Council Taken to Task
I wish to offer an alternative view of the smiley, happy people of the Westside Fair Housing Council you pictured in the March 22 edition (“For Rent: Hunting for an Apartment?”).
Last November I moved from an apartment and the landlord refused to give back any of my deposit. The state Department of Consumer Affairs referred me to the Westside Fair Housing Council.
For two weeks I must have left 10 messages on their answering machine. I left both my home and work phone numbers. I received not one call back. After two weeks I finally contacted a real person. The girl who answered the phone said all the counselors were in training but that she would take my number and someone would call me back. No one did. After a week I began calling again. After another five calls I contacted a real person and received the same story. I insisted on talking to a supervisor.
The supervisor listened to my story and said unless I was a minority or gay or something there was nothing he could do. Apparently certain services aren’t available to all taxpayers. Maybe the state could publish a brochure indicating which services are available to whom.
As a counter to this poor performance and to help ensure less of my money is wasted in the future I am now fully in favor of rent control (as a return favor to my former landlord) and I try to stop government spending in this area wherever possible.
JEFFREY E. MURPHY
Manhattan Beach
Denise Cato, housing coordinator for the Westside Fair Housing Council, replies:
The council has contracts with several cities to provide fair housing and related services to the public. Those services vary from city to city, depending on what the city in question requests. For all cities that we have contracts with, we accept and investigate complaints about sales and rental discrimination. For some cities, we assist with landlord/tenant problems. For other cities, we are asked to refer landlord/tenant problems to the agencies specified by the cities.
Although we would like to provide landlord/tenant and other forms of housing counseling to all who call, our limited resources as well as our contract guidelines make it necessary to refer some calls to others. We apologize to the writer for any misunderstanding. We encourage everyone who thinks he or she may have been a victim of housing discrimination to call us at (310) 475-9671.
