Cover Story : No Room to Grow : As Families Are Forced to Crowd Into Filthy Living Spaces, Health and Fire Officials Fear the Dangers of Close Quarters

It is a squalid place to raise a family.

For months, every time the upstairs neighbor flushed his toilet, water trickled through the rotted bathroom ceiling. Hot water for baths had to be heated on the kitchen stove recently after the gas was shut off.

This one-bedroom hovel in the heart of Long Beach is home to Irma Gutierrez, Tranquilino Mendoza and their family. The couple’s three children sleep with Gutierrez or on bunks next to her bed. Mendoza and an uncle settle for couches in the living room.

The family, which relies on welfare and income from the parents’ part-time jobs, would like a better place but can’t afford it. So Gutierrez keeps the apartment as clean as possible, setting sticky traps to catch the cockroaches that scurry through the kitchen.

Such living conditions are all too common among poor families in Long Beach and other Southeast cities. Unable to afford better housing, many are cramming into garages and back-yard sheds without plumbing, motel rooms without heat and tiny apartments where rats are as common as kitchen silverware. Health officials warn that germs and disease thrive in crowded dwellings, while firefighters worry about other hazards, including loose wiring and gas leaks.

The problem is reaching unprecedented proportions partly because of the continuing influx of poor residents, many of them immigrants, to the area. Yet cash-strapped cities are hamstrung for solutions, lacking enough affordable housing to meet the demand and enough health inspectors to crack down on errant landlords.

“I don’t anticipate dramatic changes in the plight of the low-income renter in the near future,” said Dennis Rockway, senior counsel for the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach. Signs of the crowded conditions are abundant in poor neighborhoods and run-down pockets of many cities. Along alleys in west Long Beach, cables stretch from power poles to garage doors where someone has tapped into the electrical current. In South Gate, old cars line the narrow streets because garages are occupied. Fences in Lynwood are draped with laundry from residents living in garages and enclosed patios.

Health and building officials must deal with the squalor daily. A Long Beach health inspector recently visited a bug-infested apartment where a bucket was put in place of plumbing under the sink. Children slept a few feet away in the living room. At the next stop, a young woman told him a mouse dropped through planks in a cracked bathroom ceiling into a bathtub while she was bathing.

But one incident still defies belief. County building inspectors, working in Hawaiian Gardens a couple of years ago, discovered several people living in an apartment-complex pool that had been drained, boarded up and rented out by the building’s tenants.

“It’s one of those stories you come across that makes you say, ‘Now I’ve seen it all,’ ” said Carl Holm, the city’s director of community development. “They got them out of there as fast as possible.”

Officials expect the crowding problem to get worse, as the number of poor families continues to grow in Long Beach and the Southeast. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of people in area cities living below the poverty level jumped by 51,800, or 10.4%, the census shows. Nearly one of every four new residents in the area lives in poverty.

Some of the poorest, most crowded cities--including Lynwood, South Gate, Maywood and Bell Gardens--also lost housing during the decade, the census shows. Officials attribute the losses to redevelopment and the Century Freeway construction, among other things.

Government housing programs have been overwhelmed by the demand. In Long Beach, a waiting list for federal rent assistance already has 13,500 people, and city officials have stopped taking applications. Large families who hope to get financial help renting three- or four-bedroom apartments there can expect to wait up to five years, said Diane McNeel, manager of the city’s Housing Services Bureau.

The problem is worse than the statistics show because large numbers of undocumented immigrants live in illegal dwellings such as garages, experts say. According to one recent study, based on interviews with local city officials and housing documents, the census missed nearly 258,000 people and nearly 2,000 illegal dwellings in the area. Census officials concede they undercounted residents and dwellings, but by a smaller margin.

The crowded, deplorable living conditions raise a number of safety concerns.

Fire officials say families in cramped quarters tend to overload electrical outlets, and that many run-down residences have exposed wires. Some families also use charcoal barbecues to keep warm, exposing themselves to deadly carbon monoxide gas.

Homeowners complain that crowded neighborhoods create parking problems and bring more crime. Parking is so tight in South Gate that residents have expressed concern that emergency vehicles will be unable to get through streets at night. South Gate City Manager Todd Argow said he also is concerned that the extra residents reduce water pressure needed to fight fires. In neighboring Walnut Park, residents say guns have been used to decide parking disputes. Community leaders there have launched a campaign against people living in garages, reporting the addresses of suspected violators to county officials.

In Long Beach, residents complain to council members about people loitering outside apartment buildings at all hours. Some constituents are leaving the city altogether, said Councilman Alan S. Lowenthal, whose district includes a number of poor, crowded neighborhoods.

“People are angry that it’s not the community they used to know,” Lowenthal said. “They’re not willing to hang in there and deal with the changes. We don’t want people to run from their neighborhoods. It’s very frustrating.”

Health inspectors say crowded, unsanitary residences are breeding grounds for contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza and typhus.

Irma Gutierrez’s children suffered through a recent two-month bout of coughing and vomiting, which she thinks was related to germs in the damp bathroom air. A doctor told her the children had the flu.

Her landlord recently repaired the bathroom ceiling after receiving warnings from the city health department and the city prosecutor’s office. A follow-up health inspection earlier this month found several hazards throughout the apartment building, including a gas line in one unit that was secured to a kitchen stove with masking tape.

“To live in the United States in these conditions is not right,” said Gutierrez, 44, a native of Mexico. “What do I gain from getting upset?”

Gutierrez’s landlord, Marcel Jordan, said he is making repairs. But he and other landlords say tenants contribute to the problem by renting places too small for their families and failing to pay rent on time.

Wear and tear on walls, carpeting and plumbing is costly and sends property values down, making it difficult to sell buildings, the landlords claim. But some say they accept the extra tenants because they do not want their apartments to sit vacant. “If you have six or seven people living in a unit, it is going to be destroyed in no time,” Jordan said. “It comes to the point where you become callous.”

Jordan said the gas for water heaters was shut off in the apartment building for a few days because he could not pay the gas bill on time. He said most of the tenants, including Gutierrez, had not paid their rent on time. Some of his tenants are three months behind on the rent, he said.

“Disaster describes (the situation) for landlords in Long Beach,” said Milton Funk, a member of the Southeast Assn. of Realtors, who owns property in several area cities. “The quality of the tenants has dropped dramatically. They’re slow to pay, (or don’t) pay, and that certainly affects your pocketbook.”

Many families say they have no choice but to live in small apartments or to move in with other families because rent consumes such a large share of their income. Better housing is often too expensive, with upfront costs running $1,000 or more.

Miguel and Matilda Batres wedge their nine-member household into a tiny room at the Tiki Motel in Huntington Park because they cannot afford to pay first and last month’s rent and a security deposit required for many apartments.

The family, which relies on welfare and food stamps, has lived at the Tiki four years. Six children sleep in a queen-sized bed with their parents, on bunk beds or on the floor. The family’s 69-year-old grandmother, Guadalupe Martinez, sleeps on a vinyl love seat.

Bryan Corales, the Tiki’s office manager, said families typically stay about a year. While acknowledging the rooms are small, Corales said they are clean and well-maintained. The only requirement to move in is a $100 cleaning deposit, which tenants can pay in installments. “It’s more like an apartment than a hotel,” said Corales, noting that a plumber is also on call to handle problems.

Of the $608 the Batres receive in welfare each month, they spend $500 to rent their motel room.

According to the 1990 Census, nearly half of the lower-income households in Huntington Park and Bell Gardens use more than 30% of their income for shelter, meaning they meet the federal guideline for households in need of assistance or lower rent. Nearly one-third of the lower-income households in Long Beach exceed the threshold.

But at least the Batres’ have a place to themselves. Many families are forced to double and triple up in tight quarters, and some live with strangers.

Just blocks from the Batres’ motel room, Braulia Rosales pays $200 a month so she, her daughter and granddaughter can share an apartment with seven people. Rosales rents one of the two bedrooms. Other tenants sleep in a walk-in closet that has been converted into a room, and in the living room behind a makeshift wall of blankets strung over a laundry line.

“We can’t use the living room, only the bathroom and the kitchen,” said Rosales, 43, standing amid a playpen, cot and bookshelves in her room. “I had to store my things in a garage because there is not enough room here.”

While dissatisfied with their living conditions, and the amount they must spend on rent, Rosales and others say they are thankful at least to have their families together under one roof.

“I’d rather be in here than on some crazy street where we have to build a house with whatever we can find,” said Frank Gonzales, 30, who pays $450 a month so his family of four can live in a room at the Tiki Motel.

Illegal immigrants such as Rosales and Gonzales are often afraid of law enforcement authorities and unaware of the agencies and laws that can help them, experts say.

In Long Beach’s growing Cambodian community, newcomers are often reluctant to seek help from anyone, including those from their homeland, because of shame over their living conditions, said Sokennedy Pen of the Long Beach-based Cambodian Assn. of America. Day-to-day living itself can be a futile experience.

“They have not been exposed to running water, electricity (or) street signs,” Pen said of the new immigrants. “They are still struggling at bare survival.”

If tenants report problems, they often cannot expect immediate help because officials are so overwhelmed. Long Beach has just five health inspectors to police more than 8,000 licensed apartments, motels and hotels, said Steve Le Cheminant, a housing inspection supervisor with the city’s Department of Health and Human Services.

The department makes annual inspections of residential properties that have more than five units. Although inspectors try to resolve cases within 60 days, the process is often prolonged for six months or more by landlords who refuse to cooperate. Those who do not make repairs can face a maximum $1,000 fine and six months in jail. Even when health inspectors do their job, it can have the unintended result of getting tenants evicted.

Landlords counter that they must evict tenants when health, safety or building codes are violated.

A number of cities are trying to address the crowding problem through inspection laws. Long Beach requires garage inspections in the congested downtown area when residential properties are sold. Santa Fe Springs inspects rental units annually or when they are sold or tenants move. Hawaiian Gardens and Whittier have also taken steps to protect people who live in garages, requiring landlords to pay costs to relocate tenants when illegal conversions are discovered.

But housing advocates say that attempts to legislate the problem away are futile, partly because such efforts could end up putting people on the street.

The advocates call for more low-cost housing and government programs that help families buy homes or fix up their rental units. But experts predict that progress will be slow because of the lingering recession, which has cut into funding for public programs and slowed the pace of construction.

“Poor people need the same decent housing that all people need,” said Rockway of the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach. “Living in a motel room or a garage is better than being homeless, but it’s not good enough for my family or anybody else’s family.”

Increase in Poverty

These 10 Southeast cities had the largest percentage increase (1980 to 1990) of people living below the poverty level.

City Total Pop. Below Poverty % Increase Bell 34,365 8,909 81% South Gate 86,284 14,956 58% Commerce 12,135 2,100 53% Long Beach 429,433 69,694 40% Signal Hill 8,371 890 40% Lynwood 61,945 13,291 35% Montebello 59,564 8,246 32% Bell Gardens 42,355 10,875 27% Downey 91,444 7,189 26% Maywood 27,850 5,857 26%

Source: 1990 U.S. Census