Port Hueneme Housing Aid for City Workers Questioned
For years the city of Port Hueneme has provided cut-rate beach-side apartments to some city workers who could not afford the high-rent area, including the city’s acting housing director.
Some housing advocates have begun questioning whether the practice is fair, considering that city housing records show that hundreds of poor families will wait years for an apartment.
At the city-leased Seaview Apartment complex, 18 city employees pay $402.50 or $492.50 per month for two- or three-bedroom apartments, less than half the market average.
The city’s acting housing director, Olivia Ward, moved into the Seaview complex more than 10 years ago, before the city adopted an employee-preference rental policy. Ward earns the highest salary of all city workers living in the complex, $67,080 a year, according to officials.
Ward noted that she is one of four city employees living in the building who did not receive an apartment under the 1990 policy. She also emphasized that her salary supports a household of six.
“I’m not going to get into my personal reasons for being there, and I do have them,” Ward said. “I think where I choose to live is my personal business. There are residents whose incomes are considerably higher than mine” living in the complex.
The city’s preference policy was enacted to provide low-wage city workers an affordable place to live “for a period of time until [they] could get their feet on the ground,” said former Mayor Dorill B. Wright.
But employees have not been required to move out even as their salaries increased, because the city’s policy has no time or income limits. Some city workers have lived there for many years.
“It sounds like . . . a certain small group of people essentially got a gift from the government for a long period of time,” said Barbara Macri-Ortiz, an attorney with the Channel Counties Legal Services Assn. who represents low-income tenants. “Is government there to serve the people, or is it a private little club where people who work for government get the best advantage?”
Among the other city employees who are Seaview tenants are two police officers, a police dispatcher, the deputy city clerk, the account clerk, two community development technicians, a recreation department assistant and a housing specialist, said Karen Jackson, the city’s human resources director.
Those workers earn considerably less than Ward. For example, a part-time parking enforcement officer earns $9 an hour and a public works technician earns as much as $45,264 annually, Jackson said.
Government workers, however, are not the only ones enjoying low rent in the complex. All tenants in the 90-unit building are free from income and time-limit requirements. According to city records, one tenant was earning $80,000 a year at one point.
Of the 84 tenants living at Seaview in March, 23 reported monthly incomes above the “very low income” levels set by federal housing authorities. A family of four with an annual household income below $34,250 is considered “very low income” and below $50,200 is considered “lower income,” according to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Is it right? That’s a hard question,” Councilman Anthony Volante said of the city’s rental policy. “It’s just something that we allowed to have happen over the years.”
Local housing advocates ask how the city can provide cheap housing without imposing income and time-limit requirements on tenants.
“We would like to see those units available to people with low incomes,” said Douglas Tapking, director of the Area Housing Authority of Ventura. “It’s seems a little strange that someone who is earning $80,000 a year could be living in a subsidized apartment complex.”
“I don’t understand why the city is doing that,” said Lee Riggan, executive director of the Commission on Human Concerns, a private nonprofit agency that assists poor families. “I’m really surprised. I wish we could use this property for affordable housing.”
The council asked to review the salaries of all the tenants in March when the city decided to put the Seaview complex up for sale at $6.4 million. Council members said they wanted to know what families would face hardship after the building is sold and rents increased.
Councilman Jon Sharkey said he was surprised to learn that there are several tenants who are not considered low-income.
Sharkey said the city should have reviewed the policy sooner.
Other council members acknowledged that a policy that allows anyone, regardless of income, to rent an apartment in the building is questionable when there are low-income families in need of housing.
