City Officials Urge Stricter Housing Code

Officials from Santa Ana, Orange and other Southern California cities on Tuesday called for tighter restrictions on the number of people allowed to live in a home to prevent hazardous conditions.

Society is “talking about the safety of people, and we can do better than condoning the vast number of people living in (crowded conditions). That’s no way to live,” said Jim Lindgren, building safety manager for Santa Ana.

But Latino rights activists and advocates for the poor who also attended the state Department of Housing and Community Development meeting Tuesday opposed any changes to the Uniform Housing Code.

Tighter housing standards would do more harm than good and force entire families onto the streets, they said, noting that many families currently live together in order to afford housing in one of the most expensive areas of the country.

“I believe families live like this because you either pay rent and don’t buy food or you buy food and don’t pay rent. That’s why you have families having other families move in to help pay rent,” said Ascension Briseno, a Santa Ana resident.

Briseno successfully sued Santa Ana in 1991 to overturn a local housing occupancy ordinance that would have roughly cut in half the number of people allowed to live in a home.

State housing codes allow as many as 10 people to live in a one-bedroom apartment and as many as 19 in a three-bedroom home.

Proponents of stricter codes said that crowded conditions overburden fire and police departments, accelerate wear on streets and sewers and cause substantial health and safety problems.

Allen P. Baldwin, executive director of the Orange County Community Housing Corp., said that he opposes changing the code.

“Advocacy for a reduced housing-occupancy standard is racist and exclusionary. I would suggest that families are better off under a roof with heating than on the street,” he said.

But Lindgren dismissed suggestions that cities are acting on the basis of race, saying that their overriding concern is for the health and safety of residents.

“The results are often tragic” when people live in overcrowded homes, he said, referring to recent fires in Santa Ana that killed nine people and injured 10 others. Firefighters blamed the casualties on overcrowding.

“Our Fire Department is telling me that these people need not have died had conditions not been what they were,” Lindgren said.

He said problems from overcrowding occur most often when unrelated people live together because responsibility for maintaining the home becomes diffused. As a result, problems such as faulty or damaged wiring, broken plumbing and other hazardous conditions frequently go unrepaired, he said.

Richard Spix, an attorney who represented Briseno in his suit over Santa Ana’s housing law, rejected that explanation, noting that landlords are often responsible for failing to perform proper maintenance.

John Frith, a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Community Development, said the agency will hold another hearing on the topic Thursday in Sacramento. The agency is expected to formulate its recommendations by May.