County Sued Over $130 Stipend for Welfare Recipient Housing
A nonprofit organization that provides legal representation for indigents sued San Diego County on Tuesday, charging that the $130 housing stipend provided to welfare recipients each month is woefully inadequate.
The lawsuit, filed by the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, contends that county officials have violated state law by failing to accurately determine the minimum cost of housing available locally and to accordingly adjust the amount that welfare recipients receive for shelter.
“If you take a look at the rental market in San Diego County, you’ll see that giving these people $130 a month is a cruel joke,” Legal Aid Society attorney Robert Ross said. “To take that amount and go in search of housing here is to go on a fool’s errand.”
Ross said that because the housing allowance is inadequate, many of the roughly 4,500 general relief recipients in the county must choose to either pay rent with money needed for food or live on the streets.
“Most of the plaintiffs spend all or part of each month living on the streets of the county,” the lawsuit says. “As a result, they are particularly vulnerable to illness and crime. Those plaintiffs who are not homeless spend nearly all of their grant to purchase housing. They go without sufficient food much of each month.”
The lawsuit, filed in San Diego Superior Court on behalf of eight welfare recipients, names each member of the county Board of Supervisors, the Department of Social Services and its director, Richard W. Jacobsen Jr.
Ross said the Legal Aid Society hopes to obtain a court order forcing the county to promptly conduct a new study to determine the minimum cost of rental housing and to increase the allowance for shelter to a level reflecting that determination.
Marilyn Laurence, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, declined to comment on the litigation, and telephone calls to the county counsel’s office were not returned Tuesday.
According to a survey by the Legal Aid Society, the least expensive lodging available in the downtown area is the Ace Hotel on 9th Avenue. Ross said the hotel offers a range of accommodations, the cheapest of which are rooms that hold four people in bunk beds at $165 apiece per month.
“The Ace is dorm-style and pretty spartan,” Ross said. “And quality aside, these more affordable places are tough to get into, so even if you’ve got the money, there’s no guarantee of a vacancy.”
Average Rent Is About $200
Illustrating the lack of housing available in the $130-a-month range, Ross said lodging options on a list the Department of Social Services provides to its clients carry an average rent of about $200 a month.
“Even the places they’re recommending cannot be had with the amount they’re providing,” Ross said.
Laurence confirmed that there are no alternatives on the housing list that rent for $130 a month. But she said that the list was designed as “an informal resource for people, a starting point really,” and was not intended to be all-inclusive.
“That doesn’t mean there aren’t other options available out there,” Laurence said. “And the fact is, a great many people share housing. It’s something we all do in today’s society.”
In February, 1986, under threat of a lawsuit by the Legal Aid Society, the county increased its monthly grant to general relief recipients, the group of people who are ineligible for other forms of public assistance.
Relying upon surveys of rents at local single-room-occupancy hotels, the county’s chief administrative officer recommended that the supervisors boost from $70 to $130 the monthly shelter allowance. The total monthly grant was hiked from $120 to $225. After rent, the balance of the $225 is designated for food ($80) and personal items ($15).
The lawsuit alleges that the county’s finding that $130 a month is sufficient for housing was “arbitrarily” reached and based in part on the belief that most recipients would share housing with relatives or friends at below-market rates.
Relatives’ Help Needed
“It’s clear now that it is literally impossible to get by on that amount unless you have some relative or friend who will subsidize your housing costs,” said Anson Levitan, another Legal Aid Society attorney. “Their study was terribly shoddy, and the data they obtained was not appropriately analyzed before they came up with this magic $130 number. We believe the way in which they came up with this grant level was not lawful and we want them to redo it so it conforms to reality.”
The lawsuit charges that by failing to provide welfare recipients with a sufficient shelter allowance, officials have violated a section of the state Welfare and Institutions Code that requires counties to “relieve and support” its indigent residents.
“In theory, the county is supposed to provide the basic necessities of life, housing included,” Ross said. “The fact is, the county’s general relief program is not working to help the resident poor who are not otherwise supported by friends, relatives or private agencies.”
Though Laurence had no details about how the county arrived at the $130 for housing, she maintained that San Diego is about average in terms of the overall grant provided general relief recipients. Laurence said figures compiled by the state last June showed that Sutter County provides the lowest amount of aid at $150, while Santa Barbara topped the list at $354. (San Diego provides $225 a month.)
Tales Accompany Suit
Accompanying Tuesday’s lawsuit were declarations of the eight plaintiffs, who included a real estate agent who lost his job, an unemployed landscaper living in his 1965 Pontiac and a welding student.
Willie Bell, 53, is a former janitor from New Orleans who has lived in San Diego for seven months. He tells a tale the Legal Aid Society says is representative of many others.
“I live at the Ace Hotel, paying $50 a week, but when my general relief runs out, I live on the streets . . . about one or two weeks a month,” Bell said. “When I sleep outside, I hide out where nobody can knock me on the head the way they do if you’re on the streets, like in a doorway or the park. . . . I go to the mission to eat--they may not have what you like, but you can eat it--but I still can’t keep a roof over my head the whole month.”
The Legal Aid Society, which has 15 staff attorneys, was founded to represent the interests of the county’s poor. The bulk of its financial support comes from the federally funded Legal Services Corp. It also receives money from San Diego and the United Way.
