Housing Program Offers Families Fresh Start
The neon “Eads” sign stands tall on the roof of a gray, four-story building, its glassy swirls a landmark whose meaning no one seems to remember. And as if bound by a similar fate, the building’s residents had also been long forgotten.
So when Porfiria Hernandez heard that things would be changing for the better--that a new management company would fix everything up--skepticism filled her eyes. A resident in the building for six years, she’s seen management companies come and go, and seen peeling chunks of ceiling and rotten carpets remain untouched.
But this time around, odds are on Porfiria’s side.
A nonprofit organization run by a group of Latino community leaders is the building’s new owner. Called New Economics for Women, or NEW, the organization has been praised by the Fannie Mae Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing for its approach to affordable housing.
Through five residential buildings, the group not only provides housing but offers residents such support services as youth centers, subsidized day care and career counseling.
Take the case of La Posada, a 60-unit building renovated by the group to provide shelter to teenage mothers, many of them homeless. At a corner of Columbia Avenue and West 4th Street, just a few blocks west of downtown Los Angeles, the immaculate peach-colored building stands out, its French windows and landscaped surroundings inviting and elegant.
In that same spot no less than 10 years ago, a foreclosed hotel was host to pigeon droppings, drugs and prostitution. The organization took over the property, and a street that used to be one of Los Angeles’ gloomiest now displays modest homes with blooming gardens and barely any graffiti.
“They don’t just rehabilitate a building, they try to revitalize the entire neighborhood,” said Mark Adams, a member of the Los Angeles Blue Ribbon Committee on Slum Housing.
The effect is not only visible in more attractive homes and cleaner streets, but the area as a whole has undergone a reduction in crime activity, Senior Lead Officer Mandy Serrano of the LAPD’s Rampart Division said.
“There’s been about a 17% reduction in crime, and also on terms of narcotics and prostitution” in the neighborhood, Serrano said. New Economics for Women has been “instrumental and very involved” in the revitalization of the street where La Posada is, she added.
NEW’s goal is to help families become economically self-sufficient, and housing is just one element in the equation, said Executive Director Maggie Cervantes.
The group was formed in 1985, the brainchild of Latino feminists on a mission to address poverty from the perspective of women. The answer, it seemed to them, was to design affordable housing with support services that would help poor families thrive.
While some tenants in the group’s buildings feel that NEW staff is too involved in their resident’ lives, the idea of direct involvement with families has been a key concept at NEW from its beginnings.
“We all grew up in poor communities, and yet became successful,” said Cervantes of NEW’s founders. “What made us succeed? It was family and community support, and we want to give that to these families.”
Keeping their residents’ feelings in mind will be just one of the challenges for the group in taking charge of the EADS building. The building, at South Bixel and Maryland streets, was in such precarious shape that it was on the slumlord target list, said Dan Falcon, development consultant for New Economics for Women.
And images of those days are still vivid in many residents’ memories.
“We had huge cockroaches and rats everywhere,” said David Mora in Spanish, the language commonly heard along halls and through the walls of the deteriorating building.
Mora, who has lived there with his wife and two children for three years, also remembers when sewage from rusted pipes was spilled all over the hall. “The carpets never dried, they were all wet with that stuff,” he said.
The slumlord lost the building about a year ago, and the bank that took over made some basic repairs to fix serious code violations. So by the time NEW decided to buy the property, “the worst of the worst had been addressed,” said Falcon.
The group’s plan is to convert the building’s 76 units into bigger apartments that can accommodate the large families that now live in 350-square-foot studios. One of those families is a Guatemalan woman with 11 children, for whom the group will build a four-bedroom apartment, Cervantes said.
But the announcement of renovations brought a mixture of relief and anxiety to some residents, since a nicer apartment is no good if it becomes unaffordable. Most people there--the majority are immigrants from Mexico or Guatemala--work in garment factories sewing clothing for very little money.
“I make 20 cents per pair of pants, and the most I can hope for in a day is to do 200 pants,” said Antonia Perez, David Mora’s wife. She and her husband work from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m., but with wages of about $40 per day, they can barely afford to live there now, she said.
But according to Falcon, rent prices will stay the same or may even be lower, conditions that the group will be able to achieve thanks to several sources of funding. The average two-bedroom apartment now rents for $459 to $600 a month, and the post-renovation rent should be between $449 and $500, Falcon said.
While major repairs will not begin for a couple of months, some issues will be immediately addressed, like the drug-related activity that has been reported on the rooftop. An improvement in living conditions can come at a price, however. According to critics, New Economics for Women has a heavy-handed approach to managing their tenants.
For example, families in NEW’s buildings are mandated to meet with a case manager from the group at least once every three months. They also have to attend parenting and economic development workshops. Children are not allowed in the courtyard after 9:30 p.m., and children under the age of 5 have to be supervised by an adult at all times.
About 13 families in the 110-unit Casa Loma building are working with attorney David Etezadi to file complaints against the group for the tight control they impose on tenants.
“At Casa Loma, it’s more like the military,” said Etezadi, who is representing three families in cases against the organization.
Sandra Villalobos, director of quality control at New Economics for Women, agreed that the hands-on approach that is part of NEW’s philosophy may feel constraining to some families, especially those not used to much structure in their lives.
“Some people might think that we’re strict, but the end result is that families accomplish their dreams. They put their kids in school, find a job or start a new business,” said Villalobos. “We inform our families of all our rules, we bring out the lease, then they make the choice. They’re in control of their future.”
Villalobos said NEW will meet with families in the “Eads” next week, to explain the rules and discuss any concerns.
The building acquisition was financed by Bank of America’s community development corporation, a subsidiary of the bank. According to Falcon and Cervantes, the terms of the loan were “very soft,” which means that the bank took significant risk and put up $1.5 million.
“Bank of America lent the money in a fashion that no other bank in L.A. has been willing to do,” Falcon said.
And a loan of that nature is to be applauded, since banks in Los Angeles have not been as willing to finance these kinds of projects, Adams said.
To staff members at NEW, the building is certainly an investment--into a community that they hope soon will thrive.
“We want to define success through the eyes of each family, so we’re not imposing our view of what success should be,” Cervantes said. “That is very empowering for families.”
