Displaced Families Call Suites Temporary Home : Oxnard: City places more than 50 households in Radisson while completing required work on public housing projects.

A few weeks ago, Josefina Guillenwas living in cramped, rundown public housing in Oxnard’s La Colonia barrio with her husband and four children.

Now she and her family are living the high life in a plush $100-a-day townhome at the Radisson Suite Hotel, one of Oxnard’s upscale hostelries.

Taxis take her 5-year-old daughter, Mari Carmen, to school. Her 13-year-old son, Juan Carlos, works on his tennis game. Twelve-year-old Miguel Angel relaxes in the hot tub--and the government picks up the tab for everything.

“It’s like being on vacation,” Guillen said. “They tell us this is where the Raiders train. It’s a luxury place in some ways.”

Guillen’s family is among the more than 50 households that Oxnard is relocating to a hotel for four to six weeks while work is performed on the public housing projects where they live.

To comply with a mandate from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Oxnard housing officials have begun a $2.25-million construction effort to make the city’s public housing projects more accessible to the disabled.

About 10 families, mostly from La Colonia’s public housing, are being relocated at a time, said Ruben Andrade, the Oxnard housing official in charge of the project.

The city held a bidding to find the least costly hotel, but only received one offer: The Radisson, for $50 a night per suite, Andrade said.

Kathie Teal, the hotel’s sales manager, said the deal made business sense for them, and was also a way to help Oxnard and public housing tenants. The Radisson had an occupancy rate of about 70% last year, according to hotel officials.

Oxnard officials say the estimated $128,000 price tag of the relocation is not a concern, because the city is receiving HUD money to do the work, move the residents and place their belongings in storage.

The construction program includes widening doorways, installing smoke detectors, lowering counters, building wheelchair ramps and adding accessible showers to the city’s public housing so disabled people can live comfortably.

*

Carlos Aguilera, a community activist who chairs the La Colonia Neighborhood Council, said the families being relocated deserve to be put up at the Radisson because the city is putting them through a major hassle.

“I think it’s great that they are staying at the Radisson,” Aguilera said. “They are having to move out of their homes on very short notice. Why should they go to a Motel 6 or something cheap? It’s the least the city can do.”

Guillen agrees. She and her husband, Mario, a celery picker, had lived in the same La Colonia apartment since 1984. When they learned they would have to leave the place forever--since the city is moving them to another apartment after the repairs--they were upset.

Complaints about the cracked paint and musty smell of the weathered apartment were replaced by a feeling of nostalgia, said the 38-year-old Guillen.

“We were in accord with the idea,” Guillen said, “but we’ll always miss that place.”

When he heard Oxnard was moving his family to a hotel, Mario Guillen Jr. said he envisioned a dingy, single room, not the stately Radisson. He said his father was so impressed with the three-bedroom townhome that he jumped in the shower before a hotel worker had finished showing them the place.

*

“Going from the projects to the Radisson is a big change,” said the 18-year-old. “My friends all want to stay overnight at my house now.”

Two of Miguel Angel’s friends ride their bicycles from La Colonia to the Radisson every day to join him at the pool. Juan Carlos exercises at the private gym and plays tennis with his sister almost every day. Even Josefina has stepped onto the tennis court for a few volleys.

But she insists the family has not lost touch with their economic reality.

“Golf is for people who can afford to pay the caddies,” she said, explaining why the family has not ventured onto the adjacent course. “That’s not for us. But the pool, these other things that don’t cost money are OK.”

Some other families have not been as restrained, however. One family got so carried away that they all jumped in a hotel pool before they had even been shown their apartment.

Another thought room service was complimentary, and ordered every meal for a week before learning they would have to pay the bill themselves, Guillen said.

*

And one family complained that the hotel’s cleaning personnel were only visiting their apartment twice a week, saying they should stop by every morning like they do for paying customers.

Although most families say they are happy at the Radisson, some say the experience made them the target of prejudice.

Luz Magana, who is staying at the Radisson with her husband and eight children, said one maid told her that she was surprised Mexican families were allowed into the Radisson, since the place was for “pure Americans” only.

She said hotel customers complained about her children playing in the streets and making noise, so now the family remains indoors.

“We have to have them locked up in here,” Magana said of her children. “They need liberty to play, and there isn’t enough. I wish the two weeks were over so we could leave.”

But for the Guillens, the stay at the Radisson has been a charm. Taxis paid for by Oxnard or vans driven by city workers take Mari Carmen and other children to school every day, as well as adults who need rides to work. City officials are considering using a city van for the service full-time.

As she looked out of the apartment over the tennis courts and toward the Raiders’ practice facility, Guillen said she will miss the dishwasher, cable television and other comforts of the Radisson when she moves out in about two weeks.

“Going back is going to be hard,” Guillen said. “That place in La Colonia is so ugly. The decorations here are nice. But we know it’s too good to last.”