Board to Reinstate Low-Income Rehab Loan Program

An embattled program to provide housing rehabilitation loans to low-income residents will be reinstated with changes, county supervisors decided Tuesday after hearing pleas from two dozen loan recipients.

The county’s housing improvement program has been suspended for more than a year while the Sheriff’s Department investigated allegations of shoddy work and unsafe repairs. Two criminal charges were filed in December against a homeowner and a contractor.

Most of the homeowners who addressed the board said the problems should be dealt with but begged for the program to continue.

“Many middle-income homeowners are a disaster away from losing the income to fix up their homes,” said Sherry Meddick, a longtime Silverado Canyon resident. “If there are problems with this program, fix them.”

The board voted 4 to 1, with Supervisor William G. Steiner dissenting, to revive the program after final policies and procedures are brought back for board approval next month. The board also voted to create a separate loan fund for mobile homes despite a staff recommendation that they be eliminated from the program.

About $1.7 million in loans are available this year through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. About 160 families have been on a waiting list for rehabilitation work. Contracts have been signed and are pending on six of those projects.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument for keeping the program came from conservative activist James Righeimer, a Realtor appointed by Supervisor Jim Silva to head a task force looking into problems with the loan program. Righeimer urged the board to adopt changes recommended by the task force, including creating an income cap for recipients and a loan limit for each house; and earmarking money only for repairs affecting health and safety.

“I found out that we were just remodeling kitchens in people’s homes,” Righeimer said. “There is more rehabilitation being done every weekend at a Home Depot in Orange County. You could say, ‘Just get rid of the program,’ but we have too much need in this county. It just wasn’t being done right.”

Several other speakers focused not on the revisions but on their past experience with the program, administered by a housing director who has since left his job after suffering a stroke. Attorney Theodore Albert, representing 15 homeowners who have filed claims against the county, said needy people who trusted the county now are worse off because of sloppy and unsafe work.

“This program is not going to be better until you deal with the problems of the past,” Albert said.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, a leading critic of the loan program, said his decision to support reinstatement came after balancing its social utility with the oversight problems.

“I’m convinced that we can do it right,” he said.

Supervisor Tom Wilson added, “It’s important to emphasize that it’s not going to be business as usual.”

In dissenting, Steiner said he could not support the program, even with revisions, because of the continued potential for complaints.

Housing and Community Development Director Bob Wilson said the county has been working to fix previously identified problems and will repair any additional work that created a safety hazard.