Solutions for Seniors

“Let’s eat!” announced Jeanetta Perl, as she hauled platters of steaming vegetables and roasted chicken into the cozy dining room at Co-Op One in Los Angeles’ Fairfax district. The table, set for nine, brimmed with salads and side dishes, china and cheer.

The residents of the homey converted duplex, owned by the West Hollywood nonprofit group Alternative Living for the Aging, needed no prodding to begin the evening meal, the aroma of which wafted through the home’s sun-dappled living room, adding warmth to the already convivial gathering.

“I love it here,” Elsie Oeschler said. “We’re like a family.”

Oeschler, 68, and her housemates count themselves among the fortunate few who have managed to find comfortable low-cost housing amid an affordable-housing crisis that has left seniors in the Southland scrambling to find shelter.

With average one-bedroom apartment rents at $1,089 in Los Angeles County and $1,032 a month in Orange County, according to RealFacts, a Novato, Calif.-based firm that tracks apartment rentals in the western United States, seniors whose sole income is derived from Social Security benefits increasingly find themselves jammed into tiny apartments or forced to impose on family members who often cannot deal with the special needs of aging parents or relatives.

“The general housing movement ignores elderly housing issues,” said Jon Pynoos, director of the National Resource Center on Supportive Housing and Home Modification at USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center. “There always is talk about overcrowding and low-income people. But the needs of frail persons over 75 ... are huge.”

In California, seniors who rely exclusively on Social Security benefits spend more than half of those checks on rent in 39 of the state’s 58 counties, according to “Housing for Older Californians,” a working paper published by the University of California’s California Policy Research Center. Typical benefit payments for individuals living on their own are about $750 a month.

“In L.A., many seniors can’t afford to live even in dinky apartments,” said Syed Rushdy, director of housing development for the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission. “Their incomes are fixed, and often they have no money left for food and medication.”

Building Models for

Independent Living

The problem will only intensify as the number of those 65 years and older in the L.A. metropolitan area grows to a projected 1.1 million by 2005, up 8.4% from 974,000 in 2000, according to 2000 U.S. Census data.

In an effort to ease the housing emergency, for-profit and nonprofit developers, often in partnerships with city, county, state and federal agencies, have built a variety of housing complexes for seniors which, although small in number, serve as models for independent living.

Among the more innovative is Alternative Living for the Aging, which allows seniors to enjoy a family setting, while maintaining their independence.

Long before the current affordable-housing crisis made the news, Janet Witkin, 55, realized the urgent need for decent living facilities for seniors. So in 1978 she established the organization that runs five cooperative communities, some of which are courtyard-apartment settings where residents live separately but agree to check in with each other under a buddy system, and others where residents have their own bedrooms and bathrooms, and share common kitchens and living rooms.

The group also runs a roommate-matching program that helps seniors find living quarters with others, or assists them in finding younger boarders who often help the elderly homeowners in exchange for rent.

Alternative Living for the Aging purchases buildings with help from federal tax credits, city and private funding. Rents range from $385 to $495 a month; the latter includes five dinners a week.

“I like the freedom here,” said Harriet Dickerson, 80, an active Los Angeles real estate agent. “If I don’t want company, I can close my door.”

Across town in Whittier, seniors have found an equally amenable living arrangement in the recently renovated Seasons at the Hoover, a 50-unit, low-income senior apartment community.

The restored landmark, once home to the fashionable Hoover Hotel, but most recently a run-down transient hotel with a dingy bar on the bottom floor, now houses residents such as Patricia Hickey, 66, who made the Hoover her home in June.

“I was concerned about this type of living arrangement before I got here, but I’ve grown to love it,” Hickey said. “The Hoover is affordable, which is important for senior citizens. And the people here are friendly.”

The conversion of Seasons at the Hoover, an award-winning edifice that features high beam ceilings and the building’s original Spanish tile, to low-income senior housing was a labor of love for developer Charles Fry, president of Vista Communities in Irvine, and partner LINC Housing Corp. in Long Beach.

Like similar low-income senior-housing developments, the $7.8-million Hoover project was funded by multiple sources, including the Federal Home Loan Bank, the city of Whittier, city of Industry redevelopment funds and federal low-income housing tax credits.

The funding process took 18 months to complete; construction took about another year and a half. The building’s units were fully occupied in 90 days, rented sight unseen.

Half of the building’s units are reserved for very low-income residents, who pay $416 a month for a cozy one-bedroom apartment with kitchen. The other units, also one-bedrooms, cost $467 a month and are reserved for low-income seniors. Residents at Hoover must be at least 62 and qualify for low-income housing.

The seniors share a common lounge area, decorated with stylish furniture and potted plants, where they socialize and watch passersby on the street, and gather in the card room and media center. A large multipurpose room is often in demand for potlucks and birthday parties.

LINC, or Limited-Income Communities, Vista’s development partner, is a nonprofit housing developer that builds, owns and manages 1,866 senior-housing units, including Seasons at Ontario, a mixed-use development with 80 units for seniors set in a major shopping center. Residents can walk through the apartment building’s “gateway” to a beauty parlor, pharmacy and other stores.

“Seniors face different psychological issues, but many live in facilities that don’t deal with those issues,” said LINC President Hunter Johnson. “If the management of a building can be sensitive to their needs, such as making sure their checkbooks are balanced and making sure they pay the electricity bill on time, sometimes that’s all it takes to keep them independent for a few years, before they move in with the kids or begin assisted living.”

Classes to Promote

Mental, Physical Health

That’s where More Than Shelter for Seniors comes in. The North Hollywood nonprofit organization offers two to five programs a day, at least three times a week, to seniors living in low-income housing developments. The computer classes, drama and dance workshops, cooking and tai chi classes and health education lectures are believed to promote the mental and physical health of seniors, with the goal of keeping them out of skilled-nursing homes as long as possible, said Tim Carpenter, executive director of the group.

Funded primarily by Century Housing Corp., a nonprofit organization that has financed more than 9,000 affordable-housing units in Los Angeles, the innovative group has reached more than half of the 1,500 seniors living at the 10 properties where it has set up shop.

Among the housing developments that subscribe to the More Than Shelter for Seniors philosophy is the for-profit Meta Housing Corp. in Burbank. Meta’s award-winning Park Plaza in North Hollywood has been recognized by the National Council on Seniors for its design elements and is considered a model for affordable senior housing.

The development features an 8,000-square-foot clubhouse with kitchen, a billiards room, library, computer center, pool and exercise room. Rents range from $700 a month, for seniors whose incomes are 60% of the area median income, to $400 a month, for those whose incomes are 35% of the area median income.

The 203-unit complex cost $20.6 million to build and was 100% leased, from among 2,500 applicants, when it opened in March 2001. The development is part of a revitalization effort underway in North Hollywood, and is considered superior to many market-rate apartment complexes in the neighborhood.

Despite the years developers such as Meta Housing Corp. invest in funding and building low- to moderate-income senior-housing projects, those involved say they wouldn’t choose any other path.

“There are very few occupations in which you can do this much good,” said Meta President John Huskey.

Passionate About

Helping Seniors

For some, advocating for seniors is a passion. Marvin Schachter, 77, a board member of Menorah Housing Foundation, a nonprofit organization that develops and manages affordable housing for seniors, has pushed local and state legislators to fund more and better housing for seniors. L.A. Mayor James K. Hahn supports the proposed $100-million housing trust fund to build housing for low- and moderate-income residents, including seniors.

In addition to trying to find remedies for low-income seniors, Schachter, who also served as past president of the advisory council of the Los Angeles County Area Agency on Aging, is seeking to help the middle-income elderly, who he says face tremendous hurdles of their own. Rents that were stable at $1,000 a month for years have, in many cases, doubled in Southern California in the last decade.

Seniors whose incomes are about $40,000 a year now find themselves paying $24,000 a year for an apartment they can no longer afford.

“Now they’re having to look for low-income buildings, but they don’t qualify,” Schachter said. “They end up having to move farther away from communities in which they have long ties. Or they end up in nursing homes or double up with other seniors.”

For middle-income seniors who are financially able to stay put but face physical limitations, Schachter and other experts on the needs of the elderly recommend that local governments subsidize, at very low cost, minimal home care to enable seniors to remain independent as long as possible in their own homes. Nationwide surveys reveal that seniors prefer remaining in their own homes, close to family and community ties.

The Los Angeles Housing Department’s Handyworker program offers free minor home repairs to low- and moderate-income seniors 62 and older and to residents with disabilities. Services include window repairs and painting. USC’s Pynoos recommends that the state provide loans directly to low-income homeowners for home repairs and accessibility improvements.

In general, however, city, county and federal programs use their resources to close the funding gaps of nonprofit and for-profit senior-housing projects. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development typically kicks in 60% to 75% of the cost of low- to moderate-income housing projects, according to Bobken Simonians, head of the Los Angeles Housing Department’s finance unit.

Since 1997, the city of Los Angeles has contributed $40 million to help fund 27 housing projects for seniors. The combined projects provide 2,000 units of senior housing, Simonians said.

Projects in the unincorporated areas of L.A. County fall under the aegis of the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission, which in the last five years has helped fund 1,031 senior housing units, and has funded an additional 47 that are under construction, according to the commission’s Blair Babcock.

The Los Angeles Housing Authority owns 1,642 units for seniors. Additionally, the housing authority has issued 507 Section 8 vouchers to seniors, who can use the federal money to lease apartments. In many cases, however, landlords refuse to rent to Section 8 voucher holders, preferring instead to rent to those who can afford market-value rates.

While government subsidies have helped add thousands of low- to moderate-income units into the senior-housing pool, demand still far outstrips the supply.

The lack of inexpensive housing has forced many adult children of seniors, such as 50-year-old Priscilla Stephens of Pacific Palisades, to subsidize their parents to avoid putting them in nursing homes.

Stephens, a psychotherapist, supported her divorced mother, Anne Taylor, 88, for two decades until Taylor landed a coveted unit at AJS Associates’ Barnard Park Villas in Santa Monica in 1995. Taylor was on the waiting list for a low-cost apartment for five years.

Stephens also helped her father, Phillip Taylor, and his second wife buy a home in Northern California 24 years ago, but the 89-year-old car salesman, who retired without a pension, now suffers from senile dementia, and Stephens is scrambling to find a skilled-nursing facility for him, which can be funded partially with government subsidies.

“My biggest fear is that my parents will not be well taken care of, that they’ll be sad and miserable in a nursing home,” said Stephens, who still supports her college-age and teenage children. “Only those who can afford assisted living can buy the stimulation, good food preparation and excellent care we all seek for our parents. But most of us can’t afford that.”

For those who can afford assisted living, the possibilities are numerous. The monthly cost of assisted living typically ranges from $2,000 to $4,000 a month and up, depending on the location and amenities offered. All assisted-living developments are private; they receive no government subsidies.

Pasadena’s Villa Gardens was established 75 years ago by the California Teachers Assn. for a handful of retired educators who were living in an abandoned chicken coop, the only housing they could afford.

The teachers association asked its Southern California members to donate $2 a year to help retired teachers afford assisted-living care. The first CTA-sponsored units were erected in Inglewood in 1927, and in 1933 another opened in Pasadena, housing up to 20 retired teachers.

Today Villa Gardens, one of the less-expensive Southern California assisted-living complexes, boasts 325 units, including 54 skilled-nursing rooms. About 40% of Villa Gardens’ residents are retired educators.

‘I Like the Services,

the Security’

Residents at the Pasadena complex, and at most assisted-living developments, make a down payment to get in the program, then pay a monthly additional fee for perpetual care, which steps up as needed.

Toby Osos, 81, put down $110,000 five years ago at Villa Gardens, and pays $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. “I like the services, the security, knowing that no one will have to look after me. If I break a hip, I know what my expenses will be; they won’t go up.”

In Newport Beach, Vintage Senior Housing operates market-rate senior-housing complexes. Units cost from $1,800 a month for a studio to $3,500 a month for large one-bedroom units. For those who need medication management, an additional $350 is paid per month, and those seeking full assisted-living services pay an additional $1,500 a month.

“It’s still less expensive than having a private-duty nurse, which can run $50,000 a year,” said Vintage principal Eric Davidson. “Our housing is for middle-income people and up.”

Orange County residents who cannot afford those rents rely on developers such as Jamboree Housing Corp. in Irvine, which owns 294 units, financed primarily through tax-exempt bonds and low-income housing lenders.

But wait lists for low-income senior housing are notoriously long, and building managers like Mike Sangriu at the Menorah Housing Foundation’s Adams Senior Housing in Los Angeles despair over the numbers of seniors they have to turn away.

“I get 25 calls a day just to get on the wait list, and I have to turn them down,” Sangriu said.

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Area Services for Senior Citizens

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A variety of services for seniors, including low-income housing and home adaptation and repairs, is available in the city and county of Los Angeles:

* Meals on Wheels; housing, day-care and employment opportunities for seniors: City of Los Angeles Department of Aging: (213) 368-4000.

* Handyworker program for inexpensive home repairs: (213) 367-9228.

* A list of senior-housing units under construction in the city of Los Angeles: Los Angeles Housing Department: (213) 367-9588.

* Section 8 applications (the federal program that helps low-income families and seniors find affordable rental housing): Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles: (213) 252-6199 or visit www.hacla.org/section8/

* Low-income housing in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County: Los Angeles County Community Development Commission: (323) 260-3300 (public housing and Section 8 rental assistance); (323) 890-7239 (residential rehabilitation grants and loans), or visit www.lacdc.org.