Illegal Aliens in Pacoima Face Eviction : Housing Edict Strikes Fear Through Project
Tenant representative Delfina Martinez walked through her Pacoima housing project Tuesday, pointing to apartments where tenants may face eviction because they are not U. S. citizens.
“This apartment, this apartment, these people have lived here 14 years, this woman has four children,” she said. “This law is going to mean danger to many people.”
Word had spread rapidly through Pierce Park, one of the largest subsidized housing projects in the San Fernando Valley, about la regla, the set of regulations announced Monday by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that could lead to the eviction of illegal aliens from federally subsidized housing.
Tenants such as Carmen Munoz and Martha Ayala, who were in the laundry room, talked of being frightened about their future and unsure where their families would live, because neither would be able to prove legal residency.
One community leader in the northeast Valley said the rules mean scores of families living in nearly 1,000 public housing units in Pacoima will be homeless.
“From a business point of view, it’s going to have devastating consequences on the project in terms of how and when the evictions take place,” said Fred Noble, manager of 430-unit Pierce Park. “From a personal point, it’s going to be disruptive to have to tell families who have lived here a number of years that they no longer meet qualifications.”
The HUD regulations, which will go into effect on July 30, require that people applying for federal housing aid show such documents as birth certificates or work permits to prove eligibility. Current tenants will have to show such proof at their annual subsidy evaluations.
Funds will be cut off for tenants who cannot produce documents. They then will be made to pay much higher fair-market rents for their units, and probably will face eviction if they cannot do so, a HUD spokesman said.
HUD said the rules are “intended to reserve scarce housing assistance resources for persons with the most legitimate claim--namely, citizens and other persons lawfully present in the United States.”
A HUD spokesman said there are about 150,000 federally subsidized units in Los Angeles County, but could not not say how many are in the Valley. The Los Angeles Housing Authority controls 31,000 of the units, including Pacoima’s 448-unit San Fernando Gardens.
“What this is going to mean in this area is that those people are going to double up with other families in one room, or live in garages or other substandard housing,” said Sister Becky Gaba, director of MEND, a Pacoima social service agency.
Noble said he will send residents pamphlets on the rules.
“If half the complex doesn’t qualify, it’s going to be absolute chaos,” he said.
Jerry Steinbaum, managing partner of SK Management, which oversees 4,500 federally subsidized units in the county, 1,200 of them in the Valley, said many of his complexes will be hit hard by the regulations.
“I can understand both sides,” said Steinbaum, a member of the national advisory council to HUD. “I hate to see people uprooted, but, if there are going to be subsidies, they should go to citizens.”
Noble and Steinbaum said they have waiting lists and will have no difficulty renting apartments again.
At Pierce Park, several parents, who said they were undocumented residents, complained that the rights of their U.S.-born children were being violated.
“I have three children, all Americans, all going to school, what about them?” asked Yolanda Sanchez, 32. “Am I supposed to go out on the streets and leave my children alone here?”
Steven L. Balis, a HUD attorney, said the rules will apply to illegal alien parents who have resident children. “All members of a family must be legal to qualify,” he said.
