For Some in Relocation Program, Their House May Not Be a Castle

Construction of the Century Freeway meant the elimination of 7,000 houses and businesses and the displacement of about 20,000 people.

To compensate for this upheaval, a federal judge ordered that 3,700 of the housing units--apartments, condominiums and single-family homes--be replaced in what may be the largest housing replenishment program ever attempted in the United States.

The replacement housing was to be built within a “primary zone” six miles north and south of the 17.3-mile freeway route--a vast area that stretches from Whittier on the east to El Segundo and Manhattan Beach on the west, from Culver City, Vernon and Montebello on the north to Torrance, Lakewood, Buena Park and Cypress on the south.

As the freeway project approaches the halfway point, between 1,000 and 1,100 housing units have been completed in 25 different locations at a cost of about $170 million. They range in size from a group of six town houses in Norwalk to a 100-unit apartment complex in Hawthorne.

Those displaced by the freeway get first crack at the new housing, followed by people on local housing authority waiting lists and then by the general public. In early October, the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which runs the housing program, reported that 373 displacees and 316 non-displacees were living in Century Freeway housing units.

Since right-of-way acquisition began in the late 1960s and the first Century Freeway housing units did not become available until 1983, most displacees took lump-sum payments from Caltrans and moved to new apartments or houses. Even when Century Freeway housing became a viable option, most displacees still chose to take the cash payments and move elsewhere.

One reason displacees are reluctant to buy Century Freeway replacement condominiums is a requirement that for 20 years they can only be sold to the state, not on the open market.

Rentals and sale prices vary widely because they depend on income. Rentals range from $43 to $700 per month, according to housing agency officials, while condominiums and rehabilitated single-family homes have sold for as little as $10,000 and for as much as $84,113.

Some Century Freeway buyers and renters are happy with their new accommodations, others are not.

Here are some of their stories:

- Kristine Tinnermon, 38, moved into a two-bedroom apartment in the 26-unit Fonthill Villas apartment complex in Hawthorne in June, 1986, because the apartments “looked real nice” and the $469 monthly rental was just about what she had been paying to rent a three-bedroom house in a less desirable neighborhood in Inglewood.

In August, 1987, a fire triggered the sprinklers in Tinnermon’s apartment and they stayed on for three hours, drenching her carpets, drapes and furniture. No repairs have been made, although Tinnermon has appealed to the apartment house manager, the company that manages the units and the Century Freeway Housing Program.

Stopped Paying

In September, Tinnermon stopped paying rent, informing Cadre Associates, the management firm, in a letter that she would not pay “until my apartment is repaired and fit for human occupance again.” She received no reply and said no attempt has been made to collect her rent.

“When I moved in here, I thought I was lucky,” Tinnermon said. “The apartment was nice and it was centrally located to my job and to El Camino College, where my daughter goes to school. What a mistake I made!”

- Alice Zenger, 72, is a widow, an Anglo who also lives at the Fonthill Villas apartments and spends much of her time fighting with her black neighbors who, she says, play loud music, hold all-night parties and bang on her walls in the wee hours of the morning.

When Zenger complained to her next-door neighbor about noise, the woman “swore at me--such profanity I never heard! So I smacked her good. Then she shoved me against the (third-floor) balcony and I smacked her again. The cops came but they just told us to be nice.”

House Was Razed

Zenger’s small house in Lennox was razed to make way for the Century Freeway and she now pays only $67 a month for this neat, clean, one-bedroom apartment. She keeps a long steel bar by the front door to fend off attacks by her neighbors who, she says, are trying to force her to move.

“Why should I leave?” Zenger asked. “I thought this was supposed to be for (freeway) displacees. I can’t afford anything else. I’m not going anywhere.”

- Carol and Michael Banks, who bought a two-bedroom town house in Norwalk for slightly more than $22,000, tell a happier story.

The apartment they were renting in Paramount was in the freeway’s path, so they were given $500 moving money and, later, a chance to buy this pleasant, two-story condominium. The monthly mortgage payment is about the same as the Paramount rental had been and there is more room for the Bankses and their two children.

“We would never have been able to buy if we couldn’t get into this program,” said Carol Banks who, like her husband, works for a vending company in Long Beach.

Repairs Needed

The 4-year-old town house has needed quite a few repairs--the bathroom sinks were cracked, the dining area floor had to be replaced and the air conditioning works only fitfully--but, said Michael Banks, “the way I look at it, I got such a good price for this place, I don’t mind doing the work myself.”

- Yvonne and James Chavez, who live across the courtyard from the Bankses with their two young children, also count themselves lucky to have found the Pine Street Condominiums.

The Chavezes were not freeway displacees. They were renting in Gardena when they placed their names on the general public waiting list in 1985. Last summer, their names were drawn in one of the frequent Century Freeway Housing Program lotteries, they were offered a three-bedroom, three-bath condominium for $53,000 and they snapped it up immediately.

‘Saving for Years’

“We had been saving seriously for several years,” Yvonne Chavez said, “but we never would have been able to buy something like this on the open market.

“I’m not so thrilled about the location,” she added. “There are a lot of unsupervised kids. They ride their bikes on the street all alone and things like that. Some of the families don’t seem to have the same values we have. But when you’re handed a deal like this, who’s going to complain?”

- Pearl Fisher, her young son Harold and daughter Monique moved from a house they were renting “in a better part of the corridor,” as Fisher described it, to Chadron de Ville, a 42-unit condominium complex in Hawthorne, in the summer of 1985.

Fisher likes the spacious, three-bedroom, two-bath condo, for which she paid less than $14,000, but there are some problems. The units are located on a narrow, dead-end street, backed up against a flood control channel. Parking is scarce and there is little outdoor play space for the 30 to 40 youngsters who live in the complex.

“Right outside our door is the headquarters of a very prominent Chicano gang and across the canal is another,” Fisher said. “We’re caught in a cross fire in the middle.”

Maintenance Problems

Although the units are attractive and nicely landscaped, there has been a parade of maintenance problems--the plumbing leaks, the air conditioning often breaks down, some electrical outlets do not work and some doors do not lock.

Most Chadron de Ville buyers were former renters who knew little about ownership problems, Fisher said, yet Century Freeway housing officials provided little assistance.

“We were just put in here and basically we were on our own,” she said. “We were here and nobody gave a damn about us.

“The price is right,” Fisher added, “but we sure bought an awful lot of problems.”