Receiver Named to Collect Rents From 350 Striking Tenants

A Superior Court judge on Thursday named a receiver to collect rents from 350 striking tenants in Santa Ana but rejected key demands by strikers for safeguards they claimed would force landlords to improve their blighted properties.

“This broke the strike 100%,” said Richard L. Spix, a Legal Aid attorney representing tenants, after he unsuccessfully urged Orange County Superior Court Judge Philip E. Schwab to limit the amount each landlord could receive to pay for repairs.

The tenants filed suit against the landlords last month, asking for a judge to order rents to be reduced and held by a neutral party until repairs were made.

Rejected Tenants’ Request

Schwab also rejected the tenants’ request to roll back rents to levels they claimed would be fair market value for housing that the city has found to be substandard.

Attorneys representing the 11 landlords named as defendants called Schwab’s ruling a “workable solution.”

“Without the money how can my client make necessary repairs that the city (Santa Ana) wants?” said Robert Gallivan, representing two of the defendants.

Under the judge’s order, the receiver will collect rents and use them to reimburse landlords for repairs, if they provide receipts. The arrangement will continue, Schwab said, until the properties comply with Santa Ana’s health and safety codes.

Spix had argued that the buildings are in such a state of disrepair that it would take “all the rent money withheld so far and landlords’ digging into their own pockets to bring them up to code.”

Typically, the Latino renters have for years paid high rents to live “with cockroaches, while landlords have pocketed profits and neglected their properties,” Spix said after the hearing.

“Now, under the ruling, tenants have to continue with high rents to a receiver. In essence, the tenants will pay for the repairs,” he said.

Schwab said he will appoint Robert Stopher, a Santa Ana attorney, as receiver, possibly today. Since Feb. 21, when a court commissioner issued a temporary restraining order, rents were paid into a special fund administered by the Orange County Legal Aid Society.

Preliminary Injunction

Schwab granted tenants a preliminary injunction allowing them to pay rent to the receiver and protecting them from harassment by landlords. The judge also ordered that:

- No rents be increased.

- Landlords can evict tenants who do not pay rent, or who sublet the apartment causing overcrowding, or who break the rental agreement by creating a nuisance or abusing property.

- Landlords shall not decrease services such as trash collection, water and utilities.

- Landlords must cooperate with public authorities to assist in rehabilitating the buildings in a “most expeditious” manner.

- Landlords are prohibited from threatening to notify immigration authorities. The majority of tenants are in the United States illegally, tenant organizers have said.

In addition to rejecting the request for a cap or limit on the amount landlords would receive for repairs, the judge also rejected a 60-day deadline for landlords to make repairs and rent rollbacks requested by the striking tenants.

Terence L. Calder, a Santa Ana attorney representing landlord Carmine Esposito, owner of six buildings in the 1200 block of Brook Street where about 250 tenants live, said Esposito would not bring any eviction action unfairly against tenants.

“In the first place, Esposito has no (written rental) agreements with the tenants,” Calder said. “As to overcrowding, he will be working with the city, and if they say alleviate (overcrowding), then that will be a bridge to cross later.”

Calder said the appointment of a receiver allows the case to be handled fairly for the landlords, who under the court’s previous temporary restraining order could not collect any rent.

Criminal Complaint

Esposito is the only defendant who has been charged for alleged criminal negligence of his property. Santa Ana officials on March 18 filed a 95-count complaint against Esposito and several partners for allegedly failing to improve cockroach-infested buildings.

Rent strike organizer Nativo Lopez said tenants lost on the two issues most important to them --reduced rents for substandard housing and the cap on the amount of rent the landlords can receive.

“Without the cap,” Lopez said, “there’s no guarantee landlords will finish the work. Essentially what the judge is saying is that even though the buildings have been uninhabitable for years, the renters will now bear the burden for the repairs.”

In addition, Lopez said that several tenants, including a tenant leader, Alfredo Torres, 43, who lives in one of the apartments owned by Esposito, have been without kitchen water for six weeks.

Prior to the hearing, about 50 tenants, some with towels in hand, chanted in Spanish “Water yes, Esposito no” outside the Orange County Courthouse. The towels were to symbolize their readiness to bathe at Esposito’s home, organizers said.

No Kitchen Water

Although repairs have begun in two of the six buildings owned by Esposito, construction crews removed a kitchen counter, kitchen sink and bathtub forcing the Torres family to use a bathroom faucet for drinking and cooking water. The family bathes in the apartments of friends, Torres said.

The renters’ strike, which began Feb. 4, is one of Southern California’s first large-scale organizing efforts involving Latino residents, many of whom are in the United States illegally.

The ruling, however, will not stop the strike. Lopez said Latino renters intend to mobilize at least 2,000 people Saturday when labor leader Cesar Chavez and Southern California community organizer Bert Corona are scheduled to address them in an outdoor rally in front of the Brook Street apartments at 6 p.m.

In addition to Esposito and his wife, the defendants and their rental properties are Michael and Stella Gonzales, 1030 and 1102 S. Minnie St.; Paul and Marcela Cruz, 1006 N. Logan St.; Jarnail and Sheela Mudan, 411-413 Mortimer St.; James Isbill, 611 E. Washington Ave.; and Bernanrd Baron and Jesus Estrada, owners of 601 East 3rd St. and 212 and 214 N. Olive St.