Jesse Jackson Joins Housing Protesters : Rent subsidies: Group opposes possible end of U.S. assistance. Early mortgage buyouts could limit number of affordable dwellings.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, seemingly immune to the midday heat, joined a group of 50 tenants Thursday to protest the possible end of federal housing subsidies that could place rents out of reach for several thousand low-income renters.
Jackson marched outside the Federal Building alongside perspiring men, women and children who wore hats and fanned themselves with papers and their protest signs, which carried messages such as “Don’t Make Grandma Homeless.”
The demonstration, organized by the Coalition For Economic Survival, a Los Angeles tenants’ group, was held to protest an upcoming vote in Congress that could provide an “escape hatch” for owners of buildings who, years ago, received low-interest mortgage loans through the federal government in exchange for keeping rents low.
Under the proposed change, the owners would be allowed to buy their way out of future rental restrictions--without the currently required government review.
Under federal housing programs begun in the 1960s, developers who obtained 40-year mortgages were given the option of paying them off after 20 years. The prepayment option runs from 1988 to 2003, but most owners are expected to be eligible in 1994.
“Stop prepayments. Don’t bail out owners and kick out tenants,” Jackson said after he and tenants had walked in a circle around several cardboard houses meant to symbolize their situation. Jackson had spoken earlier this week at the NAACP convention.
According to Los Angeles officials, the city has 10,500 apartments eligible for early buyouts between 1988 and 2003. Housing advocates estimate the number countywide could run as high as 40,000, although the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development places the figure at 15,568 units.
“We have to save all subsidized housing,” Jackson said, adding he wants to see tenant ownership. “The fact is we are now looking at government-induced poverty and pain.”
“In the 1960s and 1970s nobody anticipated there would be an affordable housing crisis,” Larry Gross, director of the coalition, said, referring to when most of the federal housing agreements with the “escape hatch” provision were reached. “Now there’s no housing out there to replace this housing if the owners are allowed to prepay.”
Under a quasi-moratorium on early buyouts that will expire at the end of September, owners whose 20-year option date has come up and who have wished to prepay have had to notify HUD. The agency has the right under law to prevent prepayments if tenants would be adversely affected, and the local affordable housing stock would be reduced.
Regional HUD spokesman Dirk Murphy said that although 22,748 units in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii became eligible for prepayments by the end of 1989, only 27 owners--16 in Southern California--are eligible to prepay. The 16 owners represent an estimated 1,600 units, Murphy said. None of the requests have been approved.
At Thursday’s protest, 66-year-old Thomas Cho marched in behalf of tenants at the Siejay Apartments on South Hoover Street, whose owners have applied to prepay.
“People in my building can’t afford a raise in rent and they’re very scared,” said the retired sewing contractor, who lives in a $314-a-month, two-bedroom unit.
HUD however, has not approved the step, and Larry Jacobs, general partner of Siejay Apartments, said he has been discussing other kinds of subsidy options with federal officials.
“I’m not looking to try to displace anybody,” Jacobs said. “I’ve been with this building over 22 years now.”
