Renovation Aim: Give Working Poor a Home

An abandoned downtown office building here is about to be transformed into Orange County’s first single-room-occupancy housing development for the working poor.

Developer Stephen Quartararo of Enviroprop Inc. of Long Beach said he wants to attract the higher end of the low-income work force, now living in cars or in crowded conditions. Such workers earn $170 to $300 a week and are single adults or couples without children who need time to build their savings and a safe room to live in while they find permanent homes.

“We’re not building a homeless shelter,” Quartararo said about the single-room-occupancy (SRO) project. “We’re looking for the gainfully employed who need a place to live. This will give them a real sense of pride.”

Quartararo’s Enviroprop recently bought from Arthur and Diana Lorber of Encino a half-interest in the building, which had housed county offices before being abandoned in recent years. Together they plan to establish the Civic Center Inn, with units of 150 to 180 square feet, ceiling fans, microwave ovens, telephones, dorm-size refrigerators and TVs, renting for about $425 a month. Residents will not have to pay the usual deposit for the apartment or utilities, which are included in the rent.

The apartments will come with sheets and towels, and the building will have 24-hour security. The basement will include a recreation room, storage area and a laundry room. The roof will be converted into a redwood deck, and two atriums will allow sunlight to filter through the six-story building.

A manager will live on the premises, and security cameras will be installed in the hallways of each floor.

“This,” Quartararo said, “is going to be a nice place . . . the kind of place I would have liked to live in when I was a student.”

The project is expected to go before the Santa Ana Planning Commission next month. If approved, it could open as early as November.

If the city approves the plans, the project will be the first single-room-occupancy building in Orange County, said Judy Lenthall, president of HomeAid, which was established by the Building Industry Assn. to develop emergency shelters and other transitional housing in Southern California.

Other proposed single-room-occupancy projects in Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, which are being built from the ground up, may soon house some of the same group of people targeted by the Civic Center Inn.

“Building SROs does not solve the homeless problem, but it does make a good dent in the population for which affordability is a big problem,” Lenthall said.

Although the single room occupancy concept has been used for years in California and other states, Orange County has lagged behind in building affordable housing for low-income people. Whatever the reason, SROs are seen as just one approach to the many-tiered problem of homelessness because they serve just one small group of low-income people.

Families, for example, will not fit into the single-unit apartments. The severely mentally ill will also not be welcome, although a limited number of units for the physically handicapped are included in the design.

But this project at 811 N. Broadway will help people paying too high a percentage of their wages for housing, Lenthall said.

Lenthall--who oversaw the first SRO projects in San Diego, which have been copied by cities throughout the country--said one-third of the residents there had been homeless in the year before moving into the low-rent apartments.

With an increasing homeless population and low-wage-scale earners in the service industry and few emergency housing shelters, government and industry officials are forced to confront the problem, she said.

HomeAid will develop the management plan for Quartararo’s project, which cities require before approving housing plans. The group will devise the rules and policies of the program, decide how security will be enforced and set other guidelines for employees and residents.

SROs, Lenthall said, “are safer and more secure than an average apartment building or any tourist hotel because of the required security. The SRO management program is required, and we have to address security.”

The building is a private-sector venture that will not receive money from Santa Ana’s city government but will rely on some low-interest government loans earmarked for affordable housing, Quartararo said.

The walls will be torn out or moved to form the single units, asbestos will be removed from ceiling pipes, carpeting will be replaced and new windows will be installed. Shelves and a sink will be built into each unit.

Quartararo said existing zoning covers the proposed use of the building.

Most SRO projects are funded by private industry and in partnership with the government, Lenthall said.

“There’s a real valuable asset to working with a for-profit developer,” she said. “The projects are better built, they’re cost-effective and time-efficient. There’s capital involved, and they’re so experienced.”