Court Blocks Evictions : Low-Income Tenants Get Reprieve
Occupants of a residential hotel near the Van Nuys Courthouse on Thursday stopped their new landlords from evicting them at noon today, buying time with a court order.
The low-income residents of La Casita Hotel--who number between 50 and 75, according to various estimates--Tuesday received three-day eviction notices signed by owners John Busby and Ronald Bentley. The notices said the 40-room hotel would “close for renovation and repair.”
But in Encino Municipal Court on Thursday, Commissioner Joseph R. Ruffner issued a temporary restraining order preventing the owners from kicking the tenants out until after a Sept. 8 hearing. The case was filed on behalf of La Casita resident Sandra Bowlus by Bet Tzedek Legal Services, a nonprofit legal firm.
La Casita Far From Homey
“We won! We won!” tenants cheered as Bet Tzedek attorney Michael F. Duran arrived at the hotel at 14303 Sylvan St. to relay the court’s decision.
La Casita, which means “little house” in Spanish, is far from homey. Curtains blowing out of windows hang tattered and gray with dirt; indoor-outdoor carpeting in central corridors and a lounge is badly stained.
Yet, for many of the tenants, it is a significant step up.
“I was homeless, living at Hansen Dam,” said Caroline De La Rosa, who has stayed at the hotel for several months.
De La Rosa said her spacious room and $120-a-week rent were a welcome change from living in her car among the other homeless at Hansen Dam in Pacoima. She said she lost her job in October when she fell off a truck. She still walks with crutches and survives on disability checks and occasional help from her husband.
Duran said he intends to ask at the Sept. 8 hearing that the landlords be blocked from evicting De La Rosa and the other tenants, citing the city’s 18-month moratorium on apartment rehabilitation evictions under its rent-control laws.
Duran said many of the residents have lived in the hotel more than 60 days, which he said makes it subject to rent control regulations.
“This building may have been constructed as a temporary residence, but it certainly isn’t that way anymore,” he said. “There’s no low-income housing in Los Angeles so people live in these places.”
The Los Angeles City Council established the moratorium after learning that landlords were using a rehabilitation loophole to remove tenants who paid low rents.
If La Casita’s landlords are allowed to continue with their evictions, Duran said he plans to demand relocation expenses for the tenants. In no-fault evictions, city rent control laws allow $2,000 for single adults and $5,000 for families.
Ownership Change
Attorney David Seror, who represents Busby, said his client acquired part ownership of the hotel last week when the former owners failed to pay their mortgage. Busby and Bentley held the third deed of trust on La Casita, he said.
“They really don’t know anything about all this yet,” Seror said before the hearing.
Seror told Ruffner that his client did not realize that people had been living permanently in the hotel, but thought they only stayed “a day or two.” They wanted the tenants out so they could fumigate, paint and recarpet the hotel, he said. They intend to continue to use it as a hotel, not tear it down or convert it into apartments, the attorney said.
In fact, a number of the tenants have lived there on a permanent basis. Bowlus, for example, has lived there three years, paying $82.50 a week for her single room. Her sole income is a government check for a mental disability.
Bowlus and other residents said Thursday that they were first shocked and then worried when they saw the eviction notices. They said they had suspected something was awry a few days earlier when the manager stopped coming to work, the communal bathrooms stopped being stocked with toilet paper and the new owners arrived to collect rent checks.
When asked where she would go if she were evicted, Bowlus said, “Oh, I’ll be going out on the street. I don’t have any money for an apartment.”
