Pasadena’s Poor Lack Housing, Suit Claims

Matilda Mitchell never wanted to leave Pasadena.

The city had been her home nearly all her life. It was where she worked, went to school and was raising her son. The former store clerk was one semester away from a degree at Pasadena City College. Leaving was never part of her plan.

But Mitchell searched all over Pasadena and could not find an affordable apartment to replace the one she lost when new owners raised rents and refused to accept her. Frustrated and weary, Mitchell eventually left Pasadena to find housing. Now the city is being taken to court, asked to answer for her dilemma and that of other low-income residents.

Housing advocates filed a lawsuit against Pasadena this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging it has failed to comply with a state law that requires cities to plan housing for low- and very low-income residents. That failure has contributed to a scarcity of housing for poor people, families with children and racial and ethnic minorities in Pasadena, the suit alleges.

The action asks the court to impose an injunction that would bring a halt to all development--not just residential, but commercial--until the city complies with state law.

“We’re saying enough is enough,” said Neal Dudovitz, executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, which brought the suit on behalf of Mitchell and Antonio Becerra, a father of four. “Because land is limited, the longer we wait to get any real housing for poor people, the less likely we’ll get it.”

Pasadena City Manager Cynthia Kurtz said she has not seen the lawsuit but that the city is trying to comply with the state’s housing law.

“I’m very confident that we are not at all shirking any responsibility and in fact we are doing everything we can to get our housing element updated,” she said. “I’m also proud of our efforts in affordable housing.”

Housing Advocates

Turn to Courts

As a statewide housing shortage has worsened, advocates throughout the state are increasingly turning to courts for help in forcing cities to plan for affordable housing. Without such planning, advocates say, affordable housing simply doesn’t get built.

“It all starts with planning,” said Michael Rawson, director of the California Affordable Housing Law Project, who is co-counsel on the Pasadena suit and has worked on several such lawsuits. “You can have all the money in the world, but unless the land is zoned at the right density, unless local government is willing to allow it to be built rather than caving to NIMBY opposition, it never gets built.”

The Pasadena lawsuit follows a court ruling last month in a similar suit filed against the city of Folsom. A judge upheld a settlement that is expected to help significantly increase the number of affordable housing units in the city.

The Pasadena and Folsom cases are based on the state’s housing element law, which requires that municipalities submit plans every five years that detail housing needs and include a precise plan for helping to produce units to accommodate current and future populations.

But the law is controversial and cities often fail to comply. Most suffer no penalties, except when sued by advocates. The law allows judges to halt development in some cases.

Rawson said many cities settle to prevent injunctions that would cut off their development powers. “[Local officials] don’t want their powers to approve development stymied,” he said.

In August, state housing officials reviewed Pasadena’s housing element and found it to be out of compliance with state law on several points. The city’s housing element does not include an adequate inventory of land suitable for residential development, according to state officials.

The city, meanwhile, continues to approve residential and commercial development, amend zoning ordinances and issue building permits, jeopardizing the prospects for affordable housing, the suit alleges.

In meetings with city officials, housing advocates expressed concerns about the city’s lack of housing for low-income residents. They said the scarcity has produced overcrowding, substandard housing and hardship for residents.

“They do genuinely seem concerned about the lack of affordable housing in Pasadena and the status of low-income people,” said Chancela Al-Mansour, of Neighborhood Legal Services. “The problem is we’re still not seeing any actual and positive change.”

Pasadena has a vacancy rate of 1% to 1.5%, city officials said. The city does not have a rent control ordinance and the waiting list for federal Section 8 housing subsidy is closed.

“We’re seeing a lot of high-end units get constructed,” said Gregory Robinson, a city Housing and Community Development administrator. “That is pushing the rents and the property values up and making it more difficult for lower-income households to remain residents of the city.”

The city recently implemented a housing ordinance that requires market-rate developers to set aside 6% of their units for low-income and moderate-income residents. In September, that rate will increase to 15% for developments not yet under construction.

“That was one of our ways of trying to assure that affordable housing units will be available for our population,” Robinson said.

In June, the city will host a forum on affordable housing, seeking more solutions.

“We’re not just folding our hands and saying we can’t do anything,” Kurtz said.

Renters Forced to Leave Town

Advocates say the housing measure will do little to help very low-income residents like Mitchell, whose troubles began in August when she and other residents of their building learned they had to move. Residents banded together, spoke before the City Council and held a rally. Ultimately, it all failed.

For three frustrating months Mitchell searched for another apartment. Owners with vacancies would not accept her Section 8 subsidy, and she could not afford rent without the help. After months of homelessness, living in a hotel and bunking with friends, she gave up her Pasadena search and found an apartment miles away from her friends, family and school.

“I’m grateful that I’m here,” she said, sitting in her apartment on Normandie Avenue. “My son and I do have a place to live. I didn’t want to have to come to South-Central Los Angeles. I don’t know anything about this city. Nothing. And here I am.”

Mitchell said she knows of at least 10 others from her old buildings who were forced to leave Pasadena. One is still homeless.

The ordeal turned Mitchell into a passionate advocate for affordable housing, but one still stunned by the battle. “We had nowhere to go and nobody cared,” she said.

Mitchell, a onetime clerk and outreach worker for a city prenatal care program, was working toward a degree in fashion. She said the move forced her to drop out of school. And now she’s unemployed.

“I’m trying to put the pieces of my life back together,” Mitchell said.

As she struggles to adjust to life in another city, Mitchell is hoping to change things in her hometown.

“Out of all of this, I want Pasadena to realize they need affordable housing,” she said. “Everybody is not in corporate America.”