Hope of Hollywood Housing
A week ago, Christine Pineiro went to an apartment building thinking she would nab an application for one of 56 low-cost units being built at Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue.
Instead, she found 3,000 people lined up, and housing officials had just 140 applications available.
People began to push and shove. Police officers were called in to disperse the crowd.
Undaunted, Pineiro, 19, returned Tuesday. Amid pouring rain, she arrived at 2 a.m. and waited outside until 10 a.m., when the applications were handed out.
This persistence, she said, attests to her family’s desire to have a home to call their own.
Right now, she shares a one-bedroom apartment with her husband, three-month-old baby and five in-laws. When Pineiro’s not serving tables at a local restaurant, she’s studying to be a medical assistant.
She’s managed to tuck away nearly $1,000 in savings, but with Hollywood rapidly gentrifying, finding affordable housing in her neighborhood is almost impossible, she said.
“I need a place to live, so I have to be out here whether I like it or not,” she said.
City officials and advocates for low-income housing said the long lines reflect Los Angeles residents’ growing struggles to find affordable housing. The problem, they say, is becoming especially acute in areas like Hollywood. The community was once filled with reasonably priced apartments but has seen rents rise in recent years as trendy bars, restaurants and entertainment venues have moved in.
“Housing is being built, but it’s all luxury,” said Sam Mistrano, deputy director for the Southern California Assn. of Non-Profit Housing, an advocacy group. “And people who can’t afford the hot spot prices don’t move. String that together, and you see why 3,000 people go after 56 units in Hollywood.”
The 56 units at Sunset and Western are being developed by the Hollywood Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit developer that builds low-cost housing. The organization has built 500 units of low-cost housing in the Hollywood area over the last 16 years, and has two more projects in the works.
But officials said that is barely making a dent in the demand.
David Clark, the acting director of Section 8 for the Los Angeles Housing Authority, said more than 25,000 families are on the city’s waiting list for public housing. An additional 94,000 families are on the waiting list for Section 8, a federal program that provides subsidies to low-income residents who rent in private buildings.
Los Angeles’ Section 8 program has been struggling since February 2004, when the Housing Authority suspended the vouchers of 1,500 families because of a lack of funding. Of those participants, 950 families are still waiting to have their vouchers restored, Clark said.
“It’s a tremendous problem,” he added.
The Southern California Assn. of Governments estimates the city needs more than 28,000 new affordable housing units this year to accommodate the growing need.
Building affordable housing has proved difficult. Homeowners often oppose efforts to build new apartments in residential areas, fearing they will depress property values. Some cities tend to favor retail and business development over residential, believing they generate more tax revenues for municipal coffers.
The Sunset and Western project, expected to be completed in April, is a mixed-use building that will include a Walgreens drugstore at street level with apartments above it. The units come in up to three bedrooms, and rent will range from $335 to $927, based on residents’ income.
About 1,000 people stood in Tuesday’s line, which formed at Selma Avenue and Schrader Boulevard and wrapped north to Hollywood Boulevard.
Neighbors Felisa Bonilla, 39, and Evelyn Nocon, 58, were hoping they’d get lucky this time around. The friends began searching for cheaper housing three years ago, after their landlord kept raising their rent. They pay $575 and $550, respectively, though they were recently hit with a $50 rent hike.
Bonilla scours the Internet for housing ads, and Nocon’s car provides the transportation. Bonilla is a stay-at-home mother of a 1-year-old, and Nocon is a nurse.
“We’ve been chasing this, but we’ve not been lucky enough,” Nocon said, putting her hand on Bonilla’s shoulder. “We keep on trying, but we keep on failing and she cries and I say, ‘Don’t cry.’ ”
Farther down the line, Walter Bryant, 54, waited patiently, just as he did last week. An ad for wheelchair-accessible units had caught his eye. He has used a wheelchair since being injured in a car accident at age 3.
His first-floor apartment in Hollywood isn’t wheelchair accessible, so for the last 20 years he’s had to lift himself and his chair up a slight landing to enter the building.
“I’ve wrecked my hip,” said Bryant, a retired bank employee. “I can’t be in my wheelchair for more than four hours a day, and I’m pushing it since I got out here at a quarter to six today,” he said.
Officials ended up giving out just 140 applications. Bryant didn’t get one.
“I still have an apartment, and I’ll still be looking,” he said.
