, who then numbered 17,700.

Of the federal money provided to the county annually, $36 million goes toward managing the program. Auditors recommended requiring the county to refund 10% of that. The refund would apply to the fiscal year that was audited, 2005-2006, and a similar portion would be withheld from the agency in future years, beginning immediately.

Auditors also recommended that HUD administrators direct the Board of Supervisors to replace the executive director "with someone who has sufficient Section 8 experience and who will devote the time necessary" to run the program.

HUD administrators have not yet asked the supervisors to fire Jackson, however. HUD spokesman Larry Bush said Friday that the agency would "follow through with local authorities" to make sure the recommendations are carried out.

Auditors studied in detail the files of 25 subsidized tenants and found that the authority miscalculated in every case, overpaying in most instances.

The auditors noted that the authority recently had tried to improve its performance.

For example, after the authority was scolded in previous reviews for failing to conduct annual re