Santa Clarita Project : Service to Help Senior Citizens With Housing

Two senior citizens groups and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich announced the start Wednesday of a housing information service for older residents in the Santa Clarita Valley, the first of its kind in California.

The service aims to help senior citizens locate affordable and easily accessible housing and to resolve problems they encounter as renters or homeowners, said Don L. Ralya, housing coordinator for the American Assn. of Retired Persons, or AARP.

The Los Angeles County Area Agency on Aging will look into starting similar services in Santa Monica and other parts of the county, Ralya said. Antonovich, joining Ralya at a downtown press conference, said the service will provide senior citizens with a convenient source for information on a variety of housing topics.

The service gives people over 50 years of age information about apartment vacancies, subsidized housing, retirement hotels, board-and-care facilities, property tax deferrals and other housing issues, said Mary Blankenship, executive director of the nonprofit Santa Clarita Valley Committee on Aging. The committee is a 13-year-old social service agency funded by state, county, federal and private sources.

Volunteers Help

Twelve volunteers from the committee’s Newhall office will answer questions by phone or visit senior citizens in person.

The Santa Clarita Valley program is patterned after similar efforts started by AARP four years ago in Bergen County, N.J.

The program, officially called the Consumer Housing Information Service for Seniors, has served 6,500 clients in 15 states since its start in 1985, Ralya said. AARP provides advice to local agencies, which run the programs.

Blankenship said she learned of the service a few years ago and asked AARP to help establish the program in Santa Clarita. A similar program is scheduled to start next week in Contra Costa County in Northern California.

Blankenship said she could not estimate how many of the Santa Clarita Valley’s 120,000 residents are senior citizens. But she said apartment landlords indicate that the older population appears to be growing as senior citizens move to be close to their children, who are purchasing homes in the valley’s burgeoning housing tracts.

A poll commissioned by the Santa Clarita City Council in July found that 20% of the valley’s population was 50 years or older.