‘Grass-Roots Grandma’ Turns Her Attention to Associations

It seems to Willowdean Vance that she has been fighting for a lifetime.

During World War II, she lobbied then-U. S. Sen. Lyndon Johnson for better housing and schools for military dependents.

“He never forgot about me,” she said.

Later, Vance shifted her attention to a national drive for freedom of choice in health care. “I was good at that too.”

Today, this self-styled “grass-roots grandma” has established herself as one of the state’s biggest “pains in the butt” to homeowners associations and those who support them.

Vance herself is a member of the Lake Forest Homeowners Assn. No. 1. Her cluttered desk is a virtual clearinghouse for cases challenging the authority of associations from Orange County to Sacramento.

She has formed her own watchdog group, the American Homeowners Assn., which spits out examples of “injustices” to anyone who will listen. She has compiled a book titled “How to Survive a Homeowners Association.”

When problems arise in these neighborhood governments, troubled residents seek her out. Should the cases wind up in court, Vance goes with them.

“I get at least four or five calls a day here,” she said recently. “I don’t know how they find me, but they do. One person called all the way from Delaware. He said he got my number from somebody in Washington.”

As was apparently the case with LBJ, most find it hard to forget Vance once they’ve crossed her path, for better or worse.

Her voice is roughly the female equivalent of Ross Perot’s, and her message is delivered with the same machine-gun speed and occasional wit. And she makes no bones about whose side she’s on.

“When people buy into homeowner associations,” Vance said, “they think they’ve found their dream house. Sure, they have the parks, swimming pools, and clubhouses, but more rules than the military. They find out later it’s really a house of horrors.”

Vance said her campaign for association reform is rooted in her own experience. When she moved to her Lake Forest community in 1987, she immediately disliked the fact that she needed to show proof of residency each time she wanted to use the association clubhouse.

When fire crept dangerously close to her home shortly after she moved in, she said firefighters had a difficult time attacking the blaze because of the narrow streets. When she complained, she said, her neighbors treated her rudely.

Other problems have arisen over issues involving the removal of dying trees and the widening of clubhouse doors to accommodate the handicapped.

“When I moved here, I liked the idea of the extra security and maintenance,” she said. “It sounded like a carefree life. Well, my carefree life has given me a migraine headache.”

Since then, Vance and a handful of others, such as Elizabeth J. McMahon, who heads the American Homeowners Resource Center, have anointed themselves as homeowner watchdogs.

They rail against attorneys hired by associations to do battle in homeowner squabbles. By fax and mail, Vance even instructs homeowners about how they can remove board members from neighborhood associations.

Lake Forest Assn. Treasurer Hudson Fields described Vance’s activities as “nonstop.” He said Vance has been “helpful in providing advice in several areas.”

“She seems to be very dedicated,” he said. “I can’t endorse her or knock her because I really don’t know a whole lot more about her.”

Many of Vance’s targets are government officials who, she says, are not doing enough to monitor association activities. California Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata), chairman of the Committee on Housing and Community Development, is one who feels Vance’s wrath regularly.

“I think she serves a purpose,” Hauser said. “At least she tries to stir things up, and that’s good. Sometimes, though, I wish she would get her facts straight before she jumps off on things. She is aggressive.

“I know I’m not on her good list, but she’s not in my district, either.”