Housing Seekers Swamp Phone Lines : The Poor: A program to subsidize rents is reopened after a 3-year lapse. Critics say many of those in need have not been given enough time to take advantage of it.
Tens of thousands of the poor in Los Angeles swamped phone lines Tuesday while 2,000 more lined up at senior citizen centers after housing officials reopened enrollment in the popular Section 8 federal rent subsidy program for the first time in three years.
The Los Angeles Housing Authority opened the enrollment period for only four days, Tuesday through Friday, resulting in a near-panic crush of more than 180,000 phone calls to housing agency phone banks by noon Tuesday, said Pacific Bell spokeswoman Kathleen Flynn.
Flynn said the phone company was alerted that phone lines had “crashed” in San Diego a few weeks ago when Section 8 enrollment was reopened there, and phone officials in Los Angeles took steps to avoid a similar disaster.
“We handled it like you do in an earthquake, when everybody is trying to dial at once,” Flynn said. “We let about 60% of the calls go through, but another 71,405 calls did not go through as of noon Tuesday.”
Flynn said that if emergency preparations had not been made, phone service to businesses and residences throughout downtown Los Angeles would have “completely shut down” Tuesday.
The staggering number of calls was testimony to the severe need for rent subsidies among the city’s poor families, senior citizens and disabled, who have been turned away by the Los Angeles Housing Authority since 1986 because of long waiting lists, constant demand and little federal funding.
Applicants this week are not assured of a rent subsidy, but will be placed on the first waiting list to be created in three years, housing officials said.
Despite the good news, the program was almost immediately mired in controversy.
State Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and advocacy groups for the poor attacked the four-day period set up by Housing Authority officials, saying that the poorest residents, lacking televisions, telephones or regular contact with any social agency, will not learn about the program until it is too late to apply.
“We think four days is ridiculous, unfair and inequitable,” said Steven Glazer, press secretary to Roberti.
“We have people calling every day, every month, for the past three years, asking is Section 8 ever coming back?,” said Charles Elsesser, another Roberti aide. “Now, if they don’t call this week, they miss it? There’s something wrong with that.”
Late in the day, Roberti issued a statement praising city officials for deciding Tuesday morning to launch a bigger publicity campaign to alert the poor. Roberti called for an extension of the enrollment period to the end of December and for better outreach to poor families.
Noting that 800,000 Los Angeles residents are poor enough to qualify for rent subsidies, Roberti said the city’s efforts “still fall woefully short in a city as large as Los Angeles.”
The Section 8 program requires a tenant to pay 30% of his income to rent, while the federal government pays the difference, up to fair market rent.
In Los Angeles, the cost of a $500-a-month apartment is reduced to about $250 under the program, according to Gary Squier, Housing Authority director. Those who qualify include poor families, the elderly, or the disabled. Their incomes cannot exceed $13,950 for a single person or $19,950 for a family of four.
Squier, of the Housing Authority, said that given the reaction Tuesday, he probably would have set up the enrollment program for longer than four days.
“The time period is probably too short, and in retrospect I think it should have been opened for a longer time,” said Squier, who met with Housing Authority commissioners and other executives Tuesday to fashion a response to Roberti and other critics.
Squier said that at the meeting it was decided that the housing agency will consider reopening the enrollment period in January if interest from the poor persists up to the deadline on Friday.
“If we’re finding on Friday that the telephone isn’t ringing or isn’t overloaded, then maybe we can make a judgment that we have done the outreach we need to do,” Squier said.
In addition to the chaos caused by the short enrollment period, there were signs Tuesday that seniors were getting the word more effectively than poor families who also qualify for Section 8.
According to directors of 10 senior citizen centers contacted by The Times, most of the 2,000 applicants who appeared in person Tuesday were elderly persons enrolled in local senior programs who received flyers from the centers. The city’s 18 senior centers were the only offices opened for thousands of walk-in applicants, of any age, who were unable to reach the Housing Authority by phone.
Officials at several centers said they were told that the Housing Authority was trying to target senior citizens, but the centers were required by law to accept applications from all age groups.
“Seniors with connections to social programs aren’t the only ones who need help,” said Roberti press aide Glazer. Poor families “need our help at least as much.”
People wishing to apply can call 213-484-1051 or 818-787-5136.
