COUNTYWIDE : Officials Look Into Low-Income Rooms

Fullerton and county officials are traveling to San Diego to see the latest thing in low-income housing--single-room-occupancy hotels, or SROs.

County officials made the tour of the low-rent hotels on Friday with Fullerton officials to follow today. Local officials said they hope to acquaint themselves with the look and operation of the low-income hotels that have been operating since 1987 in downtown San Diego.

A coalition of Orange County cities, led by Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young and Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, has formed to examine the single-room-occupancy hotel idea and write a “cookbook” on how to encourage their development, Young said. The coalition hopes builders will create about 6,000 rooms for low-income tenants in Orange County, Young said.

Building and zoning codes would need to be changed to allow the so-called “hotels for the homeless” to be built in Orange County, officials said.

“What we’re trying to do is provide needed housing for people in the service industry who can’t afford to pay exorbitant rent,” Young said. “Unfortunately, because there’s not a lot of housing in their price range, many of them end up homeless.”

The San Diego tours are being conducted by Judy Lenthall, former director of the SRO program for San Diego. Lenthall, who is now president of a nonprofit arm of the Southern California Building Industry Assn. that focuses on emergency housing, is considered an expert on SROs and has traveled around the nation talking about them.

Since 1987, about 2,500 rooms available for about $300 a month have been built in San Diego.

Although the Orange County coalition plans a large tour in March, several cities have arranged earlier tours on their own, Lenthall said.

“We want to see how these things work,” said Fullerton Councilman Chris Norby. “I’m interested in particular with the security, to see how that works.”