Current mood:

Militant

Elderly Face Eviction;
This is a building that CES has been organizing the tenants at to prevent their eviction and preserve the affordable housing. The complex had a HUD subsidized flex mortgage on it, which expired a couple of years ago without anyone being aware of, until the tenants contacted CES. Because it was a "flex" HUD subsidized mortgage, instead of a regular HUD subsidized mortgage, the tenants were not eligible for "enhanced" Section 8 vouchers, which who have guaranteed their right to remain, as long as Congress provided funding, and would have required the owner to accept the vouchers. Unfortunately, this is not the case and, thus, we face the story that follows.

Saturday, March 17, 2007
BY KERRY CAVANAUGH, Staff Writer
LA DAILY NEWS

RESEDA - A long-standing fight over Los Angeles ' subsidized housing program has spilled into the San Fernando Valley , where more than a dozen low-income and senior renters at a Reseda complex risk being evicted from their homes.

The Reseda Village Green tenants, mostly elderly and disabled, receive federal Section 8 subsidies to help pay their rent. But the landlord has stopped accepting the government checks and is demanding that the renters pay the full amount themselves - or get out.

"I don't know what I'd do if I had to leave," said Wilda Harmon, who is 89 and unable to walk. She relies on the Section 8 program to pay $485 of the $929 monthly rent for her one-bedroom apartment.

"I've looked in the paper and talked to people, and there's not a lot out there. Some of the places that rent for this price are not livable. I couldn't stand it."

The scenario in Reseda is playing out across Los Angeles , where rents continue to rise and apartment vacancy rates remain low. As a result, many landlords seeking to find higher-paying tenants are opting out of the bureaucratic government program.

Attorneys representing apartment owners say a court ruling last year allows landlords to get out of the Section 8 business. But tenant advocates and housing officials say the some landlords are breaking the law in the process.

Caught in the middle of the dispute are tenants like Harmon and Trudee Whetstone, who have been given three days to pay their rent themselves or get out.

Whetstone, 73, who has emphysema and gets by on Social Security, said she'll have to sleep on her daughter's couch if she is evicted.

The Los Angeles Housing Authority now pays $682 a month toward Whetstone's rent on a small one-bedroom unit. If Whetstone wants to stay, her landlord has warned, she'll have to pay the full $910 a month rent herself.

"I may have to move at a moment's notice. It takes away your whole confidence, and when you're older, it's worse," she said.

Legal morass

Munger Tolles & Olson, a law firm that is working pro bono, and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles have warned the women's landlord that he cannot simply refuse to accept Section 8 checks, then evict them for nonpayment.

To legally evict tenants from a rent-controlled building - like Reseda Village Green - the landlord must meet stringent criteria and pay tenants thousands of dollars in relocation money, the attorneys said.

The landlord, West Los Angeles-based Danmour & Associates and its owner, Daniel T. Alvy, did not return repeated calls.

Christian Abasto, a housing attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation, said Danmour is trying to get around rent control laws and pricey relocation costs.

"Our position is that Section 8 voucher tenants, who are most vulnerable and needy, should have equal rent-control rights to tenants not on Section 8," Abasto said.

But the Apartment of Association of Greater Los Angeles has argued that evicting a rent-controlled tenant is so difficult that landlords essentially become trapped in Section 8 contracts.

"(The city has) obligated an eternal contract," said Arnie Corlin, vice president of the association.

His group believes that's illegal and has advised landlords who want to terminate their Section 8 contracts to just send the monthly checks back to the city Housing Authority.

The authority administers the program for the city, which receives about $380 million a year from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Section 8 vouchers.

The city has roughly 40,000 Section 8 vouchers for families.

But battles over the program have flared since at least 2002, when city leaders declared an affordable-housing crisis in Los Angeles .

That year, the city Housing Authority reported landlords terminated 6,000 Section 8 contracts, forcing low-income and disabled tenants to find new homes in an increasingly expensive rental market.

Tenants' rights advocates argued that landlords were terminating the contracts to get rent-controlled tenants out so they could re-lease their units for more money.

In response, the City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting landlords from canceling Section 8 contracts and collecting the full rent from tenants. The apartment association sued and last year won its case in The California Supreme Court.

The association's Corlin argues the City Council and mayor are not addressing a major reason landlords are getting out of the Section 8 business: a tangled bureaucracy that results in late rent payments and delays processing annual rent increases.

"It has nothing to do with tenants; it has to do with the management of the program," Corlin said.

The Housing Authority has acknowledged problems with its Section 8 unit and is trying to make the system less cumbersome without violating federal law.

"This is a heavily regulated program. Every step, there is a rule for what we have to do," said Housing Authority Section 8 Director Lourdes Castro-Ramirez.

Yet the city and landlords continue to fight over what protections - if any - should be given to rent-controlled tenants like those at Reseda Village Green.

Tenants' fears

Recently, a half-dozen elderly and disabled tenants gathered in Whetstone's apartment to share their concerns about the threatened eviction.

While 15 tenants have received notices so far, there are 50 Section 8 tenants in the complex - and they fear they will be next.

"Do you know how hard it is to find a place that takes Section 8 that is nice, like this?" said Fimi Safiri, 88, who has not gotten notice that her Section 8 contract is being canceled but worries she will.

Safiri said Section 8 pays $689 of her $997 monthly rent.

"I have been here 18 years and I have not heard a shout or a loud voice or anybody being trouble," said Safiri, who uses a walker to get around. "We all love each other. We're very close.

COALITION for ECONOMIC SURVIVAL (CES)
514 Shatto Place, Suite 270 Los Angeles , CA 90020
Tel: 213-252-4411 * Fax: 213-252-4422
Email: contactces@earthlink.net
Web site: http://www.CESinAction.org