Cut Crowding in Units or Leave, Renters Are Told

At least 10 families in an Oxnard apartment complex long popular with farm workers are fighting orders that they must adhere to their leases and get rid of the extra tenants living in their overcrowded units.

RHC Communities of Newport Beach issued 10 notices to residents at the Mira Loma Apartments, 1600 W. 5th St., last week warning tenants they were violating a company policy by permitting either overcrowding or substandard living conditions.

Citing health and safety conditions, the management company gave residents 10 days to reduce the number of occupants in each apartment to comply with state standards or face possible eviction.

Those standards allow for up to five occupants in a two-bedroom apartment and three in a one-bedroom unit. Because rents for two-bedroom units at the complex exceed $700 a month, many of the farm workers and other low-income residents have resorted to overcrowding.

But lawyer Eileen McCarthy, who represents the tenants facing eviction, argues that the standards are subject to interpretation.

“I have big differences with them over the occupancy standards,” said McCarthy, who has asked the management company to allow seven residents to continue living in one of the two-bedroom apartments. “I think there is greater flexibility.”

Guadalupe Onofre, 52, lives with his son, daughter-in-law and the couple’s two children and rents one of the two bedrooms to two friends. He received one of the notices last week.

“I’m upset about the whole situation, and I’m not sure where my family and I will be able to go to if we are taken out of their apartment,” said Onofre, who has rented out a bedroom for three years to help make the $760 rent.

“With just me and my son working, we wouldn’t be able to make enough to pay the rent,” he said. Onofre and his son work as landscapers; Onofre earns $6.50 an hour and his son makes $7 an hour.

“It’s a general concern. The problem is that owners talk about overcrowding, but the reality is that because of the low wages and low income, people have to have that many wage earners in order to make the rent,” said McCarthy, an attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard.

McCarthy received word late last week from the management company that the deadline for complying with the lease would be extended 60 days, giving the residents additional time to reduce the numbers in the households or make other living arrangements. David Rose, chief operating officer and spokesperson for RHC Communities, was not available for comment.

“I think it will be very difficult, but at least this gives us more time,” McCarthy said.

Even with the time extension, officials say relocating dozens of tenants may not be feasible.

“There is a lack of affordable housing in Oxnard, and the agencies available don’t have the resources to get them into other housing,” said Norman Patton, chairman of the city’s Commission on Homelessness, formed earlier this year. “It is really a scenario that the city and the commission and the nonprofits are not equipped to handle. There are simply too many of them.”

The issue came before the City Council at its last meeting when RHC Communities sought a preliminary review for renovations and expansion planned for the 152-unit Mira Loma complex.

Aside from asking the owners for a further extension to give nonprofit agencies more time to assist the tenants in finding alternate housing, there isn’t much the commission or city can do, Patton said.

The city does not get involved with private lease disputes between property managers and tenants, said Karl Larson, compliance services manager for the city’s Housing Department.

“There really isn’t a legal position that the city can get involved with. It’s a rock and a hard place. We can’t really fault the management, because they are trying to enforce code, and we can’t not agree that the apartment is overcrowded,” Patton said.

Additionally, the city’s Section 8 rent subsidy program, which can also be used to provide emergency help, is not a viable option for these residents, he said.

The families are not currently homeless or facing eviction from the government--a requirement needed to boost individuals to the top of a long waiting list of applicants.

“Section 8 can’t address this population because they technically aren’t homeless by federal standards,” Patton said.

To help ease some of the overcrowding throughout the city, one of the commission’s main tasks is to develop a year-round transitional shelter for those such as the tenants facing displacement at the Mira Loma Apartments. The few transitional shelters now operated by nonprofit groups in the city have long waiting lists, he said.