Loss of a Home Leads to a Better One
It’s not quite like winning the Super Lotto jackpot, but for the extended family of Yadira Jara Padilla, an unexpected $38,000 windfall is their ticket to a dream come true: a home of their own.
Their two-bedroom Glendale apartment, shared by nine people, will be demolished next spring to make way for a $39-million redevelopment project.
The one-block area of aging apartment buildings around Pacific Park--described as among the poorest and most blighted areas in Glendale--will be transformed into a comprehensive community center, complete with an elementary school, health clinic, library, police substation and expanded park.
Glendale’s Edison-Pacific project, a joint effort by the city and the school district, calls for tearing down 20 apartment buildings and five homes. The area is bounded by Kenilworth and Pacific avenues, Vine Street and Riverdale Drive.
More than 150 families are being forced to move, and many are being encouraged to use their relocation money as a down payment on their first home, an otherwise unaffordable dream.
Of the 54 families that have already left the area, 30 have chosen to buy a home, according to Nelson Hernandez, a U.S. Housing and Urban Development area coordinator based in Los Angeles.
For some families, the benefits came as a surprise and offered a chance for a new life, even though they have to leave family, friends and schools.
“We went crazy,” said Padilla after learning how much they would receive. Today she, her husband, Robert, and three children will move into their own home in Glassell Park.
Her parents and two younger brothers, who had been living with Padilla, will move into a separate house on the same $200,000 property.
“It was like a gift from God,” Padilla said, still slightly awed by the turn of events. “My parents have been here for 24 years, and after 24 years they are getting a house.”
Each family will contribute $800 toward the monthly $1,600 mortgage payment. It’s a substantial increase from the $680-a-month rent they have been splitting, but the families saw the relocation money as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And their combined incomes from jobs as a mechanic and furniture mover were enough to qualify for a home loan.
For others, relocation benefits have ranged from $7,000 for one resident to $60,000 for a large, multiple-family household. Although the city had budgeted about $20,000 for each family, the average so far has been about $30,000 per household.
The benefits are calculated by using government guidelines that take into account income, the size of the household and size of the apartment unit. Each situation is different, relocation agents said.
Generally, the poorest families with the largest households receive the most money, according to one relocation agent.
The project is being funded by school bond money, federal Community Development Block Grant funds and city and state money. About $15 million has been budgeted to buy the privately owned buildings on the site and pay relocation benefits.
Because the project has multiple sources of financing, relocation agents use both state and federal guidelines to calculate relocation benefits. Benefits to the displaced vary from project to project, depending on the sources of funding.
“The law provides for them to be accommodated for their inconvenience,” said Lenora Frazier, a relocation specialist for the state of California. “Each displaced person does not receive the same amount, and that is probably one of the biggest challenges for us. People in a complex will talk to each other about what they got.”
An appeal process is available if residents are unsatisfied with their benefits, Frazier said.
The formula for property owners is different, partly based on the market value of the property, Frazier said.
But there are those who say they are losers.
Some families that do not earn enough to buy a home report difficulty in finding affordable apartments in the city and do not want to move away from their jobs, schools and families.
Those on a fixed income, such as the elderly, are not particularly interested in buying a home, and many had planned to spend the rest of their days in this neighborhood.
Adelina Rodriguez, 40, grew up on Vine Street and until recently thought she would never leave. Although fortunate enough to qualify for a home loan, she could not afford to buy in Glendale, the city of her choice. She moved to a three-bedroom home near the Rose Bowl and is living there with her husband and four sons.
“We were hoping that we would find a place in Glendale,” she said. “I liked it better there and I’ve lived there all my life.”
Rodriguez was clearly frustrated by the move because her 10-year-old son has already been to two schools and is having difficulty adjusting. In addition, some of her sisters and her mother, who once lived next door to her, live in a nearby apartment complex. Even that distance has proven to be a hardship for this close-knit family.
Three apartment owners and one duplex owner who did not agree with the city’s appraiser on the market values of their properties are facing court hearings to settle the dispute.
A 67-year-old apartment owner who did not want to be identified claims that “the city is trying to steal my property.”
She said her 10-unit complex, bought in the 1960s, is worth at least $370,000 more than the city’s offer of about $800,000. She and her husband hope their own appraiser and the courts will agree.
Signs of Blight as People Leave
The one-block area that surrounds Pacific Park still bustles with life, but the landscape is changing as tenants move out.
Broken windows in decaying apartment buildings are a common sight, as are vacant units. Moving vans dot the streets and empty cardboard boxes litter front porches as another family moves away each day. If everything goes according to schedule, the last family will leave in early February.
The redevelopment project began in 1995 when Glendale’s housing authority studied the condition of neighborhoods.
The area surrounding Pacific Park was identified as the neediest, and was described as a low-income neighborhood with code enforcement problems.
With input from residents, the city and school district shaped the project, which will entail features to keep the new elementary school secure. At night, areas like the joint-use library and gymnasium will be available for community use and the school areas will be inaccessible to the public.
A children’s water play area will partially make up for the loss of the city’s only swimming pool at the former park site.
What’s novel about the plan is that the city and the school district combined resources to build what they call a “model neighborhood.”
Glendale Unified School District Supt. Jim Brown said other cities are asking them for advice on creating their own innovative projects.
“We’ve approached this from the perspective that in an era when resources are limited, we need to find ways to cooperate, and if we could improve quality and at the same time control costs . . . it’s a project that will benefit not only school children but the community as a whole,” Brown said.
A block away from Pacific Park, Nancy and Sergio Ruiz are watching the project with interest. Their daughters, Monique, 7, and Jessica, 6, are students at Thomas A. Edison Elementary School, which is close to the park. In a couple of years, the girls will be attending the new school, which will be about the same distance from their home as their current campus.
The two girls, bursting with energy, run into the house after having played with the posse of neighborhood children. They stand close to their mother and father, who are sitting in the living room.
Nancy Ruiz is sympathetic to the children leaving the area who will not be able to enjoy the new school, but is pleased that her daughters will be in a less crowded learning environment. The family will also be able to enjoy the new park, she said, safe in the shadow of the new police substation.
“I think it’s going to benefit them and it will be more safe,” she said. “They said they will have lots of after-school activities there for the kids, and that’s something we really need.”
