End of Quake Rent Subsidies Raises Anxiety

A financial aftershock is rumbling toward 13,000 low-income families in Los Angeles and Ventura counties who have received large federal subsidies for apartments since they were displaced by the Northridge earthquake more than a year ago.

That aid is scheduled to end in several months, raising concerns among tenants, landlords and public officials over another round of of displacement, family turmoil and quite possibly, homelessness. Because many recipients could not afford the rent without the subsidy, federal authorities recently began a $4-million counseling program to help them find cheaper housing or better jobs.

“The numbers are staggering. That’s a lot of people to shift,” said Jeff Farber, social services director with the Los Angeles Family Housing Corp., a San Fernando Valley-based agency that was hired to help with the counseling.

Without the subsidy, about 80% of the households probably will have to move this summer and should start the search for new lodging soon, social workers emphasize.

“Now is the time to face the music,” said Peggy Lance, housing director for the Family Assistance Program, a Hollywood agency involved in the Mobility Plus counseling effort. “In every conversation we are prompting them to look ahead, to know that this is going to come to an end.”

Before the November elections, housing officials hoped that Congress might extend the subsidies beyond the original 18 months, perhaps even indefinitely as was done for poor Florida families left homeless by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. But they now believe that Congress is very unlikely to do that because the new Republican majority argues that the Section 8 rent certificates were intended for emergency help, not for long-term dependency at other taxpayers’ expense.

“I would doubt Congress is in the mood to extend,” said Charles Ming, manager of the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Congress last year appropriated $200 million for the Southern California rent aid, which can be used at privately owned apartments or houses. Recipients average $10,525 in annual household income and are not supposed to pay more than 30% of income on rent. The average monthly rent for those in the program is $683, of which they pay $186 and the government pays $497 directly to landlords, HUD officials report.

For some families, the upcoming move may just mean the end of amenities such as extra bathrooms, gymnasium privileges, a swimming pool and a dishwasher that they did not have before the quake destroyed their homes. For many others it will mean a return to overcrowded or slum conditions they lived in before January, 1994.

Diana Bell and her three children had been sharing a two bedroom apartment in North Hollywood with a friend and her two youngsters. The quake wrecked that building, leaving the Bell family eligible for Section 8 supported housing on their own. A single mother, Bell now lives with her children in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment on the first floor of a quiet North Hollywood eight-plex. She adores her apartment.

“It was a blessing for me and a lot of people I know. It gave us the opportunity we wanted but had not been able to have, the opportunity to live decent,” Bell said.

A 36-year-old legal secretary, Bell is out of work and on welfare, she said, because of severe asthma and other medical problems. Her 14-year-old twin girls and 5-year-old son receive no support from their fathers, she explained during an interview at her tidy Ethel Avenue apartment.

Before the quake, her rent share at the overcrowded flat was $350. For the past year, she has been paying $124 a month for the much better apartment, with the government picking up the remainder of the $850 rent. Now, as the clock ticks on her Section 8 certificate, she dreads moving out. The only affordable units she has seen have been one-bedrooms in gang-ridden neighborhoods.

“It’s going to be really rough,” Bell said. “With this little rent, I’ve been able to pay my bills on time, have ample food. And the kids have been able to go to the skating rink or the movies once in a while, things that normal families are able to do.”

In contrast, David Daniel, 46, said he and his two young children plan to stay in the $600-a-month one-bedroom apartment at Lyman Gardens, a well-maintained, 1930s era complex in Los Feliz. Even after the $439 subsidy ends, his rent will be the same as at their two-bedroom place that was gutted in a quake-caused gas fire.

The Section 8 certificate “saved us from sleeping on a friend’s living room or turning homeless,” said Daniel, who works part time as a tutor for the learning disabled and is enrolled in a master’s psychology program at Antioch University. Along with the $2,300 FEMA grant that most of the displaced received, the rent aid allowed him to replace the clothes, furniture and toys lost in the blaze. Daniel believes he will be able to squeeze by, but wishes that the subsidy would shrink gradually instead of ending suddenly.

HUD officials concede that when the program was created during the hectic days after the earthquake not much attention was paid to problems that might result down the road. The scale of the task was unprecedented as was the agency’s response. Compared to Hurricane Andrew, there were about three times as many recipients and they started receiving the first subsidies three months sooner than the hurricane victims did.

“You can’t worry about the end of the line when you have people sleeping in the streets. We solved a problem, but we created a problem,” Ming said. The counseling, he added, attempts to ease unanticipated troubles.

Joseph Shuldiner, assistant HUD Secretary for public and Indian housing, stressed: “We went in there in an unprecedented way and made what we believe to be a tremendous contribution. It was always designed to be temporary. It was designed to allow some period of stability, never to add 13,000 permanent Section 8 housing certificates.”

The low-income elderly would be the first served in the small chance that Congress renews any funds, according to Shuldiner.

According to social workers, most recipients are in more expensive apartments than they were before the quake. The renters’ incomes are not expected to rise much more, even with the job counseling and the English language classes that Mobility Plus offers.

Landlords in the emergency program say they were pleased to have empty apartments rented by the subsidized tenants and hope that many can stay. But owners insist that they can afford to lower rents only by $50 or $100 when the subsidy ends, hardly enough to make up the difference.

“So what do you do with all these people who are living in a sense beyond their means at the expense of the taxpayers?” asked Charles Isham, executive vice president of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, representing 25,000 landlords. In many cases, the unhappy answer will be eviction, a prospect that gives owners “sweaty palms,” he said.

The discussion on extending the subsidies is complicated by the fact that quake victims leapfrogged over about 30,000 other area households that have been on Section 8 waiting lists for years.

“Using common sense, most people would say that 18 months is enough time to find someplace else to live,” said Peter Musurlian, district director for Rep. Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale). “Some people would say 18 months was too long.”

Opposition to any extension has been strengthened by the fact that some recipients live in buildings like the Churchill, a Mid-Wilshire district high-rise that bills itself as a luxury facility and offers an outdoor pool, Jacuzzi and a small gymnasium with weightlifting equipment. HUD officials counter that a two-bedroom there costs $800 a month, just about what federal regulations consider fair market rent for the region.

Those who oppose the subsidy argue that renters are going to be no worse off than they were before the quake.

“You can make that argument,” said David Clark, manager of the Mobility Plus program for the Los Angeles City Housing Authority. “But do we really want them to live in really overcrowded units the way they were living before?”

Because some families dropped out, unused funds may be available for an extension of two months or so, officials say. But counselors are telling families not to count on that.

“We do not want to build up false hopes with anybody,” said Farber, social service director at Los Angeles Family Housing. “The last thing I want to do is create a situation where people do not take notice of a date and stop making movement toward the next step, which is securing housing without the subsidy. It’s crucial they start in that direction.”