LOCAL ELECTIONS PROPOSITION K : Housing Measure Gets Wide Support

The city’s $100-million housing bond measure has attracted so many endorsements from disparate groups that campaign experts are using “unprecedented” and “historic” to describe its rise from obscurity in a season of hotly competing bond measures.

The county Republican Party is featuring Proposition K on its slate mailings next week, and party officials glowingly refer to the measure as a “Jack Kemp-style” housing initiative that embraces low-income home ownership and development of affordable housing by nonprofit groups.

The Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley Boards of Realtors say Proposition K is “an issue you can’t argue with” and the Realtors’ statewide political action committee has given the campaign a hefty $40,000 to prove their point.

At the same time, left-leaning tenant activists such as the Coalition for Economic Survival, which helped write some segments of Proposition K, are leafletting hundreds of low-income buildings to get out the vote. The county Democratic Party and major homeowner organizations also have lent their names to the measure.

“I don’t know if the stars were all lined up in the sky or what, but we have an unprecedented mix of backers that nobody in the city can recall occurring on a bond measure before,” said Gary Squier, a developer and expert on affordable housing measures.

The innovative measure would provide $80 million for nonprofit groups to buy and rehabilitate 6,000 low-income apartment units that are at risk of being lost to earthquakes, demolition or gentrification. Another $10 million would build shelters for the homeless, and $10 million would provide loans for low-wage home buyers shut out of the costly Los Angeles market.

“This is a bond issue Los Angeles can’t afford to lose,” said Barbara Grover, campaign consultant to Proposition K’s committee, Taxpayers to Save the American Dream. “This isn’t a library bond issue or something else that would be nice to have. It’s critical.”

However, because Proposition K would increase property taxes--by about $4.95 per year for the average homeowner--the measure needs two-thirds voter approval.

The only public figure to step forward in opposition to the housing measure is City Councilman Nate Holden, who wrote the ballot argument against it.

Holden was out of town and could not be reached for comment, but has complained recently that “voters approve too many bond measures” and that such city housing problems should be handled by the state and federal government.

For Mayor Tom Bradley and the rest of the City Council, which overwhelmingly supports Proposition K, the most crucial need is for earthquake renovation funds. Today, about 40,000 of the city’s poorest residents live in aging brick buildings that engineers say would become death traps in a major earthquake.

“We are talking about 40,000 or more homeless overnight--if they survive the quake,” said Michael Bodaken, Bradley’s housing coordinator. “The mayor is asking the public to back this badly needed measure.”

Carl Deppe, the city’s earthquake safety chief, said his agency has fought to get the city’s thousands of brick buildings reinforced since the 1971 Sylmar earthquake that killed 65 people and wreaked havoc on brick structures.

After years of prodding, most apartment owners have finally complied with a 1981 city law requiring seismic strengthening, which can cost as much as $10,000 per apartment unit.

According to Deppe, 25,372 units have been reinforced--but amid a worsening housing shortage, the city has lost 6,014 low-rent brick units that were torn down by exasperated owners. More ominously, nearly 11,000 endangered units still stand, their owners unable or unwilling to comply.

“It’s not just intransigent owners; it is owners who really need financial help to do it,” Deppe said.

Proposition K has been endorsed by the Central City Assn. of downtown business interests; the Countywide Alliance of HUD-Subsidized Tenants; the Coalition for Economic Survival; the Sierra Club; the Hillside Federation of Home Owners Assn.; the Lakeview Terrace Home Owners Assn.; the United Paramedics of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Countywide Coalition for Homeless.

The business sector, which virtually ignored a similar housing bond measure that failed by just 2% last year, is giving generously to Proposition K, mostly in $1,000 and $2,000 amounts, resulting in a campaign chest of $132,000.

In addition to $40,000 from real estate groups, major contributions include: $10,000 from Maguire Thomas Partners’ Nelson Rising, co-chairman of the measure’s finance committee; $10,000 from Arco, whose president, Robert Wykoff, is also co-chairman of the committee; $10,000 from Maguire Thomas Partners; and $5,250 from the campaign of state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles).

Proposition K’s eclectic support proves that nobody wants to see Los Angeles deteriorate “into a place of have and have-nots,” said Bodaken.

Nevertheless, Bradley and other proponents are somewhat worried that Holden’s opposition could hurt the measure’s chances. Some campaign consultants believe that the very existence of an opposition ballot argument, regardless of merit, can draw thousands of votes away from an otherwise popular measure.

This is not the first time Holden has played the role of spoiler. He infuriated city officials and neighborhood leaders in 1988, when he acted as the lone dissenter on a bond measure to upgrade and build city libraries--including libraries in his own district. The measure failed that year.

In the housing measure’s favor, however, is the fact that a similar bond measure was on the ballot in 1989, so voters will be somewhat familiar with earthquake safety issues. That 1989 housing bond measure, supported by contributions of only $21,000, failed by just 3,500 votes.

Analysis of that defeat has shown that San Fernando Valley voters gave it a lukewarm yes vote of less than 60%. In contrast, many areas of the city--including Holden’s 10th District--racked up yes votes of well over 70%.

The campaign committee hopes to change the Valley’s soft voter attitude toward the housing crisis. Councilman Hal Bernson, a Valley Republican and fiscal conservative, has become a leading proponent of Proposition K.

In addition to the nearly 11,000 earthquake-unsafe units that could be improved in part by Proposition K, the measure makes funds available to save some of the city’s more than 26,000 federally protected apartments whose rent controls expire in the 1990s.

Without a program to buy out owners of these units, most officials expect gentrification and steep rent increases in areas where the buildings are concentrated--Hollywood, Venice, San Pedro and the San Fernando Valley.

“The lack of supply is driving up the prices and we can’t take any more,” said Alice Callaghan, founder of the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust, a group that renovates flophouses to create attractive studio units for the poor.

The message is much the same from the county Republican Central Committee, which voted 76-2 to endorse Proposition K, the only local bond measure it endorsed.

“I’m a detective here in the Rampart Division and I deal with a huge homeless population,” said party Vice Chairman Robert Thoreson. “I see children sleeping in cars with parents, and while I’m not the type of guy who wants government getting too much into housing, I feel government, in part, has driven up housing costs with regulations and fees. Now government should help resolve it.”

Proposition K: The Housing Crisis Rents are skyrocketing in the West, but Los Angeles has borne some of the worst increases, with the city’s poor paying 50% to 70% of their income on rent. Proposition K would rehabilitate 6,000 low-income apartments that would otherwise be lost to earthquake-safety deficiencies, demolition and gentrification. The measure would cost an average homeowner $4.95 a year in property taxes. Los Angeles average rents Compared with other regions of the country, adjusted for inflation and expressed in 1988 dollars. Nearly 11,000 units housing the city’s poorest residents are in brick buildings that would become death traps in the event of a severe quake. Although city law has required since 1981 that buildings be renovated, many owners cannot afford the costly work. Under Proposition K, owners could be bought out and buildings fixed. The funds could also be used to maintain lowrents on some of the 26,000 low-income units in the San Fernando Valley, Venice, Hollywood and San Pedro that are under federal rent control due to expire in the 1990s. Selsmically unsafe apartment units

Council Number of district units 1 2,493 2 109 3 0 4 1,061 5 47 6 253 7 0 8 327 9 4,168 10 962 11 16 12 0 13 1,284 14 195 15 50 Total 10,965