Victims Find Unexpected Stumbling Blocks

Nearly 1,000 hours have passed since the Northridge quake--ample time to recuperate, to reassess, to recover.

Or is it? For the thousands of San Fernando Valley residents who were deeply affected by the quake, healing comes in small increments. Backsliding is common.

An unemployed man made homeless when his mobile home was destroyed Jan. 17 has found a job, but is living in a motel. A couple whose hillside home slid has discovered repairs will drag on longer and cost more than they expected. A merchant who quickly replenished his smashed liquor stock now faces mounting debts. And a woman who had moved into her garage has returned to her cracked house, but cannot afford to repair it.

JOAQUIN MORENO

A single room at a motel on a seedy stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard is not Joaquin Moreno’s idea of making it.

In the month and a half since the Northridge quake wrecked his mobile home in Sylmar and left him homeless, Moreno, 30, has found his first job in nearly three months and has moved out of a Red Cross shelter.

Still, the job pays poorly and a room at the Vagabond Motel is not exactly home.

“I’m going to have to look for (a second) job,” he said last week. “Maybe working 4 p.m. to 8 or 9 . . . even to midnight if I have to.”

At his current job, in the service department at Keyes Mazda in Van Nuys, he works from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., five days a week. He drives customers home who have left their cars at the shop, sweeps up, washes cars. Thursdays and Saturdays are his days off, though he works overtime at every opportunity.

Usually unsinkably optimistic, Moreno’s existence on the verge of homelessness since the quake has caused even him to worry. For instance, one day last week, he realized that he had only one more night left on the Federal Emergency Management Agency voucher that had given him five days of refuge in the $30-a-night North Hills motel.

So after working half a day on his day off, he headed to a Red Cross center in San Fernando and spent several hours persuading a caseworker to call the motel so he could stay another week. For that, he received several sheets of paper, which he carefully put into an already bulging Manila folder.

Moreno’s life now is dependent on official paperwork. He has forms for a place to live. Forms for $15 in food a day at Carl’s Jr. Forms to get an apartment.

“I thought it was going to be easy after I found a job,” he said. “But it’s going OK. The only thing I need is an apartment, a place to stay. Then I’ll be OK.”

So far, however, the apartment has remained elusive.

He found a place he likes in Panorama City on Van Nuys Boulevard and a housing voucher from FEMA that will pay for it, but it hasn’t worked out. The apartment manager has had him fill out two different applications, and the manager’s supervisor wants additional references before renting to him.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

“I was told that all I had to do is show them the paperwork and tell them it was an emergency and I would have no problem,” Moreno said. “I don’t think the manager is being dishonest. I think he’s just confused because no one told him what to do. I’m going to try to get someone from (the federal housing department) to come with me to take care of it, but I haven’t been able to reach them.”

For the last month, his day has started at 5 a.m., when he has to get up to make it on time to work. After riding three buses, he arrives at the car dealership about 6:30, the sky still showing only a hint of sunlight.

In the evening, when he gets home, he goes straight to his room, careful to avoid the forward prostitutes and persistent drug hawkers that hang around the stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard. He reads, writes letters, watches television.

Moreno’s clothes remain in the damaged trailer. He owns only a few shirts and pants, underwear. A pair of shoes.

To make his motel room more habitable, he asked the motel manager for a refrigerator and telephone. He has to pay for each phone call.

“Everything is money,” he said. “You can not do anything without money. Nada. “

Then he smiles. And abruptly begins singing. “When I get my own place, ‘I’ll be back on the road again, can’t wait to get back on the road again. . . .’ ”

DANIEL K. WHANG

For all appearances, liquor store owner Daniel K. Whang has put the earthquake behind him. On a recent morning, his Northridge market was filled with the sounds of counter chit-chat and the brisk clack of his cash register drawer shutting.

Along the shelves of Whang’s replenished liquor collection, silvery wires have been strung to prevent bottles from falling over, as they did by the hundreds in last month’s temblor. White splotches mark where cracks and holes have been newly plastered.

Things are not nearly as rosy as they look, however.

In the past month, the Glendale resident’s life has been awash in paperwork as he has attempted to get extensions on various loans to free up money to repay his store suppliers, who fronted him stock after the quake.

He also is preparing to apply for his second Small Business Administration disaster loan. His first was for a South-Central liquor store that was burned down in the April, 1992, riots.

Worst of all, he fears he could lose his Glendale apartment building, which he estimates suffered $20,000 worth of damage in the earthquake. Quake damage drove three of Whang’s four tenants from the complex, meaning that, at the least, Whang will lose $2,000 in rent next month.

“It’s kind of a headache,” admitted Whang, 41, who appeared tired yet remains upbeat about his life and his future.

So far, one bank has granted Whang a four-month extension on repayment of his apartment loan, but in turn required higher payments for six months beginning in June to make up the shortfall.

The store owner said that other bank officials have informally told him that extensions on his repayment schedule for loans for his own home and his Northridge store will be approved, but Whang worries that the terms will merely end up adding to his financial load.

On the bright side, Whang estimates that his quake loss was less than he thought. He said he has incurred $83,000 worth of earthquake damage to his apartment building and his Northridge market, including $50,000 in lost store inventory--down from his original estimate of $90,000.

Despite the difficulties they face, Whang and his family seem to have avoided the emotional trauma that often accompanies financial worries. One reason, the store owner says, may be that he downplays problems when speaking to his wife, and doesn’t speak of the difficulties at all around his children.

“If I worry too much, probably my family will get depressed or panic,” Whang said. “When I go home, I act like nothing happened. Because my family--my mother, my wife, my son--they cannot help me.”

LUCY PEREZ

Lucy Perez and her family have moved back into her quake-wracked Pacoima house, after living for three weeks out of a tent in her front yard and, later, in the garage in the back.

But the unsettled feeling that the quake brought has not ebbed, and her single-story stucco house hardly feels like a home anymore.

On top of the unnerving aftershocks, which widen old cracks and begin new ones, are the headaches of trying to maneuver through a jungle of paperwork and government bureaucracy to get a loan to make her home--and life--whole again.

The rebuilding process has been slow and frustrating, said the 68-year-old widowed grandmother, who lives on Pinney Street with her son, Eddy Perez, and two teen-age grandsons.

“Instead of getting better and getting our lives together, we are not,” she said, as she gestured from her porch to huge cracks on the inside and outside of her home. “How can we?”

The problem, she and her son say, is that the combined income from her Social Security payments and his salary as a part-time worker at a pizza delivery business are not enough to qualify for a loan and too much for a grant.

“We are not too rich and not too poor, so we fall in the cracks,” said Lucy Perez.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency did give her a $3,450 grant to make the house livable again, but that falls far short of the $44,000 they believe is needed to repair the home and replace damaged furniture and personal items.

Although an initial loan request was denied, FEMA and other federal loan agencies are still reviewing the Perez family’s funding application. But Eddy Perez said he has been told that the most he can get is a grant for $8,000.

The worst of the damage includes a gaping hole in the living room ceiling and a massive rip in the home’s front wall that has left a huge sheet of stucco hanging precariously from the frame, like bark peeling off a tree.

A few days after the quake, a city inspector taped a green tag to the front porch window, declaring the house safe. But Lucy and Eddy Perez have little faith in the inspection, considering it took only 10 minutes to complete and, since then, new cracks have appeared with every aftershock.

“Would you live here?” Eddy Perez asked, pointing to a quarter-inch-wide crack that runs half the length of the living room ceiling.

For Lucy Perez, the financial plight she faces only compounds problems she has struggled with since her husband died two years ago, following a long bout with heart and lung ailments. His death left her with a handful of medical bills.

She and her son took out a second home loan, for $65,000, to pay bills and make some long-needed improvements around the house. But the few improvements that were made were spoiled by the quake and the family must now go into debt again.

“It’s a lot of little things adding up like a snowball,” Eddy Perez said.

STEVEN AND BARBARA SADD

Even after the Northridge earthquake sent his home sliding 10 inches down a Sherman Oaks hillside, Steve Sadd remained convinced his life would be back on track within a few weeks.

Armed with earthquake insurance, he contracted workers just a week after the quake to pull his house-on-stilts back on its foundation.

The same morning, Sadd’s contractor told him that he and his wife, Barbara, would probably be able to return to their home within a month.

But that month has come and gone and, like hundreds of San Fernando Valley residents whose homes were damaged during the quake, the Sadds have found themselves faced with the realization that the road to recovery will probably be a long and expensive one.

“I was pretty optimistic early on, but I’ll be lucky now to be back in the house by July,” said Sadd, a Century City attorney, who is temporarily renting a house in West Los Angeles. “It sounds to me like they need to rebuild the entire house.”

Sadd originally estimated it would take $60,000 in repairs to get his red-tagged home to meet building standards. But that figure quickly escalated to more than $100,000 after more damage was discovered.

Before the Sadds can return to their home with its breathtaking view of the Valley, the floor needs to be reattached to a foundation, which in turn needs to be reinforced with concrete and steel beams.

“We would love to get back, but we’re waiting for contractors, engineers and permits,” said Barbara Sadd.

And all the work will have to wait until the Sadds settle with their insurance company, which so far has given them less than $2,000. Meanwhile, the couple has spent thousands of their own dollars.

“I’ve gone as far as I can on my money and I’m still waiting to hear from my insurance company,” Steve Sadd said. “They’re slower than molasses.”

Sadd said he fears that his insurance won’t cover all the damages. The couple has yet to hear back from FEMA and they are now contemplating taking out an SBA loan.

Even after building inspectors deem the structure safe to re-enter, the Sadds will be faced with a disaster of broken furniture and glass that remains strewn throughout their home.

“In the beginning, it was wonderful because, despite all the tragedy, people had pulled together because we had all shared the same experience,” Sadd said. “But now I’m feeling very discouraged. . . . I feel like I’ve lost more than (I did) before.”

“My life has been turned completely upside down and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”