Rules Could Oust 15,000 From Homes, Group Fears

About 15,000 people in Los Angeles County could be ousted from their homes under new rules denying federal housing subsidies to undocumented aliens, leaders of an Eastside neighborhood action group said Saturday.

When the policy was announced in April, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the rules are intended to reserve limited housing “for persons with the most legitimate claim--namely, citizens and other persons lawfully present in the United States.”

But Father Luis Olivares, head of the clergy caucus of the United Neighborhoods Organization, said this would have a devastating effect on families where one spouse may be a registered alien while the other is not.

In other cases, an elderly grandparent could be forced to move away from his or her family, he said. As many as 200,000 people statewide could be affected, an official with the neighborhoods organization estimated.

“We all recognize the overwhelming problem of the shortage of housing, but the undocumented people are being used as a scapegoat for the problem rather than the government providing adequate housing for all the people already here,” Olivares said.

Hopes to Change Law

U.S. Rep. Edward M. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) told the group he hopes to change the 1981 legislation that authorized the new rules.

“We’re going to have to pass the legislation necessary to have these people remain in their homes as long as they are already there, to see to it that families remain intact,” he said.

Roybal, Olivares and other leaders of the United Neighborhoods Organization spoke to about 100 volunteers in the basement of the Our Lady of Solitude Catholic Church on Brooklyn Avenue, where they raised their hands in prayer to ask God to “help us fight for our rights.”

Then they broke up into smaller groups and fanned out to nine housing projects to distribute leaflets explaining the new rules and urging residents to fight any effort to oust them.

‘No Reason to Panic’

“No one can force you to move without going through the legal process and holding an eviction hearing,” the leaflets said in English and Spanish. “There is no reason to panic or to move out.”

At the project, a county facility of two-story, motel-like apartments separated by stretches of withered grass, many residents said they were already familiar with the problem because of a church meeting held the night before.

“I’m worried because we don’t know who’s being thrown out,” said one woman. She said she herself was a U.S. citizen but that other neighbors were afraid of losing their apartments, which rent for between $120 and $140 a month.

Other residents did not answer the door to speak with the church volunteers. “They were afraid. They didn’t want to come out, but we left the papers anyway,” said Helen Lamb, a parishioner from Our Lady of Solitude.

New Requirement

A statement issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development said that under the regulations scheduled to take effect July 30, illegal immigrants will be evicted from federally subsidized housing and that all new applicants will be required to prove that they are citizens or that they have legal status as immigrants.

Starting Oct. 27, those already living in U.S.-funded housing projects or benefiting from federal rent aid or government mortgages will have to prove their eligibility whenever their cases come up for review, the statement said.