City Fights to Retain Subsidized Housing
In those contemplative moments when Susanne Chilton considers the inevitability of change, she imagines it arriving with a gentle touch.
One by one her aging neighbors would leave their apartments overlooking the ocean through a process she has come to define as “attrition.”
“Rather than just throw us all out en masse ... we could just gradually kick the bucket,” said the 73-year-old resident of Venice. “That’s what we were hoping--that we could just live out our lives here.”
For months now, that gentle touch she had hoped for has felt more like a swift kick. The Venice building is one of several in the city that owners are trying to remove from a federally subsidized program for low-income tenants. Such a change could mean higher rents and the possibility that some tenants would lose their homes.
But in a rare move, the Los Angeles city attorney, encouraged by Mayor James K. Hahn and several tenant advocates, sought court orders preventing the owners from removing their property from the federal program.
City officials and housing advocates argue that the owners did not notify public entities and tenants of their intent to leave the program, as state law requires.
“We will fight to protect the rights of seniors and families,” Hahn said in a statement. “Many of these people live on a fixed income and are legally entitled to time to make alternative plans or get help finding other affordable housing.”
The filings are the latest salvo in a long-running attempt to preserve affordable housing for low-income residents. The outcome of this case, housing advocates say, is significant even beyond the 237 units that may be removed from the program.
In 2001 and 2002 alone, housing officials said, some 325 units have been pulled from the program commonly known as Section 8.
Advocates fear the problem will worsen as more contracts between the government and property owners, entered into in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, expire and more owners exit the program seeking higher rents on the open market.
Federal Policy Shift
The problem is compounded, advocates say, by a shift in federal policy that favors giving tenants vouchers rather than reserving buildings for low-income tenants. In theory, the policy gives tenants more control, because the vouchers can be used anywhere owners accept them, if the buildings comply with Section 8 standards.
But in tough housing markets like Los Angeles, rents have skyrocketed, and the number of owners willing to accept subsidized tenants has drastically declined.
Four years ago, 90% of voucher holders could find a place to live before the vouchers expired, Los Angeles housing officials said. That rate is now 45%.
“With the vouchers, it’s up to the private market to provide sufficient affordable housing,” said Craig Castellanet, staff attorney with the National Housing Law Project. Advocates say the purpose of the state law, which requires extensive notification of an intent to exit the program, was to ensure that tenants had time to find new homes or that officials could try to preserve the property as low-income housing.
If the situation can’t be resolved, “what’s the purpose of that law?” said Christian Abasto, with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Legal Aid is representing a group of tenants at L.A. Pro VI, a collection of six buildings whose owners are also trying to remove them from the program.
If the housing officials had adequate warning, advocates say, they could encourage or help a nonprofit housing group to purchase the property.
For several months, the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenant advocacy group, and other groups have tried to resolve the matters through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, whose Section 8 guidebook states that owners must abide by state and local laws.
But HUD officials argued that the agency has no role in enforcing state or local laws. While advocates cried foul, HUD gave owners approval to leave the program.
“We have here our federal housing agency unwilling to take the necessary steps to enforce their own laws and regulations and to preserve the affordable housing that they’re supposed to oversee,” said Larry Gross, executive director of the coalition.
HUD officials did not return calls seeking comment.
In the absence of federal intervention, the coalition, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County have tried to help tenants like Susanne Chilton.
In her youth, Chilton worked as an aide for several members of Congress. Later, she worked for Hughes Aircraft and for Rand Corp. as an editor.
Now she is lobbying to save housing for herself and other tenants. The residents of the senior complex are not “free-loaders by the sea,” she said. They have lived fascinating lives, worked hard and put years in the system.
“There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t thank God for our good fortune to live here, [but] I can’t tell you what it’s like to look out and think, ‘I wonder how many more days we have.’ ”
The apartment building known as One Venice overlooks the Venice boardwalk. On the corner across the street a shop sells tie-dyed T-shirts and skirts. Up a bit farther on Venice Boulevard is the Griffin Contemporary art gallery, restaurants and a tarot card reading shop.
“It sounded like paradise the first time I heard about it,” said Chilton, sitting in her living room, the patio door open to a view of the ocean. In recent years, the funky flavor of Venice has found itself competing with ritz. The asking price for each of the two houses on the boardwalk next to the apartment is $2.4 million, Chilton said.
Amelia Peters, 88, says she was One Venice’s first tenant. She applied when the place was a dirt lot, with only a foreman’s shack on it. She was here for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, celebrating the creation of beachside low-income housing for seniors.
Unhappy Role
“Section 8 has buildings all over the place, but they didn’t have anything nice like this,” said Peters who has lived in Venice for 50 years.
Back when she had steady work as an actress and dancer, Peters was known as Billie Lane. A photograph album in her living room is filled with black-and-white photographs of a stunning brunet, who appeared in more than 300 movies, including as the doctor’s daughter in “Gone With the Wind.”
“I almost got to be a star,” she said.
Peters does not like the role she has now. Playing the part of an “old lady about to be evicted” from her home is not something she would have chosen. If she could do it over again, she would have handled financial matters differently.
“Who figured I’d live to be 88?” she said. “I never thought along those lines.”
While the owners have a right to do what they want, the management’s failure to give tenants accurate notice is cruel, Peters said. Most of her neighbors have no idea where they would move.
One notice informed tenants that the owners planned to prepay a HUD loan and opt out of the program effective Aug. 31, 2002. According to one notice, rents would increase from $974 a month to as much as $1,900. Parking spaces would cost an additional $100 or $300 a month.
Under Section 8, the federal government pays the bulk of the rent. Peters pays $208 a month in rent.
“I’m going to be kicked out--that’s all I know,” Peters said. “They don’t say that, but they don’t say we get to stay either.”
A management company for the building did not return calls seeking comment. A hearing on the city’s request for an injunction is set for today.
Steve Renahan, who heads the city’s Section 8 program, said tenants who qualify will receive enhanced vouchers, enabling them to pay higher rents. If an agreement can be reached between housing officials and the building owner on new rents, tenants would be able to keep their units even if the building leaves the program.
Such an agreement was reached last week by housing officials and the general partner of Arminta North and South in Sun Valley, Renahan said.
But what will happen with L.A. Pro VI and One Venice remains unclear, although their Section 8 contracts have been extended for a few months, giving the parties more time to talk.
“It’s been just absolutely dreadful,” Chilton said. “It’s like being on death row and hoping for a reprieve.”
