Catch-22 Accommodations : Program Offers Help for ‘Motel Homeless’

Diane and Roger Davis and their daughter, Christie, 7, have spent the last year sharing one crowded room in the Casa Cordova, an Anaheim motel complex where they pay $120 every week for little more than 200 square feet.

They would like to move into a real apartment or house, they say, but both are unemployed, living on Roger’s disability checks, and it is impossible for them to raise enough money for first and last month’s rent, security deposit and utility hookup.

For a year, the Davises have been part of a group called the “motel homeless,” and according to Diane Davis: “There are 100 other families here just like us.”

But starting Monday, the Davis family could get the help they need to move out of the Casa Cordova and into their first real home in a year.

On July 22, the Orange County Community Development Council will begin the Lease Assistance Revolving Loan Program, which will lend up to $1,500 to about 45 of the county’s “motel homeless” families to help pay the high fees that accompany a move to a rental apartment or house.

Although local social service agencies are enthusiastic about the pilot program--the first of its kind in the county and possibly statewide--they are quick to point out its limitations. In a county with thousands of “motel homeless,” a program that will help between 40 and 45 households--although a start--will make almost no difference, they contend.

“There is a fantastic need for that kind of thing,” said Jean Forbath, founder of Share Our Selves, a nonprofit agency serving the needs of the poor in Orange County. “It’s just a drop in the bucket. . . . It’s such a little bit of money and will help so few.”

As the Davises’ financial circumstances demonstrate, the need is considerable.

“Say the rent’s $550, and they want the first month’s, the last month’s and a $550 security deposit plus $25 for a credit check you can’t get back,” Diane Davis said. “Total that, just total that. It’s $1,625.

‘It Gets to You’

“Now you tell me where someone who only gets $200, $300 every two weeks is going to get that much money at the same time,” she said. “If one of us were able to find work right now and we went without everything except gas to go to work and food to live, we could maybe get first and last month’s rent together in three, maybe four months, if we didn’t do anything. But how would you feel when you can’t get your child clothes. It gets to you after awhile.”

The Community Development bCouncil will begin taking applications for the loans by telephone Monday morning. One hundred applications will be taken, and up to 45 households will be helped, said Jim Hamlett, public information officer of the council.

Each eligible household will receive up to $1,500 to cover the costs of renting a permanent apartment or house, Hamlett said. The money will cover up to 90% of such move-in fees as security deposits, credit checks, key deposits and utility hook-ups.

The loans must be paid back within 18 months, Hamlett said, and the money does not go directly to the applicants. Checks are made out jointly to the individual applying for the loan and the owner or manager of the rental property, and must be co-signed.

“And they’ll have to pay their own first month’s rent,” Hamlett said. “The loans do not cover that. But they would be doing that ordinarily anyway, and it probably will be a lot less than if they were in a hotel or motel.”

Narrow Eligibility

In addition to the strict rules that guide the program, eligibility requirements are narrow. Applicants must be Orange County residents or be moving here for a job, Hamlett said, and they must show “special hardship or critical need.”

Applicants must either be 62 or older, or have dependent children, or be disabled, he said. In addition, their incomes must not exceed specified levels, ranging from $11,800 for a single person living alone to $22,250 for a family of eight.

The program, which is funded through a $60,000 federal grant, was prompted by a 1984 survey of hotels and motels countywide that found a minimum of 3,500 “motel homeless”--and probably more--living in Orange County.

“In a survey of 344 hotels and motels in Orange County, we found 2,505 units that were rented on a long-term basis--30 days or more,” Hamlett said. “More than 800 were occupied by two or more people. These are people who are paying the high weekly rates and monthly rates. Some of them have only one bedroom and no kitchen facilities.

Can’t Get Cash Outlay

“The problem with these people is that while they may be making $10, $11 an hour, it costs so much to live that they can’t get the high cash outlay for the key deposits, security deposits, credit checks and utility deposits that go along with renting a home,” he said.

Forbath, whose nonprofit agency tried unsuccessfully to start a similar program, said that the financial strain is just the beginning of the problems encountered by the “motel homeless.”

“We’ve seen six to eight people live in one room for months on end,” Forbath said. “Tensions rise. I’ve seen abuse, abandonment. The husband can’t stand it and takes off. The woman can get on welfare, but that’s not much help. I know from 15 years of experience that there are thousands of people in this situation, who get stuck in . . . motels for years.”

Although the nonprofit United Way has started a similar pilot program in Los Angeles--which gives $750 loans primarily to residents of Skid Row hotels and requires repayment in six months --experts on the homeless contend that Orange County’s program is probably the first such effort on behalf of the “motel homeless” by the public sector in California.

County in ‘Forefront’

“There is nothing (for this group) operated by the county of Los Angeles, and I have not heard about it being done by other counties,” said Gary Blasi, an attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “In this case, Orange County may be in the forefront.”

Julie Stewart, housing issues manager for the state Department of Housing and Community Development, said: “At this point, there is no program on a statewide basis that deals with the motel homeless. I’m not sure what happens at the local level, but I haven’t heard of any programs.”

It has taken until now for government and social service agencies to realize the extent of the problems encountered by those who must live such a tenuous existence. But slender, tattooed Harry Ryman, the Davis’ neighbor at the Casa Cordova, has long known just what it’s like: “Once you get caught up in this motel syndrome, it’s hard to get out.”